April 19, 2012
Introducing the Innovator’s Patent Agreement
Adam Messinger,
Twitter Engineering, April 19, 2012.
Nice. I'm sure Twitter is making friends here. "The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended."
Dual-Mode Universities in Higher Education: Way Station or Final Destination?
John Daniel,
Commonwealth of Learning, April 19, 2012.
John Daniel spends a long time justifying the OERu model (dual-mode universities) before getting to the point of his article, ion the second-last paragraph: "The wider issue is that higher education generally it will no longer be able to use the function of presenting content, whether through lectures or learning materials, as justification for the major element of its costs." If you accept additionally the premise that a pay-as-you-go fee structure is necessary for sustainability, it follows that the model must include pay-as-you-go assessment as the value proposition. There's not a lot new here, as (to my observation) Daniel is drawing from the talking points offered in numerous documents describing the OERu model. Wayne Macintosh cites this as being from the journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning (Volume 27 2012, Issue 1 2012) but links here, so it may be co-published.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Open Educational Resources, Books, Apple Inc., Academic Journals, Assessment]
Flipping Corporate Learning
Jay Cross,
Internet Time Blog, April 19, 2012.
Jay Cross applies the concept of 'flipping' education, usually associated with K-2 learning, to the domain of corporate education. What's different, it seems to me, is that we don't usually associate the concept of "homework" to the corporate environment. That may change. Meanwhile, Cross is more concerned corporations will simply see flipping as a way to cut back on instructional staff. "It’s great to replace lectures with video clips — IF you retain the opportunity for people to ask questions, interact with the material, practice what they’ve learned, collaborate with others, and periodically refresh their memories. This takes a sound learning ecosystem, a workscape."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Video, Private Schools, Online Learning]
Massive Open Online Classes and the Future of EDU
Seth Odell,
Higher Ed Live, April 19, 2012.
This looks like a good one; I can't wait to view it when I have the bandwidth. "HackEducation's Audrey Watters and Philipp Schmidt, co-founder of P2PU join us to discuss the ever emerging role of massive open online classes in education. Hyped by many as the torch for democratizing education, we delve into the reality of how MOOCs really work, including varying delivery models, as well as clarifying who their primary users are today."
Adventures in Assessment
Dean Shareski,
Ideas and Thoughts, April 19, 2012.
The alternative to standardized tests and computer-grading nightmare scenarios: "at its core, the idea of empowering students to assess their own work." Dean Shareski writes, "I have never given my students a test. I'm struggling to see the value, particularly in my course where the intent is to provide students an overview of the way technology can be used to support learning and the way in which it's influencing learning in 2012." But it takes some rethinking, as students today are not ready. "Here they are, students of 13 years of schooling plus a few years of higher education and they aren't sure how to assess themselves. That's scary." It is scary, because there will always be somebody else ready to assess them, usually for their own benefit, not that of the students.
See also Leigh Blackall on open assessment. "That search often leads people to either Wikipedia and/or Youtube both for a quick overview, and developing something in either one of those spaces is not only possible, it seems to me to be the place where one might hope to find enough of a critical mass." And so maybe it's there that open assessment begins.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Assessment, Tests and Testing]
Wake Up Call
Will Richardson,
Weblog, April 19, 2012.
Will Richardson relays a series of tweets from Chris Lehman (as an image) describing the tactics in play by education privatizers who want to use technology as their Trojan horse. "The strategy has become really clear: villify unions and teachers through policy and public outcry in ways that effectively compromise our voices when we push back, continue to frame education accountability in terms of our ability to compete against the world (as opposed to collaborate with the world) and, finally, promote more and more objective tests..." All true. But I have to say, merely protecting the current role of teachers is ineffective as a response. To protect public education, it is now necessary to define a set of public educational services. Defenders of public education should not simply fall into the role of defending schoolteachers.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Twitter, Assessment, Online Learning]
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