I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?” Read the rest of this entry
Category Archives: News
The latest and greatest in news from around the world
Driving a Stake Through the Heart of Animal House
Filmed thirty-five years ago nothing has rocked collegiate Greeks as hard as the movie Animal House. It’s a Monster that haunts all 5,500 Chapter Houses operating on more than 800 college campuses in America.
Tom Friedman On MOOCs
When Tom Friedman speaks, people listen. Here’s what he had to say in today’s New York Times
March 5, 2013
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
On MOOCs By Sir John Daniel
December 18, 2012
Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth,Paradox and Possibility
Sir John Daniel Fellow – Korea National Open University Education Master – DeTao Masters Academy, China
During my time as a Fellow at the Korea National Open University (KNOU) in September 2012 media and web coverage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) was intense. Since one of the requirements of the fellowship was a research paper, exploring the phenomenon of MOOCs seemed an appropriate topic. This essay had to be submitted to KNOU on 25 September 2012 but the MOOCs story is still evolving rapidly. Read the rest of this entry
Jump Off the Coursera Bandwagon
Jump Off the Coursera Bandwagon
Like lemmings, too many American colleges are mindlessly rushing out to find a way to deliver online education, and more and more often they are choosing Coursera. The company, founded this year by two Stanford University computer scientists, has already enrolled more than two million students, has engaged 33 academic institutions as partners, and is offering more than 200 free massive open online courses, or MOOC’s.
A college’s decision to jump on the Coursera bandwagon is aided—and eased—by knowing that academic heavyweights like Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are already on board. As one college president described it to The New York Times, “You’re known by your partners, and this is the College of Cardinals.” Read the rest of this entry
MOOCs – Not all they are cracked up to be?
Mark Alen, a PhD student in the field of Operations Research at Berkeley. posted the following a piece that is near and dear to my own thinking. I encourage readers here to visit Mark Alen’s blog, but have chose to quote his entire piece as below. Read the rest of this entry
Building The Campus on an I.O.U.
Source, New York Times, December 13, 2012
BUILDING A SHOWCASE CAMPUS ON A PILE OF DEBT
By, Andrew Martin, New York Times, December 13, 2012
Some call it the Edifice Complex. Others have named it the Law of More, or the Taj Mahal syndrome. A decade-long spending binge to build academic buildings, dormitories and recreational facilities — some of them inordinately lavish to attract students — has left colleges and universities saddled with large amounts of debt. Oftentimes, students are stuck picking up the bill. Read the rest of this entry
To MOOC or Not to MOOC?
It seems at present that nearly every American college and university is wrestling with the question of whether to offer MOOCs (massive open online courses). There is something irresistibly seductive about the idea of simultaneously reaching thousands of students everywhere in the world, effectively seating them in an infinite virtual lecture hall. Indeed, the idea has taken on such allure that the University of Virginia (temporarily, as it turned out) fired its president, Teresa Sullivan, for among other things not jumping immediately on the online bandwagon. Read the rest of this entry
The The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years?
Source
Students anywhere are being offered free instruction online. What will that do to the trillion-dollar education business?
If you were asked to name the most important innovation in transportation over the last 200 years, you might say the combustion engine, air travel, Henry Ford’s Model-T production line, or even the bicycle. The list goes on. Read the rest of this entry
MOOCs and Accreditation, Judith Eaton
MOOCs and Accreditation: Focus on the Quality of “Direct-to-Students” Education by Judith S. Eaton
We are again talking about innovation in higher education and it is a refreshing change. The most conspicuous, challenging and controversial subject of these discussions is “MOOCs” – massive open online courses. MOOCs such as Coursera, Udacity and edX, all launched in early 2012, have received extensive media coverage accompanied by a lot of commentary. What type of education is offered here? Will it last? How do we judge its quality? Is there a role for accreditation? Read the rest of this entry
A MOOC Is Not A Thing
A MOOC is not a Thing: Emergence, Disruption, and Higher Education
Source
November 19, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
On December 14, 2012, Sebastian Thrun, Cathy Davidson, Jesse Stommel, Sean Michael Morris, Petra Dierkes-Thrun, and a small group of educational thought leaders will gather in Palo Alto to discuss the future of MOOCs in online education. The approach of this one-day intensive summit brings Sean and Jesse back to the subject of MOOCs, and the imminent return of MOOC MOOC. Read the rest of this entry
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