On #Higher #Education and Society in Changing Times and searching for the reason why educational research centres are under siege
Inge de Waard, Ignatia Webs, September 19, 2011.

"How strange is it," asks Inge de Waard, "to read on the one hand that education is changing rapidly and is in need for a new balance, while on the other hand educational research centres are - just in these times - shut down?" Indeed.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Research, Online Learning]

A Black Eye for Blackboard Over Its Response to Major Security Flaws
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, September 19, 2011.

I saw this is a couple of places. I am a but hesitant to comment, because it's not like I write lock-down secure software myself. But then again, I don't sell my stuff for hundreds of thousands of dollars. "The Australian university that requested the initial security investigation into Blackboard says that it has been trying to get the LMS to address the issues for months, but with no response. Blackboard refutes those claims." Watters should maybe say 'rebuts', rather than 'refutes', because the LMS company's response is by no means a QED.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Blackboard Inc., Australia, Security Issues]

#YOU MATTER: Two World-Changing Words
Angela Maiers, Angela Maiers Educational Services, September 19, 2011.

Angela Maiers writes, "thanks to my brilliant friend, Chad Lilly for helping me capture the stories you have been sharing with me these past weeks. I am so humbled and honored that the message of YOU MATTER is resonating. I am even more inspired by all you are doing to spread this message to those that matter to you. We are only just beginning my friends. Because of you, I now know these 2 words have world changing power." Yes, this is what passes for education at TED. Now I am not opposed to personal empowerment - quite the opposite. But promoting empowerment isn't about building a you matter project website, hiring a few consultants, branding the message, setting up the dog-whistle messages and blogs and saying "you matter." It's about making actual changes to increase personal power.

If you think I'm being too cynical, here's the message Maiers posts as her takeaway: "See for yourself. Tell it to someone who matters to you and see what happens… for them and for you.
- If you share this exchange on Twitter please use the Hashtag- #youmatter
- It has been so powerful to see this happen in real time.
- If you post your thoughts about mattering here in the comments, I will collect your stories and share in an upcoming post.
- If you write about the experience on your blog- please link back to this post.  Thank you  Dr. Z , Collette, Jerry, Tom, Karen for leading the way!
Little by little, we will show the world that MATTERing matters." Tags, name-dropping links, link-backs - everything but actual empowerment.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Branding, Twitter, Project Based Learning, Video, Web Logs, Experience]

Rethinking learning assessment and the #dmlbadges competition
Alex Reid, Digital Digs, September 19, 2011.

The discussion of badges continues apace. Welcome to badge world, writes Alex Reig. And in this article he weighs in: "It's not about the badge. It's about the thing you do to get the badge. If you look at a college students' transcript, you can see a list of courses. If you look deeper, you could find a syllabus and the work the student did for those courses." And he calls for something more challenging: "instead of badges for micro activities, badges that take years to achieve. Badges that would require more dedication than a college degree. Badges that are too rare to create a real marketplace." I think he's hit on a point here. The appeal of badges is that they're easy - do three hours, collect a badge. But if a badge were hard - I mean, really hard, that might mean something. Also, Audrey Watters with more thoughts on badges and why it's important that they're open.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Assessment]

Recording can improve a bad lecture! 7 surprising facts about recorded lectures
Donald Clark, Plan B, September 19, 2011.

I've heard it asked by more than one person why anyone would record a bad lecture. But bad lectures, writes Donald Clark, can be improved through recording them. Really? He summarizes "this wonderful little study by Pierre Gorrisen, delivered at the ALT conference":
1. Students watch lots of recorded lectures at home on their own time
2. No technical problems - we live in a YouTube world
3. Students watch lectures many times
4. Students don’t watch the whole lecture; they're smart, so they fast-forward
5. Students want ALL lectures recorded
6. Recorded lectures increase the pass rate
7. The fact that you can skip the bad bits, replay and watch it several times actually improves the experience.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: YouTube, Video, Experience]

Invisible Learning: Now free
John Moravec, Education Futures, September 19, 2011.

I can't read it, but making a splash in the Spanish speaking world is the release of the eBook Invisible Learning. Here's the PDF, in Spanish. But at least I can read the English version of the epilogue, written by Roger Schank. "Little children learn very well until they meet up with school and its arbitrary standards. They have experiences and they learn from them. The more varied their experiences, the more they can be said to know.... Not only does school ignore what we know about how human memory and learning work, it is also concerned with teaching subjects that have nothing to do with everyday life." See also this overview article, also in Spanish.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Experience, Online Learning]

Ewan McIntosh #TEDxLondon: The Problem Finders
Ewan McIntosh , edu.blogs.com, September 19, 2011.

Of all the things that could be fixed in education, of all the things that could be recommended to improve education, do you think teaching students to find problems to solve ranks anywhere near the top? I don't, and I think it's a ridiculous diversion of attention for the monied set to be focusing on this. But to hear the other side of the argument, here's Ewan McIntosh making the case that what society really needs are students who find problems. Because, you know, there's a shortage of them. Here's the problemfinders web site. For more on TEDx London, see Dave Warlick's backchannel. And Warlick on the so-called Education Revolution. Also, commentary from Oliver Quinlan.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Online Learning]

Getting university IP to market: How Canada falls short
Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette, ITBusiness.ca, September 19, 2011.

The Canadian university system costs about $25 billion a year, writes the author, and yet net income from IP is only $15 million. "Getting technology to market is clearly not a big income stream for the typical Canadian university." According to one pundit, "a key barrier to greater university commercialization is Canada’s lack of an equivalent to the U.S. Bayh–Dole, or Patent and Trademark Law Amendments, Act. In essence, Bayh-Dole allows researchers to maintain control of intellectual property they have created through government-funded research." It's arguable; why build a spin-off company if you're not going to earn anything? Another pundit, meanwhile, focuses on the government's ability to pick and choose between winners and losers. And another "sees crucial gaps in the commercialization chain for Canadian university IP. 'There just isn’t the experience here or the knowledge of how that networking works, to commercialize out of university,'" he said.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Research, Patents, Networks, Experience, Copyrights, Canada]