Open Education Is Transforming the Way We Learn: Ray Schroeder on Online Learning by Education-Portal The higher education ‘bubble’ has grown quite large. We are likely to see a growing number of students seeking more affordable options than the traditional path to a college degree. Online learning certainly offers a reduction in commuting costs and college residential costs. The Future of E-Learning is Crowdsourcing Call me a skeptic, but the idea of having random people from around the Web collaborating in the creation of e-learning content for accredited online degree programs seems absurd. I went to graduate school for years, read hundreds of books and thousands of articles, sat through countless hours in the classroom, participated in dozens of instructional design projects, created and taught several classes under the supervision of experienced professors, and worked with my classmates and people with real world experience solving actual problems in order to earn my Ph.D. and the right to be both a content area expert and an instructional design professional. And along the way, I learned one lesson which surpasses all the others: good instructional design requires a collaborative effort. What is Crowdsourcing? So, right off the bat, I need to correct a common misrepresentation that I repeated in my first paragraph. Image: fotographic1980 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Are MOOCs the Future of Online Learning? Teaching Strategies Arienne McCracken In education, we often hear arguments in favor of smaller class sizes. So it may seem counter-intuitive to support classes that can swell to several thousand participants. The answers to these questions aren’t found in traditional classrooms — no surprise. MOOCs challenge many of the notions we have about formal learning: where and how and from whom learning happens, how we gauge success. The acronym MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. MOOCs redefine academic courses in several ways. And that’s one of the key pieces with a MOOC. MOOCs challenge many of the notions we have about formal learning: where and how and from whom learning happens, how we gauge success. Interested in a MOOC? Related Explore: Massive Open Online Course, MOOC
The Pros and Cons of E-Learning and Education Technology | Oxbridge Essays E-learning and ‘edtech’ are currently huge buzzwords in education, as the tidal wave of the internet and the digital revolution, already firmly ensconced in our homes and businesses, marches voraciously on into our classrooms and universities. From class blogs and school e-twinning schemes to scholastic ‘apps’ and online courses, education is going electronic. For those who have yet to experience the e-learning revolution, there is a treasure trove of rich benefits and exciting advances just waiting to be discovered, but some believe that there are also major pitfalls that must be carefully avoided. Pros Engaging Young People The new wave of exciting online learning programs and educational games has brought teaching into children’s own territory like never before. Social Media Education for All The movement of education to the internet has opened up a whole new realm of opportunities for students of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the world. Worldwide Learning Sharing Resources Cons
Charles Jennings: Real Power of eLearning is Social – Part 2 The second and final blog from guest poster and eLearning thought leader, Charles Jennings. View part one here. Learn more about Charles here: Homepage, Twitter, LinkedIn The Changes Needed A major drive for us to re-think eLearning approaches is the move away from the 20th Century ‘push’ models of learning – with modules, courses, content and curricula being pushed at employees. We’re seeing a move towards a 21st Century ‘pull’ model – where workers people ‘pull’ the learning and performance resources they need when they need to improve their work performance. They may need a course, but are more likely just to need some ‘here-and-now’ support to solve a problem or overcome an obstacle. I see a requirement for two principal changes in thinking to address the challenge this change presents to Learning professionals: A move away from content-centric mind-sets.A move away from ‘course’ mind-sets. Step 1: Leaving Content-Centricity Behind Our lives are inundated with content. Content to Context
Charles Jennings: The Real Power of eLearning is Social – Part 1 The first of a two part blog from guest poster and eLearning thought leader, Charles Jennings. Learn more about Charles here: Homepage, Twitter, LinkedIn Some Background eLearning has been with us in one form or another for at least 50 years, maybe longer. Probably the first player on the enterprise eLearning block was the University of Illinois’ PLATO learning management system, built in 1960 to deliver training through user terminals (which, even then, had touch-screens). Some would argue that quite a few of today’s LMS offerings have not advanced a great deal from PLATO. My own exposure to eLearning started in 1964 when I recall learning speed reading via an electronic system at my secondary school in Australia. However, despite the obvious limitations, technology was making its way into learning through a number of routes even back then. My first involvement in working with and learning technology that we’d recognise today was when tutoring at the University of Sydney in the early 1970s.
Are MOOCs the Future of Online Learning? by Arienne McCracken, Mind/Shift In education, we often hear arguments in favor of smaller class sizes. These arguments contend that students learn better when there are fewer of them in a class, because each one gets more individualized attention from the instructor. So it may seem counter-intuitive to support classes that can swell to several thousand participants. Do open online courses have a role in educational reform? A few days ago, I posted a link to an upcoming open online course on my elearnspace site being run by the University of Illinois Springfield: eduMOOC. The Chronicle picked up on the U of I course and highlighted a point made by David Wiley that “MOOCs and their like are not the answer to higher education’s problems”. This prompted David to post clarifications on his view of MOOCs . I’d like to engage with a few of David’s points. I agree with David’s assertions that MOOCs are effective for learning, that there is a productive place for them in education, and that the name sucks. I disagree with his assertion that the “massive” aspect is irrelevant, that MOOCs are not potentially significant in driving change (that’s a bit of a misstatement of David’s point, but I believe it is in keeping with the spirit of his post). First – let’s tackle the name. However, this isn’t David’s main point here. The problem David sees is the solution I envision.
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"Модернизация экономики невозможна без модернизации системы образования" Мысль правильная. Но фраза в заголовке принадлежит не мне. С неё начинается заметка "О модернизации образования" в блоге "На пути к обществу знаний". Автор - Валерий Цепкало, директор белорусского Парка высоких технологий. Статья содержит рассуждения, конструктивные предложения и выводы, касающиеся современного образования и его роли в развитии экономики. Впрочем, вы сами прямо сейчас сможете сделать свои выводы, когда прочитаете полный текст статьи. Надо сказать, что оригинальная статья содержит комментарии. Валерий Цепкало О модернизации образования Модернизация экономики невозможна без модернизации системы образования. Совершенно очевидно, что развитие экономики обеспечивают, прежде всего, инженерно-технические и естественно-научные специальности. В Финляндии, занимающей в международных рейтингах по индексу «инновационности» первое место, ежегодно на 1000 человек населения выпускается 17,4 инженеров, в Швеции – 17, в Сингапуре – 16,8. 1. 2. Действительно. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Toward Society 3.0: A New Paradigm for 21st century education Overcoming Objections to eLearning by Judy Unrein “In each case, if the method you’re trying to bring to the organization is suitable for the need, there will be a reason it’s suitable: there will be payoffs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, scalability, consistency, or some combination of these.” Did you know that eLearning is around 50 years old? Yes, you read that right. Overcoming objections is an important part of making any eLearning initiative successful, and luckily, eLearning’s long history gives us plenty of knowledge of how to make our case. Objection: eLearning is too expensive It’s true that eLearning development projects can cost a lot of time and money. Organizations often adopt eLearning when they are looking to decrease training costs. One of the hidden costs that’s easy to forget about with ILT is the extra time that it usually takes, compared to eLearning. So, how to overcome this objection: Calculating efficiency is quick and easy, so efficiency should definitely be part of your case.
Taking OER beyond the OER Community; my responses in the online discussions Taking OER beyond the OER Community is a joint initiative of UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning (COL). I am posting here my responses in the series of online discussions conducted as part of the above initiative. The responses in this blog are related to the queries on the following two themes:- (1) Policy and capacity & (2) What works, what does not and under what conditions?. Discussions on the third theme Copyright and the development and re-use of OERs will commence from tomorrow (15/11/2010) (See the forum at Theme: Policy and capacity: Definitely Neil is right in his analysis of the economic changes taking place in the education content market and, in fact, I would say, it is a desired change also. When knowledge repositories are not open, so called reinventing the wheel will happen at the cost of invaluable natural recourses. Theme: "What works, what does not and under what conditions?" In the application of such laws
STUDY SAYS TECHNOLOGY COULD TRANSFORM SOCIETY WASHINGTON, June 13— A report commissioned by the National Science Foundation and made public today speculates that by the end of this century electronic information technology will have transformed American home, business, manufacturing, school, family and political life. The report suggests that one-way and two-way home information systems, called teletext and videotex, will penetrate deeply into daily life, with an effect on society as profound as those of the automobile and commercial television earlier in this century. It conjured a vision, at once appealing and threatening, of a style of life defined and controlled by videotex terminals throughout the house. As a consequence, the report envisioned this kind of American home by the year 1998: ''Family life is not limited to meals, weekend outings, and oncea-year vacations. Privacy Issues Seen Posed The study was made by the Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park, Calif., agency under contract to the National Science Foundation.