Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education
In recent years changes in universities, especially in North America, show that we have entered a new era in higher education, one which is rapidly drawing the halls of academe into the age of automation. Automation — the distribution of digitized course material online, without the participation of professors who develop such material — is often justified as an inevitable part of the new “knowledge–based” society. It is assumed to improve learning and increase wider access. In practice, however, such automation is often coercive in nature — being forced upon professors as well as students — with commercial interests in mind. This paper argues that the trend towards automation of higher education as implemented in North American universities today is a battle between students and professors on one side, and university administrations and companies with “educational products” to sell on the other.
What are the 21st-century skills every student needs?
The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology. Today's job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems – skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy. What skills will be needed most? An analysis of 213 studies showed that students who received SEL instruction had achievement scores that averaged 11 percentile points higher than those who did not.
Digital Footprint: not everyone is equal and why unis need to teach managing DF as a 21st century skill
Australians are among the most digitally connected in the world and young people spend a lot of time online. Most young Australians have an extensive digital footprint, especially university students. Digital footprints are created through interaction with the internet and social media. Increasingly, digital footprint management is an important career development skill and one that is vital to the professional opportunities of university students.
Beyond borders and conference boundaries: Emily Bettison and Hassan Hussain - PGR Studio
As all good ideas usually start out, the idea for this year’s 2017 ADM PhD Conference developed through a conversation over burgers and chips. What did we want this conference to be? Or perhaps more importantly to ‘not be’? Working at Birmingham City University in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media we are continually inspired by the type of work that our PhD researchers are producing. The variety and distinction not only of topic ideas, but also the forms that research can take is something that we were particularly keen to reflect through our conference.
63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World
63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World by Terry Heick ed note: this has been updated from a previous post It could be argued—and probably argued well—that what a student fundamentally needs to know today isn’t much different than what Tom Sawyer or Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great needed to know. Communication.
Digital Citizenship School Program
Download Digital Citizenship Agreements On an August morning in 1991 the World Wide Web had officially been introduced into our lives. Had we any idea at the time the change that was to come? What may have seemed like a novelty at first began to attract more and more curiosity and interest as we started to see its potential. Potential became necessity and invention spawned again and again.
Could a new EU benchmark for language learning be a catalyst for increased European cohesion and identity?
Dr Michael Byram is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at Durham University The European Commission’s project to establish a ‘European Education Area’ by 2025 includes several proposals, one of which is putting together a benchmark for (foreign) language learning at the end of upper secondary education. As the project has fostering a sense of European identity and belonging as one of its goals, it seems natural that the improvement of language learning is a prominent element. But how exactly language learning is expected to help create and support this identity has not been specified.
What is digital fluency?
Image by George Couros under CC A recent announcement from Hon. Hekia Parata signalled that digital fluency will be a key focus for Ministry centrally-funded professional learning support in 2016 (PLD Changes will lift student achievement, 23 Sept. 2015). The value of growing digitally fluent learners was signalled in the Ministry report, Future Focused Learning in Connected Communities (2014) which asked that “digital competencies be recognised as “essential foundation skills for success in 21st century society” and that they be supported by “cross-curriculum resources, a responsive assessment framework, professional development and a programme of evaluation.” ‘Digital fluency’, as a phrase, does not occur specifically in the our various curricula (NZC, Te Marautanga, Te Whāriki) or in other oft-used touchstones for learning with digital technologies.
Forget coding, we need to teach kids about digital citizenry
"Stupid posts about embarrassing incidents or regrettable comments don't just go away because children grow up," writes Asher Wolf. Photo: Stocksy Growing up online is complicated.
OER, Equity, and Implicit Creative Redlining – Rajiv Jhangiani, Ph.D.
The open education movement wants to be a force for equity. The argument is straightforward and powerful: Widen access to educational resources and those who disproportionately suffer at the hands of the exploitative business models of commercial publishers will disproportionately benefit, in both economic and educational terms. As someone who has personally benefited from generous and life-changing sponsorship of access to a high quality education, this argument is not simply theoretical for me. It is my lived experience. This is why I will never stop pushing for nor understate the importance of widening access to education. But if the open education movement holds the goal of equity as dearly as I believe we do, we need to ensure that we do not restrict our definition of equity to only those who will reuse the resources.
Digital fluency / Teaching
What is digital fluency? Digital literacy and digital fluency describe students' capability in using digital technologies to achieve desired learning outcomes. Digital literacy – A digitally literate person knows how to use digital technologies and what to do with them. Digital fluency – A digitally fluent person can decide when to use specific digital technologies to achieve their desired outcome.
Moving Students From Digital Citizenship To Digital Leadership
2 minutes read Moving Students From Digital Citizenship To Digital Leadership by TeachThought Staff Digital Citizenship has become one of the more symbolic phrases that represents the significant impact technology has made on our behavior and interactions.
Teacher development is neglected in internationalisation
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On wrapping it up with a meme: reflecting on the semester
Each semester I ask my Search and the Information Landscape sections to reflect on their learning by thinking about it figuratively and metaphorically, visualizing the landscape and their place in it. This year, I added the option of a meme to the visualization menu. I wonder what would happen if you asked your students to wrap up their year in the library, their year of learning, or their year in a particular class with a visualization of some sort.
