2,310 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2018
    1. the market avoids the potential free-rider problem with radio stations by using advertisements as a funding source

      The UK has used a different system to support broadcast (receiver licensing) and public broadcasting in the USA uses yet another support mechanism, philanthropy.

    2. the free-rider problem could be eliminated if all members of society were forced to pay for the service indirectly through taxes

      Again, the idea that taxes are coercion rather than say, a common interest contract.

    3. The economic argument for government using coercion to fund

      This seems like a bit of a jump: all taxation is coercion.

    4. it is important for the current study to examine the externalities of the actual policy in place in the United States

      Agree: focus on reality.

    5. And, of course, schooling and education are not one and the same.

      Is anyone arguing that schooling is the only mechanism for education? Another strawman?

    6. Within seven decades, every state had followed suit; Mississippi was the last state to pass a compulsory schooling attendance law in 1918.

      Is there any scholarship about relative social effects during this fairly long (70-year) transition period?

    7. the United States should instead fund education directly—rather than schooling

      This is a somewhat buried, but key argument in this work: that schooling and education are not equivalent and that public schooling is not an effective mechanism for education.

    8. When people, including prominent education scholars, say that schooling is a public good, I believe they mean that schooling is “good for the public.”

      Should the article stop here? Is the main point then that there is just a confusion in terms and folks are mistakenly saying school is a public good when they just mean it's good for the public?

    9. For example, someone who pursues 10 college degrees may achieve a well-rounded and advanced education without contributing much to other individuals in society.

      Strawman argument: who pursues 10 college degrees?

    10. (1) the U.S. government should not operate schools at the local, state, or federal level on the basis of schooling’s being a public good;

      Seems like a strawman recommendation as the author himself claims that folks are misspeaking when they talk about public education as a public good.

    11. an original contribution to the literature

      a bold statement

    12. In order to place public schooling into one of the remaining two categories

      What I'd like to see addressed first is why it is helpful to categorize public schooling as one of these (or maybe any) specific economic good. What is the value of this framing overall?

    13. Public schooling fails both conditions specified in the standard economic definition of a public good.

      Agree. So why should we even be debating it? According to the author, even the folks who say "education is a public good" meant something else, so let's move on.

    14. demerit good
    15. merit good
    16. public good
    17. Is Public Schooling a Public Good?

      Supposedly the central question of this work, but very shortly, the author holds that what people mean when they say "public schooling is a public good" is really just "public schooling is for the public good" and so one is left wondering if a different consideration of that question might be more valuable.

    1. President Trump

      The start of Corey DeAngelis's reactions to Trump's 2018 State of the Union address.

    2. what would be the point of turning private schools into the same types of institutions that are failing these children in the first place?

      This seems to presume that public funding is the reason public education is "failing".

    1. Facilitating Adult Learning Through Computer-Mediated Distance Education

      This is an interesting article to discover the history of adult learning technology in a hybrid setting. The study included both face-to-face and online meetings/assignments.

    1. Learning needs analysis of collaborative e-classes in semi-formal settings: The REVIT exampl

      This article explores the importance of analysis of instructional design which seems to be often downplayed particularly in distance learning. ADDIE, REVIT have been considered when evaluating whether the training was meaningful or not and from that a central report was extracted and may prove useful in the development of similar e-learning situations for adult learning.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Thinking in Multimedia: Research-Based Tips on Designing and Using Interactive Multimedia Curricula.

      This article examines various methods of delivery: multimedia integration, possibly including audio, video, slides, and animation. The recommendation is to carefully consider which online delivery mode matches with the learner, and to be cognizant that not everyone learns in the same manner. Certain topics may be best presented in live videos and not in power-point slides show as meaning may be lost or not delivered correctly. It’s important to follow-up with immediate assessment and feedback to continue to develop effective training.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Instructional Design Strategies for Intensive Online Courses: An Objectivist-Constructivist Blended Approach

      This was an excellent article Chen (2007) in defining and laying out how a blended learning approach of objectivist and constructivist instructional strategies work well in online instruction and the use of an actual online course as a study example.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. How To Create A Mobile App in 10 Easy Steps

      Buildfire is a site that presents how to create a mobile app in 10 easy steps. Site is easy to read and use.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Prezi is a productivity platform that allows for creation, organization, collaboration of presentations. It can be used with either mobile or desktop. Prezi integrates with slack and salesforce. RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. List of web 2.0 applications

      EDUTECH wiki is a site that contains a variety of links to lists to hep educators with web 2.0 applications improving productivity Caution: some of the links are not active!

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. SurveyMonkey

      SurveyMonkey is a FREE survey platform that allows for the collection of responses from targeted individuals that can be easily collected and used to create reports and quantify results. SurveyMonkey can be delivered via email, mobile, chat, web and social media. The platform is easy to use and can be used as an add on for large CRMs such as Salesforce. There are over 100 templates and the ability to develop customized templates to suit your needs. www.surveymonkey.com

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Yammer is Web 2.0 software which integrates with Microsoft 360 and allows users to communicate together and across the organization. It essentially functions as social networking software for corporations with the ability to collaborate on projects, maintain task lists, store files, documents and pictures all within a private enterprise network. In addition Yammer allows for the sharing of feedback and the management of group projects. Yammer is freemium software with a variety of custom add-ons. Licenses are currently issued for all learner participants and at this time no custom add-ons are necessary.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Holographic computing made possible

      Microsoft hololens is designed to enable a new dimension of future productivity with the introduction of this self-contained holographic tools. The tool allows for engagement in holograms in the world around you.

      Learning environments will gain ground with the implementation of this future tool in the learning program and models.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Digital Promise

      Digital promise website serves millions of underserved adults in the United States by offering educational resources via technology. With personalized learning and individual pathways, they stand a chance to advance in their careers and lives.

      The site has a network of educators and developers who contribute to the "Beacon Project". As part of this project, the site includes resources across the country that help with support and access to education.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

  2. create-center.ahs.illinois.edu create-center.ahs.illinois.edu
    1. CREATE Overview

      Create is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing resources for the development and creation of educational technology to enhance the independence and productivity of older adult learners.

      The sight includes publications, resources, research, news, social media and information all relevant to aging and technology. It is the consortium of five universities including: Weill Cornell Medicine,University of Miami, Florida State University,Georgia Institute of Technology, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Online Options Give Adults Access, but Outcomes Lag

      In this article, drivers that increase and improve online learning success in adults are explored. State by state data along with federal stats contribute to the conclusions presented.

      Roughly 13% of all undergraduates are full-time online students and between 2012 and 2017 online students grew y 11 percent, about 2.25 million. The article presents a map showing state by state stats and the information provided can assist in growing individual school needs.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Using Model Strategies forIntegrating Technology into Teaching

      In this pdf, there are many helpful tips and techniques in creating a foundation for technology. The introduction of model strategies are laid out with lots of supporting detail and examples and weblinks. It includes nearly 400 pages of peer-reviewed lessons, models and various strategies.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Beyond the Frame: The New Classroom

      In this video a discussion of how the school system is broken but cost billions of dollars. 9 billion dollars a year is spent of textbooks that become outdated the minute they are printed according to the author.

      With the new generation of learners, virtual reality will be embracing how most learners learn the best by visual means and not by reading.

      This video short impactfully presents how VR will change the face of education.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. The New Learning Environment and AdultDevelopmental Needs

      Identifies adult developmental learning needs. For many years, since 1911, Training at a machining company had been directed to specific tasks. After the company was sold to a new company, the education of employees changed from siloed task training to a atmosphere of learning and integrated team work. This shift in training also changed the culture of the company and built an atmosphere of one team, even across shifts and departments. This article points out how the change from task training to education that included theory of the task improved the decision making process of the employees that resulted in company improvements. Rating: 9/10

    1. Designing for virtual reality and the impact on education | Alex Faaborg | TEDxCincinnati

      This video includes Alex Faaborg on Tedx Talks sharing how VR virtual reality can positively impact education. The introduction of google cardboard is reviewed along with design techniques.

    1. Adult Learning, Education, and the Environment

      This article focuses on adult learning and education to pursue sustainable and eco-friendly solutions to education

      The United Nations Conference on Sustainable .Development in 2012 offered ideas for major environmental changes. The idea of "West versus the rest" (Clover and Hill, 2013, p.49) This report follows the attempts to align adult learning and education with sustainability and the environment beginning in 1972 and continuing through the time of this report, 2013. The overall analysis is that there has been little progress on environmentally friendly education for adult learners, which can negitively impact a vulnerable section of adult women.

      Rating 5/10

    1. Distance Education Trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration

      This article explores the interaction of student based learner-centered used of technology tools such as wikis, blogs and podcasts as new and emerging technology tools. With distance learning programs becoming more and more popular, software applications such as Writeboard, InstaCol and Imeem may become less of the software of choice. The article looks closely at the influence of technology and outcomes.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. LINCS is a national leadership initiative of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) to expand evidence-based practice in the field of adult education. LINCS demonstrates OCTAE’s commitment to delivering high-quality, on-demand educational opportunities to practitioners of adult education, so those practitioners can help adult learners successfully transition to postsecondary education and 21st century jobs.

      The LINCS website has an abundance of information that can prove useful in the designing of adult educational materials which are technology based. The site includes courses, articles and links 743 research studies, materials and products. In addition there are State Resources for Adult Education and Literacy Professional Development. Overall I found the site to be a wonderful source of relevant information to tap into.

      RATING: 5/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. This article uses librarians at graduate institutions to study the effect of a professional development program. The instruction was designed to teach adult learning theory. The article includes the instruction and assessment of the program.

      8/10

    1. Reengineering Army Education for Adult Learners

      David Pierson offers a quick overview of how the US Army would train their members. He then goes into an explanation of how the Army is modifying their education curriculum to offer more than just "training" and truly educate the student. Rating: 5/5

    1. Why More Law Schools Are Prioritizing Technology Integration

      The article explores how law schools are beginning to focus more on integrating technology into the learning environment in order to help students understand that the new technology makes it easier for lawyers to work with clients. Rating: 5/5

    1. Anticipating and Addressing Challenges With Technology in Developmental Education

      The authors describe how to anticipate and handle challenges with technology integration in developmental education. They insist that vendors and end users must work together to develop technology that will benefit everyone. Rating: 4/5

    1. The role of educational technology in medical education

      This article describes how educational technology is improving medical education by being easily accessible and is developing fast. Rating: 4/5

    1. Learning Needs Analysis of Collaborative E-Classes in Semi-Formal Settings: The REVIT Example.

      This article explores the importance of analysis of instructional design which seems to be often downplayed particularly in distance learning. ADDIE, REVIT have been considered when evaluating whether the training was meaningful or not and from that a central report was extracted and may prove useful in the development of similar e-learning situations for adult learning.

      RATING: 4/5 (rating based upon a score system 1 to 5, 1= lowest 5=highest in terms of content, veracity, easiness of use etc.)

    1. Approaches in the use of assistive technology in inclusive education focus on using technologyto train or rehearse, and to assist and enable learning

      This chapter presents a list of assistive technology applications that supports the students with disabilities in classroom learning in several categories such as reading, writing, math, and computer access.

      Rating: 8/10

  3. Oct 2018
    1. Evaluation, when it is not asked for, and when it has consequences as it does in school, is a threat. It narrows the mind... it inhibits new learning, new insights, and creative thought—the very processes that some people think school is supposed to promote. -- Peter Gray

      . . .

      Why is it clear to us that it's degrading and objectifying to measure and rank a girl’s physical body on a numeric scale, but we think it’s perfectly okay to measure and rank her mind that way?

      . . .

      what an oak tree actually needs is not your opinion but soil and water and light and air, and what a child needs is love and stories and tools and conversation and support and guidance and access to nature and culture and the world. If a kid asks for your feedback, by all means you can give it; it would be impolite not to. But what we should be measuring and comparing is not our children but the quality of the learning environments we provide for them.

    1. I imagine it is possible that personalized and adaptive learning could well preserve that which is sacred in the faculty-student relationship, freeing faculty to focus on what matters most. After all, what I cherish most about the colleges and universities I have attended are the human connections.

      This seems like what everyone who values the human connections in education wants — and promotes as a healthy outcome of technology-enhanced learning — but do we have any evidence that this hope is borne out? It seems that most technology interventions in education are happening in an environment where there are also strong forces working to reduce the costs — especially labor costs — and so machines are most often displacing human connections rather than freeing up time for more.

    1. For students to work in the open, everything they use has to be original content, openly licensed, or in the public domain

      have to disagree here. Students can link, quote, summarize, paraphrase, and thus build or contribute to open resources from closed information

    1. The repair of the PSLF could be a strong issue for any politician who seeks to help. It was a bipartisan, and it is has bipartisan support (outside of the Trump administration) for a fix.

    2. The Trump administration set up Mick Mulvaney to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (who has called for the elimination of the CFPB) with the intention of gutting consumer protections in favor of big business. This article shows how this policy if specifically affecting the educational loan business.

    1. While Silvia and Irene are in a very different place from Lacey, in that they are able to work and attend college, respectively, at this point in their lives, they and their children are still at risk

      Lacey no tuvo el privilegio de educación superior lo cual es uno de los mayores determinantes del ingreso y por ende de la salud.

    1. To interpret bell hook’s definition of “freedom” is to acknowledge that education in its current form advantages or disadvantages people to different degrees. Consider Kimberlé Crenshaw’s definition of intersectionality as a weight or influence originating from systems of power that affect individuals with varying degrees of pressure. From the perspective of intersectionality, schools, curriculum and pedagogy are bound to the same systemic forces that perpetuate systemic inequality. hooks and Friere’s understanding of freedom is an unparalleled level of disruption; it demands a de-centering of the standard narrative within society and education. Despite the best intentions of schools and individual praxis, without an acknowledged and proactive deconstruction of power structures, education cannot deflate the pressure of an oppressive system. “Education as the practice of freedom” demands that self-actualized educators open and centre the conversation and the cannon around marginalised voices and their narratives.
    2. For those of us on the frontline of K-12 teaching, “education as the practice of freedom” requires forthright discussion and action regarding subjects that are messy (at least in terms of their challenge to the agreed narrative and the cultural status quo) and this messiness can potentially make people uncomfortable, confused, upset, angry, and even potentially confrontational or worse, violent. Administrators and teachers and colleagues generally do not want to embrace the concept of education as the practice of freedom if it means rocking the boat too much.
    3. Dissimilarly, in Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks urges teachers to contemplate “Education as the practice of freedom” as their point of departure for praxis. A phrase originating from the work of Paulo Freire, hooks writes that “education as the practice of freedom” will come easiest “to those of us…who believe that our work is not merely to share information, but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” Transgressive education and disruptive thinking therefore begin with the soul, and not the prospective career opportunities, of students.
    4. “The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions… What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change and fight it – at no matter what risk. This is the only hope that society has. This is the only way societies change.” — James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers,” 1963
  4. Sep 2018
    1. It is amazing what calling someone by their name can do for a community and a feeling of belonging.

      I've been impressed in the past by faculty members who use this as a way to get to real class discussion and past serial dialogue between the professor an individual students in a Q&A. Saying "what she said" simply isn't acceptable; when you refer to another person's comment, you use their name,

    1. Recognizing Indigenous Institutes builds on the Province’s historic $56 million investment in Indigenous learners, announced in the 2017 Budget, as an important part of a thriving postsecondary system and a key step towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Ontario

      $56 million

    2. Saving Students Money through Open Textbooks Ontario is also supporting the creation and development of free online textbooks and educational resources for students to make college and university more affordable and accessible. This initiative allows students and faculty to browse, view and download free textbooks for use in their courses. The $1 million Ontario Open Textbooks Initiative, launched in June 2017 in partnership with eCampus Ontario, focuses on Ontario-specific content in areas where the most significant impact and cost savings for students can be realized, including high-enrolment first-year courses, French-language content, content for Indigenous studies, trades and technical skills content, and content for new Canadians. The current library collection has amassed over 230 textbooks, and anyone from across the province can view and download the open materials for free (openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca). The Open Textbook Library addresses two key barriers to education — access and affordability — and since the library’s soft launch in May, more than 5,270 learners have saved over $520,000.
    3. That is why the government will invest an additional $63 million over three years to create the first Ontario Training Bank to serve as a one-stop shop for employers, job seekers and workers to access the skills training that meets their needs. The new Ontario Training Bank includes a refreshed set of services and programs3 that will: Help employers invest in the skills of their workers, and come together to train and recruit new talent; Provide workers with the ability to grow in their jobs and adapt to technological changes; Provide employers with access to essential skills upgrading, including digital literacy for their workers at no cost to the employer; Provide job seekers with support to access quality training to secure in-demand jobs and meet employers’ hiring needs; and Bring employers, industry associations and training providers together to develop skills programs that are tailored to the needs of the local economy.
    4. Ontario’s skilled trades create careers leading to secure jobs and a good quality of life, and are also vital to the health and growth of the economy. Building on consultations across the province, the government is investing $170 million over three years in the new Ontario Apprenticeship Strategy. This investment will include: Expanding the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP), providing more high school students with trades-related hands-on learning opportunities; Improved guidance counselling resources and local labour market information for students, parents and educators; A new grant to promote pooled group sponsorship models for apprentices; A Local Apprenticeship Innovation Fund to increase opportunities for apprentices and encourage engagement within the apprenticeship system across Ontario, as well as support regional, local or sector-specific pilots where there is demonstrated market need;  and Continuing education opportunities for trade professionals.
    5. Preparing Secondary School Students for the Workforce Preparing Ontario students for the jobs of today and tomorrow is part of the government’s plan to create jobs, grow the economy and help people in their everyday lives. The Province has taken the following steps: In March 2017, Ontario launched 29 pilot projects across the province for the Career Studies course. More than $10 million per year for four school years has been invested to help schools create more experiential learning opportunities for students. Since 2014, Ontario has funded close to 300 Experiential Learning pilots across the province, helping students explore a wide array of career opportunities both inside and outside the classroom
    6. Students, parents, and educators have identified Grades 7 and 8 as crucial years where greater support is needed. That is why the government will invest more than $120 million over the next three years to help students prepare for success in high school by ensuring that flexible supports are available in response to local needs and priorities.
    1. Education Our public schools help all students succeed, while colleges and universities provide our economy with a highly skilled workforce. We're improving education by: making college and university tuition free for more than 225,000 students of all ages supporting the creation of free online textbooks and educational resources for students connecting 250,000 students in 850 schools to high-speed internet in 2018
    1. college and university students have access to mental health services and supports
    2. Provide every high school in Ontario with access to mental health support
    3. Ontario will invest $3 million over three years to build and expand tools and services to support children, teachers,
    4. To help make life more affordable, the government has introduced programs like full-day kindergarten, free college or university tuition

      e

    5. mbed social emotional learning in the refreshed curriculum
    6. Reducing financial barriers for students from low- and middle-income families so that they can pursue postsecondary education through the newly transformed OSAP program
    1. The basic assumption that underlies typical reading instruction in many schools is that learning to read is a natural process, much like learning to talk. But decades of scientific research has revealed that reading doesn't come naturally. The human brain isn't wired to read. Kids must be explicitly taught how to connect sounds with letters — phonics.

      . . .

      But this research hasn't made its way into many elementary school classrooms. The prevailing approaches to reading instruction in American schools are inconsistent with basic things scientists have discovered about how children learn to read. Many educators don't know the science, and in some cases actively resist it.

      https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/further-reading-hard-words

    2. Education as a practice has placed a much higher value on observation and hands-on experience than on scientific evidence, Seidenberg said. "We have to change the culture of education from one based on beliefs to one based on facts."
    1. As student numbers have increased, teaching has regressed for a variety of reasons to a greater focus on information transmission and less focus on questioning, exploration of ideas, presentation of alternative viewpoints, and the development of critical or original thinking. Yet these are the very skills needed by students in a knowledge-based society.

      Related to Vijay Kumar's iron triangle. You can't increase the number of students without sacrificing quality or increasing costs.

    1. Education

      Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Educational methods include storytelling, discussion, teaching, training, and directed research. ... In most regions, education is compulsory up to a certain age

  5. Aug 2018
    1. Numerous studies have suggested an association  between exclusionary discipline  practices and an array of serious educational, economic and social problems, including school avoidance and diminished educational engagement; decreased academic achievement; increased behavior problems; increased likelihood of dropping out; substance abuse; and involvement with juvenile justice systems. All of these problems are costly to the victims and to our society. They drive up the public costs associated with the aftermath of violence, substance abuse counseling, unemployment or underemployment, policing and the justice system, and much, much more.
    1. At the graduate professional education level, however, many universities seem to forget that we are in the relationship business and behave as if we are simple content/knowledge providers

      This is consonant with my experience.

    1. However, as admirable as James’ philanthropic efforts are, they are not a solution to the problems in public education.

      I don't think James ever claimed he was solving "the problems in public education." How about he's shining a light on ways increased public funding could stimulate public education?

  6. Jul 2018
    1. for empowering them

      This is a key point - the opportunity to do something with content, to create content, has a real and lasting value beyond the content itself. We want students to recognize that they are in charge of their learning, they have control and can take initiative. There's nothing empowering about jumping through hoops of absorbing content, taking tests and following rubrics.

    1. We need to keep education separate so we will never confuse what its purpose really is:  freedom.
    2. Children need to view themselves as full human beings, as citizens even, something a good liberal arts foundation provides. By limiting education to a workforce development function and downplaying its political, social and development roles, the conservative position that education must be in service to the workforce benefits those who are currently in power, and education leaders are aggressively converting that belief into policy.
    3. Sure, education is linked to the workplace. Students grow up to be workers, and the federal government has a role in ensuring states are providing a quality education, especially in districts with many black and brown children. However, to collapse education and labor into a single agency is to also reduce education’s role in developing full human beings. Students are more than widget makers for the economy. And black students, whose ancestors’ bodies were once reduced to instruments of labor in slavery, have the most to lose from a shortsighted, politically-driven merger of the U.S. education and labor departments.
    4. Unschooled reductions in government and reflexive conservatism create more problems and inefficiencies than they purport to resolve.
  7. Jun 2018
    1. I began collecting information on educational soap operas – serial dramas whose purpose is education or social transformation. They were mostly played in developing countries, and mostly played on the radio.
  8. May 2018
    1. My students came from Russia, Chechnya, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Albania, Armenia and Kazakhstan. It turns out my fears were unnecessary. The young women and men who are poised to become the new leaders of Eastern Europe were a delight to teach. All of them were fluently trilingual. They spoke their native language, Russian and English. They were engaged in their studies, disciplined in their academic pursuits, bright, resourceful and critical thinkers. They had an insatiable desire to learn about the West and in particular how free enterprise worked in North America. They were academically well-prepared. Their high schools had performed a stellar job in preparing them for university. They were conversant in current affairs and had a global mindset. I was astounded to learn that Lithuania has a literacy rate of 99.8 per cent.

      Qui est surpris de voir que cette jeunesse a de l'espoir...

    1. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces.

      It's well known that men had an advantage of getting a proper education which explains Mr. Gardiner's intelligence. This paragraph shows that Mrs. Gardiner was "amiable, intelligent" which shows that she had some form of an education. For women, getting an education was different than men because not all females got an education. According to the article, "Life for Women in 18th Century", if women got an education, it is usually because they were wealthy and were able to go to boarding school. Some women, not everyone, of lower class learned basic reading and writing skills. Although this doesn't mention her background and what exactly it means by "intelligent", it makes me wonder which social class she was raised in and if she really did get education.

    1. Ce que l'on remarque cependant est que ceux qui sont vraiment habiletés à utiliser l'ordinateur réussissent mieux, même sans correcteur, tout simplement parce qu'ils gagnent presque 40 minutes sur un examen qui en dure 195 parce qu'ils n'ont pas à retranscrire leur brouillon au propre. Personne ne soulève cet avantage indu dont bénéficient actuellement des élèves de certaines écoles où l'on exige l'achat d'un appareil électronique ou bien où l'on fournit ce dernier.

      Test annotation dans Hypothes.is

    1. Access to books increases children’s future prospects and has a significant influence on the level of education they will attain, their productivity, their health, and their quality of life.

      If we want kids to read more, and be better readers and writers, we need to give them access to lots of books, starting with ones they are most interested in. (This short article is specific about ways to improve book access for all kids.)

  9. Apr 2018
  10. www.openpraxis.org www.openpraxis.org
    8
    2
    1. The eight distinct sub-topics within open education over the past four decades were identified as open access, OER, MOOCs, open educational practice, social media, e-learning, open education in schools and distance learning.

      What I notice is missing from here is open pedagogy which, as Tannis Morgan noted, has historical roots in the late 70's in Quebec. However, it may be that because this is a historical look at open education, and open pedagogy is a relatively recent (despite the work Tannis has discovered) area of interest for open educators, there may just be a lack of formalized research supporting the idea of open pedagogy.

    2. Open education does not constitute a discipline, in the manner of a hard science for example, so there is no agreed canon of research that all researchers will be familiar with. It is also an area that practitioners tend to move into from other fields, often because of an interest in applying aspects of openness to their foundational discipline. This can be seen as an advantage, in that different perspectives are brought into the domain, and it evolves rapidly. However, it also results in an absence of shared knowledge, with the consequence that existing knowledge is often ‘rediscovered’ or not built upon.

      In order for open education to be more than a movement, it feels like we should be consciously moving in this direction - to define a canonical set of resources that are foundational to the field in order to help orient others and further define ourselves as a field/discipline. Because, as we have seen with MOOC's, if we do not do it, then others will do it for us.

    1. What are the commandments Major gives the animals?

      the options of this question are somewhat mediocre and cannot up to training standard

    1. The grade-level breakdown of these kanji is known as the gakunen-betsu kanji haitōhyō (学年別漢字配当表), or the gakushū kanji. (ja:学年別漢字配当表)

      Also known as Kyōiku kanji (教育漢字, literally "education kanji"). see Wikipedia: Kyouiku Kanji

    1. Yet, across the country, 2 in 5 high schools don't offer physics, according to an Education Week Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights.

      How widely known is this figure?

  11. Mar 2018
    1. Nearly 70 percent of those who require professors to work with designers or in teams report "lots of" student-faculty interaction in their online courses, compared to about 40 percent of those whose campuses either don't provide design support or make it optional.

      Yay for IDs! ;)

  12. www.edx.org www.edx.org
    1. Mooc website I currently use myself. The selection of courses is triple those of other website offering free courses.

    1. Complexity Theory replaces simple causality with an emphasis on networks, linkages, holism, feedback, relationships and interactivity in context, emergence, dynamical systems, self-organization and an open system, rather than the closed world of the experimental laboratory. Even if we could conduct an experiment, its applicability to ongiong, emerging, interactive, relational, changing, open situations, in practice, may be limited. It is misconceived to hold variables constant in a dynamical, evolving, fluid, open situation.

    1. DH has built up a lot of brand visibility, especially at research universities. But in the context in which I work, it seems more inclusive to call it digital liberal arts (DLA)

      Why does it matter what it is called? Does the name change impact the literal definition of what digital humanities is at its core? Practitioners ought to focus more on the meat of the topic rather than the name. Exclusion is only a feeling that stems from a lack of information. Once explored, one will find that digital humanities is applicable for everyone.

    1. I think textbook writers and publishers have the responsibility to tell learners that ています has more than one function.

      In any kind of textbook, if there is an aspect to a concept which will cause confusion in the future, it should be covered, even if only in a footnote, so that the reader can study it on their own.

    1. Black people that Black lives (and Black life) are not complex

      This flattening of a complex narrative of identity is what leads to dehumanization. So important for teachers, (and thereby teacher educators) to emphasize the nuances inherent in any cultural group—intra-group diversity as well as inter-group diversity.

    1. It’s undoubtedly hard to get all eight measures of engagement into every classroom activity, but research by John Antonetti shows that at least three can make a big difference for how much kids learn.

      Encouraging to know it's not an "all-or-nothing" situation!

  13. Feb 2018
    1. They now stand out as the only one in the class (or, if they’re lucky, one of two) who gets to use a device while other students wonder just why they get to use one. I have seen a couple of students on social media say that as soon as they see a “no devices” policy on a syllabus they drop the class because of this concern.

      Good rationale for not enacting a blanket classroom tech ban

    1. Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify, explains why he no longer believes in the "engineering model" of personalized learning.

      Here's the problem: The map doesn't exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library.

    1. We will not require a child to provide more information than is reasonably necessary in order to participate in an online activity.
  14. Jan 2018
    1. Plato somewhere speaks of the slave as one who in his actions does not express his own ideas, but those of some other man. It is our social problem now, even more urgent than in the time of Plato, that method, purpose, understanding, shall exist in the consciousness of the one who does the work, that his activity shall have meaning to himself.

      Perhaps with my background within Higher Education Administration-I see this type of discussion occur quite frequently with the discussion of the value of a liberal arts education. This is interesting to me to see that close to one hundred years later, this debate of the extrinsic vs instrinsic value of a liberal arts education still rages on within educational policy making...

    1. . And learning can mean different things so I often give a couple of examples where the word learning is used like learning to ride a bike or learning that 2 and 2 equals 4 but also learning to be patient or learning that you’re not good at something.

      I like the examples here. And the anxiety and frustration that goes with learning that you are not good at something (Britzman)

    1. individualism offers a distorted vision of human freedom, genuine freedom is found in social cooperation, and true social freedom is impossible in a class society.

      These three visions are also present in his book Democracy and Education. In which, Dewey intertwined both concepts arguing that a democracy is impossible if people remain ignorant to their civic and societal duties. He argues that the education field must favor collaboration and modeling a true democracy.

  15. Dec 2017
    1. Tsui, A. B. M., & Law, D. Y. K. (2007). Learning as boundary-crossing in school-university partnership. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1289–1301. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.003

      I know that boundary crossings have been important in the thinking of some colleagues working in teacher education at the University of Hong Kong.

    1. We have proposed no formal provision for the gymnastics of the school, altho a proper object of attention for every institution of youth. These exercises with antient nations, constituted the principal part of the education of their youth. Their arms and mode of warfare rendered them severe in the extreme. Ours on the same correct principle, should be adapted to our arms & warfare; and the manual exercise, military maneuvres, and tactics generally, should be the frequent exercises of the students, in their hours of recreation.

      I found this clause intriguing. The founders affirm their belief that physical education is of utmost importance and should be addressed by "every institution of youth." However, the founders chose not to include a formal provision of "gymnastics." More interesting are the reasons behind why the founders deemed physical education necessary; they attribute it to the importance physical health and strength play in warfare. Ironically, the University offers physical education centered classes now, when the likelihood of students being drafted into a war is extremely low.

  16. Nov 2017
    1. The native people of the North claim the right to educate their children.

      In “The Claim to Native Control of Education", Berger refers to the fundamental ideological differences between Aboriginal people and Euro-Canadian settlers. For Aboriginal peoples, learning was seen as a lived experience best absorbed through storytelling, group discussions, role modeling, personal reflection, peer tutoring, learning/talking circles, and hands-on experiences (Preston et al., 8). Family members taught children everything they needed to know within the context of purposeful, daily activities and adults expected the very best from each child. Adults knew each child’s unique strengths, interests, and learning needs and tailored that to all aspects of their development. This child-centered education, ensured that native people created “able human beings” who could survive and thrive in their environment (McGregor, 58).

      From the late 1800s until the 1950s, Euro-Canadian settler missionaries drastically disrupted these Aboriginal ways of learning. The two primary objectives of residential school systems were to “remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture” (Paquette and Gérald, 3). Residential schools intentionally discounted for Aboriginal culture and values based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and beliefs were inferior. All instruction was taught in English and children were punished for speaking their native languages (McGregor, 58). Aboriginal pedagogy endorsed student control over the pace of classroom conversations, and allowed for student opportunities for self-determination. However, typical assessment mechanisms employed within Euro-Canadian public education included formative test-taking measures, standardized tests, written evaluations, teacher-centered feedback and the provision of formal grades/percentages. This type of curricular approach to assessment is ill-matched with Aboriginal ways of knowing and learning and Aboriginal children suffered as a result.

      Those who designed residential school education did so with the unquestioning acceptance that its rightful goal was to ‘re-educate’ Aboriginal students to ‘encapsulate hierarchically’ First Nation people to not think or reach beyond the lowest position in the social system (Paquette and Gérald, 5). Aboriginal peoples were regarded as “intellectually inferior” and therefore “needed to be inducted into the knowledge base and lifestyle appropriate for the ‘working farmer’ or ‘mechanic’” (Paquette and Gérald, 5). This left Aboriginal people in a difficult position. On the one hand, native people have been told that education is the key to their future, and that such programs will better the social and environmental conditions in their communities. Yet on the other hand, the vast majority of these programs focused on the learning needs of Euro-Canadian students, ultimately leaving Aboriginal students with little understanding of how to apply what they have learned to the situations they face in their communities.

      In the early 1970s, the emerging Northwest Territory government issued new curricular expectations for Aboriginal students (McGregor, 60). The purpose of this culturally responsive educational reform was to create education based approaches that resonated with the type of learning students received from their families and in their communities. Fundamental elements of this educational approach came from culturally relevant learning, which is described by Ladson Billings as helping “students accept and affirm their cultural identity, while developing critical perspectives that [enable them] to challenge inequities that schools…perpetuate” (McGregor, 60). It clearly departed from assimilationist federal schooling practices by expecting culturally responsive approaches that emphasized Aboriginal students’ languages and cultures and each student’s personal strengths (McGregor, 62).

      Photo Credit: Culturally responsive schooling: students and community members prepare to leave for spring camp, Kugluktuk, NWT, circa 1975. (McGregor, 59).

      Bibliography:

      McGregor, Catherine A. 2015. "Creating Able Human Beings: Social Studies Curriculum in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, 1969 to the Present." Historical Studies in Education 27, no. 1: 57-79. 

      Paquette, Jerald E., and Gérald, Fallon. 2010. First Nations Education Policy in Canada: Progress or Gridlock? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed November 27, 2017).

      Preston, Jane P., Michael Cottrell, Terrance R. Pelletier, and Joseph V. Pearce. 2012. "Aboriginal early childhood education in Canada: Issues of context." Journal of Early Childhood Research 10, no. 1: 3-1.

    1. As well might it be urged that the wild & uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour & bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better: yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable both in kind & degree.

      I believe this metaphor to be very profound, as it challenges the statement within the previous sentences that, "man is fixed." The excerpt vividly depicts how a tree that yields sour and bitter fruit can be changed, through artistic processes, to produce a rather sweet fruit. These artistic processes serve to represent how man can be improved and changed through the role of education. Consequently, the Rockfish Gap Report discusses how education is crucial to the positive development of man, further illustrating Jefferson’s vision of the University of Virginia, where individuals will not only continue to grow as students, but also as cordial and honorable members of society. I believe that Jefferson’s vision has been fulfilled, as the University’s academic programs have enhanced the minds of those who have been, and are currently, students, while also providing them with a foundation of integrity and honor which will stay with them throughout their lives.

    2. But the Commissioners are happy in considering the statute under which they are assembled as proof that the legislature is far from the abandonment of objects so interesting: they are sensible that the advantages of well directed education, moral, political & economical are truly above all estimate.

      The selection of what to teach at a University is something I never really considered before now. Like anything else, there is sure to be a difference in opinion of the founders as to what fields of study are worth teaching. Fortunately, they seem to have struck a good balance. This relates to the idea of a "true liberal arts education," one which will produce not only scholars, but well-rounded individuals.

    3. The considerations which have governed the specification of languages to be taught by the professor of Modern Languages were that the French is the language of general intercourse among nations, and as a depository of human Science is unsurpassed by any other language living or dead:

      Thomas Jefferson had an appreciation for French language, as can be seen in his words to Dugald Stewart, "the French language is unquestionably an important object of education." Jefferson had been in France during the first portion of the French Revolution and when serving as U.S. Secretary of State became the leader of the pro-French Democratic-Republican Party. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/french-rev https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/french-language

    1. nothing, more than education, adorning the prosperity, the power and the happiness of a nation.

      This quote seems to be extremely Jeffersonian with its emphasis on education and reminds me of one of the goals of UVA which is to develop citizens of our nation. Furthermore, the fact that education has the most vital role in creating happiness in our nation connects to my engagement class, Poverty Counts. Education plays a key role in poverty because people often times do receive enough education in order to get higher paying jobs. As a result, they either work trivial, low-paying jobs or do not work at all. Truly, education plays an important part in the happiness and well-being of an American citizen.

    1. improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse, into qualities of virtue and social worth;

      The writers of this document seem to view education not only as a means of expanding one's knowledge but as a means of improving one's inherent nature from one of evil and corruption to one of goodness and virtue. I find this notion classist and fallacious, as it seems to suggest that those who are not educated (including those who cannot afford education) are inherently worse as people than those who are educated and also that education can fundamentally change who a person is.

    1. To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences which advance the arts & administer to the health, the subsistence & comforts of human life

      I appreciate this statement because the founders were right in putting their observations of education on these aspects. They included math, science, and health, and these aspects cover much of what the world needs to have solved. They focused on which subjects would be the most beneficial to human life, and I appreciate their thought process with this.

    2. To develope the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds cultivate their morals, & instil into them the precepts of virtue & order.

      The main goal of a higher institution or university is to educate students and the youth to make a future brighter. In addition, they want the future generation to build a better place for everyone. I agreed with this statement because it illustrates that even though education is significant having morals and order as or more equal to being intelligent. I personally think it is important for a person to be kind and smart. Because if we have only smart people but indifferent people then no one will help each and no one will agree with each other. -Alexander An

    3. What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbours?

      I completely missed this phrase and the connotation behind it the first time I read through this report. It is possible I missed it because I was distracted by the racism near the front of the report on the importance of the university’s proximity to white people. At first, I thought this sentence was just as inconsiderate and reflective of the time period in which the Rockfish Gap Report was written and in which our university was founded. However, upon further analysis of the question I realized that it seems as though the writers of the report are insulting themselves, in a way, with this choice of language. While I personally do not believe comparing oneself or others to indigenous neighbors is insulting, at the time it was not a common thing to do and would not have been taken as a positive comparison. However, in this sentence, the report’s authors seem to be saying that the only thing separating them from the Native Americans or “indigenous neighbors” is education. I find it very intriguing that the founders would write this, especially because of the connotation it would bring at the time. However, perhaps it is purposeful and a way to stress the importance of higher education and furthering oneself to remain advanced. Education can be tied to the many differences between the white man and the natives such as guns, housing differences, and clothing. I can’t forget to mention though that the education of the Native Americans on how to grow crops in North America is what allowed the early settlers to survive. Education was important in this area too. Maybe education does not differentiate these two groups as much as they may think. I think education in different areas of expertise is what mainly separates the men in this report from their indigenous neighbours. While they choose education in school and on more worldly matters, their neighbours are more education in the ways of the land and survival and both are important for each group's’ way of life

    4. Education generates habits of application, order and the love of virtue; and controuls, by the force of habit, any innate obliquities in our moral organization.

      I think this an interesting point considering how casually some may view education to be. Once we learn new information, especially that which sparks our interests we begin embedding it into our everyday actions and/or thoughts. And not only does it change our personal lives, but it contributes to how we treat those around us. - Kayla Thomas

    5. Some good men, and even of respectable information, consider the learned sciences as useless acquirements; some think that they do not better the condition of men; and others that education like private & individual concerns, should be left to private & individual effort

      It is interesting to see the acknowledgement of those who would oppose the creation of a public university. It is a gesture that displays the maturity and certainty of the founders. They know that their goals for their university wouldn't settle well for many people. However, they still called them "good men" with "respectable information" suggesting they are surprised that intelligent men can still disagree with their plans, yet they are respectful of their opinions. Instead of trying to persuade them to side with their plans, they cleverly resolve to allow them privately and individually abide by their opinions. Education is difficult to define for many people and the founders were well aware of that. -Yuki Zheng

    6. What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbours? and what chains them to their present state of barbarism & wretchedness, but a besotted veneration for the supposed supe[r]lative wisdom of their fathers and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization.

      Here are some very strong views advocating the importance of knowledge and education. It is amazing to see such emotional and energetic argument for public education at that time, when illiteracy was pervasive and education was only for the elite. Education was often out of public reach, unlike what it is now. As advocates for university, these people were clear and aware of the importance of education, and the result of the lack of education. Education is the key to empower humanity. Just as sated here, although the tone is quite cynical when its writer makes comparison with the native uneducated people and the educated white people, education inspires people, liberates people, fosters people with knowledge and norm, and develops people from pray to predator and finally to the supervisor of the earth. Education as well as knowledge is the best gift and legacy that our ancestors leave to us. And it is knowledge which distinguish humanity and everything else. -- Haoyu Li

    1. the experimentation and possibility of the MOOC movement had become co-opted and rebranded by venture capitalists as a fully formed, disruptive solution to the broken model of higher education.11
    2. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which have become the poster child of innovation in higher education over the last two to three years
    3. Courses are severely limited in the ability to access other courses even within the institution (so much for "connecting silos"), and when courses end, students are typically cast out, unable to refer to past activity in their ongoing studies or in their lives (so much for "promoting lifelong learning").

      Which is where a different type of unbundling can happen. “Courses” may limit our thinking.

    4. social engagement, public knowledge, and the mission of promoting enlightenment and critical inquiry in society
    5. recent promise of Web 2.0

      A bit surprised by this “recent”. By that time, much of what has been lumped under the “Web 2.0” umbrella had already shifted a few times. In fact, the “Web 3.0” hype cycle was probably in the “Trough of Disillusionment” if not the Gartner-called “Slope of Enlightenment”.

    6. institutional demands for enterprise services such as e-mail, student information systems, and the branded website become mission-critical

      In context, these other dimensions of “online presence” in Higher Education take a special meaning. Reminds me of WPcampus. One might have thought that it was about using WordPress to enhance learning. While there are some presentations on leveraging WP as a kind of “Learning Management System”, much of it is about Higher Education as a sector for webwork (-development, -design, etc.).

    1. Embracing an Entrepreneurial Culture on Campus go.nmc.org/uni(Tom Corr, University Affairs, 4 May 2016.) The Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs is gaining global recognition for its efforts to bolster students’ business skills through investing in multiple campus events and programs. For example, the success of Ontario Centres of Excellence has led to the establishment of similar innovation hubs throughout North America, the UK, Australia, and Asia.

      What’s fascinating here is that the province might be cutting a major part of the funding for the Ontario Centres of Excellence, particularly the part which has to do with Entrepreneurship Programs. (My current work is associated with Lead To Win, a Campus-Linked Accelerator out of Carleton University.)

    1. An institution has implemented a learning management system (LMS). The LMS contains a learning object repository (LOR) that in some aspects is populated by all users across the world  who use the same LMS.  Each user is able to align his/her learning objects to the academic standards appropriate to that jurisdiction. Using CASE 1.0, the LMS is able to present the same learning objects to users in other jurisdictions while displaying the academic standards alignment for the other jurisdictions (associations).

      Sounds like part of the problem Vitrine technologie-éducation has been tackling with Ceres, a Learning Object Repository with a Semantic core.

    1. The IMS Global Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange™ specification (CASE)™ is used to exchange information about learning and education competencies. CASE also transmits information about rubrics, criteria for performance tasks, which may or may not be aligned to competencies.

      Interesting that they explicitly talk about tasks which may not be aligned to competencies. Leaves room for co-curricular activities and microcredentials.

    2. Thanks to @jeffgrann for the heads-up! Clearly, people have been waiting for this. We’ll have to wait for the concrete results (not all IMS Global activities make as big of a splash as the others). But it’s very interesting. And needed. For instance, Quebec uses a competencies model all the way to higher education (its Cégeps are post-secondary institutions for vocational training and pre-university education). Thing is, they lack consistent frameworks. CASE won’t make these magically appear, but at least it gives them room for impact.

    1. As Uri Treisman said, “The most common use of algebra in the adult world is helping their kids with algebra.”

      CUNY found that more students went on to graduate when they were allowed to take statistics instead of remedial algebra. And the results were the same regardless of race or ethnicity.

    1. Often our solutions must co-exist with existing systems. That’s why we also invest time and money in emerging standards, like xAPI or Open Badges, to help connect our platforms together into a single ecosystem for personal, social and data-driven learning.
    1. Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. is now an independent public company and the parent of Barnes & Noble College, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, "BNED".
    1. Enhanced learning experience Graduate students now receive upgraded iPads, and all students access course materials with Canvas, a new learning management software. The School of Aeronautics is now the College of Aeronautics; and the College of Business and Management is hosting a business symposium Nov. 15.

      This from a university which had dropped Blackboard for iTunes U.

    1. When you think the problem to be solved is the high cost of textbooks, inclusive access programs and OER adoption are just two competing approaches to solving the problem.

      There was an interesting example of this during a short conference on digital textbooks, back in late 2014. Cindy Ives interim VP Academic at Athabasca (!) presented the etext pilot project in partnership with publishers. Ives’s approach was quite pragmatic and there’s nothing wrong with doing a pilot project on something like this. By that time, Ives was already involved in OER projects. It still struck a chord with those of us who care about OER, including Éric Francoeur who took an active part in the event and did work to create a free textbook through international and interlinguistic collaboration.

      To me, a key notion from the ‘r’ in “OER” is the distinction with those content bundles we still call “textbooks”. Sure, it’s already in the 5-R model. But the “Remix” idea in music is to a large extent about unbundling.

    2. Publishers can compete with free textbooks by making their more-restrictive-than-all-right-reserved offerings 70% more affordable.

      Sounds a bit like what Clay Shirky was trying to say about the Napster moment coming to Higher Education, five years ago. Skimmed the critique of Shirky’s piece and was mostly nodding in agreement with it. But there might be a discussion about industries having learnt from the Napster moment. After all, the recording industry has been able to withstand this pressure for close to twenty years. Also sounds like this could be a corollary to Chris Anderson’s (in)famous promotion of the “free” (as in profit) model for businesses, almost ten years ago. In other words, we might live another reshaping of “free” in the next 9-10 years.

  17. Oct 2017
    1. While I've experimented with many alternatives to traditional assessment, I have primarily relied on self-assessment. I turn in final grades at the end of the term, but those grades usually match the grades students have given themselves. (I do tell students 'I reserve the right to change grades,' but this is rare and I mostly have to raise them, because students are often their own harshest critics.)

      Jesse Stommel

    1. Why is all the focus on teaching lay people how to code, and not teaching computer scientists and people who work in tech companies to center empathy and humanity in their work?

      . . .

      I think there should be an element of infusing discussions of ethics, humanity and social consequences into computer science curricula, and I believe that even human-centered design does not go far enough; I suggest that designers of tech consider more “empathetic and participatory design” where there is some degree of involving people who are not in the tech company as autonomous persons in product design decisions, and not just using them as research/testing subjects.

    1. Education, in like manner engrafts a new man on the native stock, & improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse

      This section reminded me of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes who believed the nature of man is inherently bad and the purpose of government and education is to control man's selfish desires. In my opinion, I side more with John Locke's philosophy that the nature of man is inherently good but society is corrupted by certain negative people. Education's purpose should be to remind people of their virtuous nature and not become distracted by the inequalities and failures of society.

    2. We should be far too from the discouraging persuasion, that man is fixed, by the law of his nature, at a given point: that his improvement is a chimæra

      Within this paragraph, the authors and early founders of UVA made several points on why education was necessary by countering some of the current one-sided beliefs of society, with some key words. Man was not stagnant and his improvements did not need to be a chimaera, or a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve. The other definition of chimaera is a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology, which I think can be an interpretation that improvements to one’s morality and state of mind did not need to feel like some huge obstacle that we needed to face, but rather were very possible through knowledge. Then later, they speak about how the effects of education are not some far-fetched, optimistic, or “sanguine” hope, and marketing strategy, but a reality that is backed by proof. I found this all very interesting because, back then, education was still a point of debate, whereas now it’s one the most easily agreed solutions for a various of world problems.

    3. . But in this point of View the Anglo-Saxon is of peculiar value. We have placed it among the modern languages because it is in fact that which we speak, in the earliest form in which we have knowledge of it. It has been undergoing, with time, those gradual changes which all languages, antient and modern, have experienced: and even now, needs only to be printed in the Modern character and Orthography, to be intelligible in a considerable degree to an English reader.

      While it is interesting to see that Anglo-Saxon is considered an important language at the founding of the school, it is also interesting to see what is not considered to be important. Most of these languages are either Western or Antiquity; a microcosm showing how small the world was to the educators of 1818.

    4. Statics, respect matter generally, in a state of rest, and include Hydrostatics, or the Laws of fluids particularly, at rest or in equilibrio Dynamics, used as a general term include Dynamics proper, or the Laws of solids in Motion and Hydrodynamics, or Hydraulics, those of fluids in Motion Pneumatics teach the theory of air, its Weight, Motion, condensation, rarifaction &c Acoustics or Phonics, the theory of sound Optics the Laws of Light & vision Physics or Physiology in a general sense, mean the doctrine of the Physical objects of our senses

      I am very curious as to why studies are separated into specifics; practically all of physics has been sequestered into many sub categories. I personally think that it might be because at this point and time physics isn't complete yet. Physics as a study/field is pretty new, and more and more discoveries are being added to list as it grows (for instance, electricity). The document is an interesting window into the education material of a bygone age and I honestly wonder if the cutting edge science we have now will become as mundane as physics in the next one hundred years.

    1. p. 75 Two interesting points about mismatch between university and students:

      (1) Many of the students who are being processed have little inclination or capacity for the rigours of a liberal education. Fine. But I object to the game of pretending that they would be able to achieve liberal goals within the system we offer, if only they tried harder. That is simply not true, and it does bad things to their psyches to encourage them to believe it. It would be far more honest, and I should think more fruitful, to accept most university education as having different aims from the liberal. Once drop that pretence, in both rhetoric and practice, and you could begin meeting the great bulk of students where they actually are.

      (2) Some students at least would be capable of an education far superior to the one the system enforces. They are being positively harmed by their university education, since they have to meet its demands before their liberal (and usually private) pursuit begins. (And before you ask, "Why can't the two coincide?" ask a good student how much of the university's instruction moves him toward the first-hand apprehension of his discipline's coherence and beauty.)

    1. As an outcome of this Delphi Panel exercise, this study hasrevised Jane Knight’s commonlyaccepted working definition for internationalisation as'theintentionalprocess ofintegrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functionsand delivery of post-secondary education,in order to enhance the quality of educationand research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution tosociety'.This definition reflects the increased awareness that internationalisation has to becomemore inclusive and less elitistby not focusing predominantly on mobility but more on thecurriculum and learning outcomes. The ‘abroad’ component (mobility) needs to become anintegral part of the internationalised curriculum to ensure internationalisation for all, notonly the mobile minority. It re-emphasises that internationalisation is not a goal in itself,but a means to enhance quality, and that it should not focus solely on economic rationales.Most national strategies, including in Europe, are still predominantly focused on mobility,short-term and/or long-term economic gains, recruitment and/or training of talentedstudents and scholars, and international reputation and visibility. This implies that fargreater efforts are still needed to incorporate these approaches into more comprehensivestrategies, in which internationalisation of the curriculum and learning outcomes, as ameans to enhance the quality of education and research, receive more attention. Theinclusion of ‘internationalisation at home’ as a third pillar in the internationalisation strategyof the European Commission,European Higher Education in the World, as well as in severalnational strategies, is a good starting point, but it will require more concrete actions at theEuropean, national and,in particular, the institutional level for it to becomereality

      Using inclusive approaches to ensure all students have access to quality teaching and learning and why it shouldn't be limited to the mobile few. I find it interesting since a lot of research focuses on the gain for international students only.

  18. Sep 2017
    1. redesigned first-year classes with built-in, just-in-time tutoring and support.

      Hypothesis can be part of this support system: peer to peer support; teacher intervention.