June 10, 2013
The fiction of most school mission statements
Scott Mcleod,
Dangerously Irrelevant,
June 10, 2013
"Our actions put the lie to our school mission statements that state that we’re about creating 'self-motivated, life-long learners,' writes Scott McLeod. "The result is that most of what [our students] experience during school hours passes over them like the shadow of a cloud, or through them like an undigested seed." Some good discussion, with references, on the concept of intrinsic motivation, and how we seem to have abandoned the concept entirely in education. And elsewhere too, I would argue. See also: Hold it Right There, We learn about black holes in year 10, not year 8, from Alice Leung.
Education-industry joint venture rolls out online courses
Ishan Srivastava,
The Times of India,
June 10, 2013
Amid all the discussion around Athabasca's Mooc Research Initiative was the really good comment that ". This research project appears to have made a deep identification of MOOC with large, centralised providers. Any effort that does not involve large, centralized providers is already deemed an 'alternative'." Venkataraman Balaji added, in an email, "It would be interesting to speculate what if a similar approach had gained ground in the earlier stages of OER movement; for example, if OER was identified deeply with celebrity projects like the OCW or CNX, would new, large scale contributors have come on the scene? ...viewing OER as a more generic paradigm with a few initial, shining examples like OCW gave confidence to workers in developing countries that they could meaningfully participate in the global OER paradigm." He refers us to this course as an example of what we might call 'generic MOOC' (as opposed to the heavily publicized 'brand name MOOC' initiatives). I know Coursera and EdX are signing up a lot of partners, but I'm seeing a lot - a lot - of activity outside their corporate firewalls. Which is good, and necessary.
Online Education Will Be the Next 'Bubble' To Pop, Not Traditional University Learning
John Tamny,
Forbes,
June 10, 2013
Forbes doesn't often get it right, but in this case they do: "With university education jaw-droppingly expensive, it’s often asked what in terms of instruction kids are getting in return for the huge cost. Of course that’s a false question. Parents and kids once again aren’t buying education despite their protests to the contrary. Going to college is a status thing, not a learning thing. Kids go to college for the experience, not for what’s taught. And that’s why there’s no ‘bubble’ forming in the university world. There isn’t one not because Yale and Stanford students learn anything of real world value, but because each school is a door opener." If you understand this, you understand why MOOCs have to be about connecting people, rather than merely about transmitting content.
Union Unveils Its Own MOOC Consortium… OpenUpEd
June 9, 2013
The MOOC momentum continues. "the European Union wants to get in to the MOOC game and is doing so now with a dozen partners at colleges throughout Europe in its new OpenUpEd MOOC platform." Image: Ville Miettinen via Compfight.
Announcing: MOOC Research Initiative
George Siemens,
Athabasca University,
June 9, 2013
Athabasca University has launched something called the 'MOOC Research Hub' in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Part of this is a call for research proposals on MOOCs - you can find the details here - funding research projects for between $10K-$25K. There is also a research evidence hub. Note that submission must agree to publish a paper under CC-by (I wonder why CC-NC wasn't allowed) and present the results at a conference in Texas (why Texas?). Also, recommended by Alastair Creelman, a good article on MOOC research by George Veletsianos, The research that MOOCs need.
Parents Present Pearson With $38 Million Invoice for Use of Child Labor for Field Tests
Norm Scott,
Ed Notes Online,
June 9, 2013
Interesting reaction to the testing and corporate-education phenomenon: parents have presented Pearson publishers with a bill for the use of their children in field tests. It does raise a question about the ethics of these testing programs, doesn't it? (Imagine a government researcher like myself requested mandatory testing of 434,000 people in (say) New Brunswick - it would never happen, and for good reason). "Parents calculated the value of their children’s free labor, including the opportunity costs of lost instructional time and resources, and added these to the real costs to schools of administering the June tests."
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