October 19, 2011
In Victory for Open-Education Movement, Blackboard Embraces Sharing
Jeffrey R. Young,
Chronicle of Higher Education, October 19, 2011.
Two comments: it's about time, and welcome to the party. Blackboard has "announced plans to add a 'Share' button that will let professors make those learning materials free and open online." What's significant is that institutions will be able to share access without cost to themselves. "In the old contract, colleges could have been charged extra for every additional person who viewed course materials placed on the Blackboard software platform... [now] any outsiders who are invited to look in will not bring extra charges to a college, says Mr. Henderson. 'If it’s non-revenue for you, we understand it’s going to be non-revenue for us,' he says." See also Inside Higher Ed on the same story. Here's the Blackboard press release. See also this Audrey Watters article and her Google+ discussion. Also, a short notice on the Creative Commons blog.
Internet Trends
Mary Meeker,
Scribd / KPCB, October 18, 2011.
Mary Meeker, having left Goldman Sachs for KPCB, is back with another 'internet trends' report, this one presented yesterday at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco. Mashable summarizes, "Among the highlights of Meeker’s presentation:
- Mobile search has grown fourfold in the last few years.
- Mobile is growing faster than ever but still has huge upside.
- Natural user interfaces and touchscreens are defining this decade.
- E-commerce, especially mobile commerce, are on the rise.
- The pace of innovation in Silicon Valley right now is unprecedented."
(If you can't see the embedded document above in your email reader, my apologies; click on the post title to see the slide show).
Mainstreaming the use of Open Educational Practices (OEP) will really transform education
Sally Johnstone and Mary Lou Forward,
WSIS, October 16, 2011.
The question posed in this debate is whether "mainstreaming the use of Open Educational Practices (OEP) will really transform education". I would like to point out that 'mainstream' is not a verb. Ack! I hate bureaucratic language. Anyways:
On the pro side, "There are 3 main problems that educational systems around the world share that mainstreaming OEP helps solve:
1. Governments, taxpayers and families are paying too much for education
2. There’s a shortage of effective teachers
3. We do not know enough about how individuals and groups learn"
And on the con side: "there is precious little evidence that, where these practices are being mainstreamed they are driving broader processes of educational transformation. Rather, two things are tending to happen. Either:
1. Educational transformation is already happening [and] OER is merely helping to reinforce and support those processes; or
2. OER is... doing nothing much, in itself, to transform education."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Open Educational Resources, Online Learning]
Going, Going, Gone Private
Ray Henderson,
Blackboard, October 16, 2011.
Blackboard exec Ray Henderson blogs briefly about the impact of the company returning to private hands, a transaction that has just now completed. What caught my eye in this post were some words about becomig more open: "I’ll provide an update about how our vision about openness is evolving, and announce some new contributions to educators coming from Blackboard." So that's from his talk on Wednesday at EDUCAUSE. Being in Spain, I won't be listening to the talk. But I'm certainly interested. I'm of a mind these days to work with anyone who is interested in openness, no matter who they are.
Take a tour of SoapBox
Various Authors,
Soapbox, October 16, 2011.
Interesting application that manages a speaker's control and communication with an online audience (the web page doesn't say 'control' but with the various filters and such built in, it certainly appears that way). Beta, and worth a look. Here's the official blurb: "Soapbox provides a platform for audience member input, while letting speakers facilitate discussion, organize feedback, and gauge audience sentiment -- all in real time. With SoapBox, speakers are able to transform traditional lectures into lasting conversations by integrating audience thoughts and opinions, without any interruption." Via Vanessa Vaile, who comments on Facebook, "This sounds rather like what Stanford A1 M(onster)OOC (not so interactive, social or lurker friendly).
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