November 8, 2013
Saving Universities in the Era of MOOCs: How Service-Oriented Schools can Add Value in the Online Learning Boom
Ted Curran,
Ted Curran.net,
November 7, 2013
Longish article that looks at the value proposition in traiditonal education and ends with this little kicker: "The dirty little secret is that too many bricks-and-mortar schools are offering course experiences that could be reproduced by a machine. Too many courses at top universities consist of teachers lecturing, students reading and taking multiple-choice exams. The last way schools can offer greater value than MOOCs is to develop faculty proficiency in recognizing and promoting higher order thinking skills around course content." The funny thing is - I think that MOOCs were designed precisely in order to recognize and promote higher-order thinking skills in content areas - to be better, in other words, that the secret world of school and university classes. The new value proposition of schools and universities will revolve around the question: what can't you do online?
MOOCs: How did we get here?
George Siemens,
elearnspace,
November 7, 2013
From OpenEd 13, George Siemens's presentaation. "I’m at the Open Education conference in Park City, Utah. The conference is now in its impressive 10th year. I did a presentation following Andrew Ng (Coursera). Slides and video are below. The focus is on my early experiences with MOOCs, their current state, and future directions (as well as some angst and hope)."
The Education Apocalypse
Audrey Watters,
Hack Education,
November 7, 2013
Notes and slides for Audrey Watters's talk at the OpenEd conference. I think she nails it. "Christensen’s 'disruptive innovation' story taps into these same powerful narratives about the end-times, told, as always by the chosen ones — be they Americans, Christians, Shakers, Heaven’s Gate followers, survivalists, Java programmers, venture capitalists, Techcrunch, or Harvard Business School professors." And it's worth asking: "Where in the stories were telling about the future of education are we seeing salvation? Why would we locate that in technology and not in humans, for example? Why would we locate that in markets and not in communities?"
The Avalanche That Hasn't Happened
David Kernohan,
YouTube,
November 7, 2013
I watched this video Thursday evening and I an't do much better than to reprint George Siemens's glowing summary: "David Kernohan delivered an stunning presentation at the Open Education conference: The Avalanche that Hasn’t Happened. He provides a critical evaluation of the testing/evaluation narrative in education. It is the best take down that I have seen of the dominant trends of for-profit, testing, and deliverology (honestly, that’s a word) impacting education. This video (below) needs to be shared broadly, particularly with leaders in the education sector. This is an impressive and valuable documentary." In particular, Kernohan delivers a scathing refutation and denouncement of the work of British education consultant Michael Barber. Resources and citations for the video are available here.
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