Reality eLearning Sharebar Although we’re overflowing with reality TV, do we have sufficient doses of realism in eLearning? The purpose of eLearning in the workplace is to improve and enhance job performance. No Prepared Script While at work, events don’t occur according to a planned script. For example, how can an online course help someone handle an employee crisis, deal with an irate customer or fix a crashed server? Here’s what a learner is expected to do after training: Analyze a problem to determine it’s salient characteristicsFind commonalities between the problem at hand and what they have learnedIdentify broad abstract concepts that solved the problem in a training contextApply and adapt the most useful concepts to the current problem What we’re looking for here is positive learning transfer. Positive Learning Transfer In positive learning transfer, what a person learns in one situation (whether through formal or informal learning) enhances his or her knowledge and ability in another situation.
The Trouble with College, Online or Off There is an editorial in the New York Times entitled "The Trouble with Online College" this morning about online education. It argues that online education has high attrition rates and that students who are unprepared for college will not do very well. The "therefore" is that we should think twice before seeking to attempt the MOOC model (Massive Open Online Courses). To begin with, I generally agree with this article but disagree with the take-away. There is a large body of research in online learning that shows that there is no significant difference between face-to-face and online learning that has been going on for decades and is routinely ignored by many educators and columnists. Student OrientationWe designed a free, fully online student orientation that used all the tools that the school's learning management system used.
The Crisis in Higher Education A hundred years ago, higher education seemed on the verge of a technological revolution. The spread of a powerful new communication network—the modern postal system—had made it possible for universities to distribute their lessons beyond the bounds of their campuses. Anyone with a mailbox could enroll in a class. Frederick Jackson Turner, the famed University of Wisconsin historian, wrote that the “machinery” of distance learning would carry “irrigating streams of education into the arid regions” of the country. Sensing a historic opportunity to reach new students and garner new revenues, schools rushed to set up correspondence divisions. The hopes for this early form of distance learning went well beyond broader access. We’ve been hearing strikingly similar claims today. The excitement over MOOCs comes at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the state of college education. But not everyone is enthusiastic. Is it different this time? Rise of the MOOCs Professor Robot Big Data on Campus
On Design » Sustainability Research by Designers: An Anthology Lisa M. Graham (ed.) Published by On Design Sustainability or green design is an area of growing concern for many design researchers from a wide range of experiences and disciplines, including graphic designers, architects, design theorists, environmental designers, artists, students and educators. Sustainability Research by Designers: An Anthology is an interdisciplinary volume featuring written sustainability research by accomplished design practitioners, researchers, and educators selected from the recognized peer-reviewed scholarly journals Design Principles & Practices: An International Journal; The International Journal of the Arts in Society; The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability; The International Journal of the Humanities; and The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge & Society. Contents Book: Print (Paperback). Associate Professor, Art and Art History Department, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA Lisa M.
Disruptive Innovation Some examples of disruptive innovation include: As companies tend to innovate faster than their customers’ needs evolve, most organizations eventually end up producing products or services that are actually too sophisticated, too expensive, and too complicated for many customers in their market. Companies pursue these “sustaining innovations” at the higher tiers of their markets because this is what has historically helped them succeed: by charging the highest prices to their most demanding and sophisticated customers at the top of the market, companies will achieve the greatest profitability. However, by doing so, companies unwittingly open the door to “disruptive innovations” at the bottom of the market. An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers at the bottom of a market access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill.
Teaching a MOOC: Lessons Learned & Best Balch Practices | the augmented trader I just completed teaching a MOOC on Computational Investing via coursera.org. I did some things right and a lot of things wrong. Here are my lessons learned from the first round. Some people will be upset: Be prepared I’m not talking about the students. Your course will be closely scrutinized. One critique MOOCs are susceptible to is an accusation of “dumbing down” or “oversimplification.” Many of these attacks arise from a belief that MOOCs are promoted as “identical” to college course content; Or that the course is “just as rigorous” as graduate course CS XXXX at Georgia Tech. That being said, I do believe that we can produce and deliver “rigorous” content via MOOCs, and many are working on that. Set expectations for the students In your course description and your video introduction be sure to make it very clear who your intended audience is. You probably want to discourage folks who don’t have the tools to succeed (for instance in my course, programming experience). More to come
JEE: Journal of Engineering Education Welcome to the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), the research journal for engineering education. JEE is a peer-reviewed international journal published quarterly by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in partnership with a global community of engineering education societies and associations. JEE is the journal of choice for over 8,500 subscribers in nearly 80 countries. Articles published in JEE are now available at Wiley Online Library. ASEE members click here to view the JEE articles. As an ASEE member, you can access the JEE articles by logging in to your ASEE account. TOPˆ
AUDIO | Exploring MOOCs from the Corporate Perspective AUDIO | Exploring MOOCs from the Corporate Perspective While individual companies might look at the MOOC model as an approach to delivering training to its employees, there is still a way to go before they are—in their current form—considered to be acceptable training options during company time. The following interview was conducted with Dan Pontefract, TELUS’ senior director of learning and collaboration. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are gaining a lot of attention across the higher, continuing and professional education spaces for their capacity to deliver learning opportunities to large numbers of students for a relatively low cost. In this interview, Pontefract discusses how MOOCs could be operationalized in the corporate world, and whether he sees corporations coming together to develop industry-wide open-learning opportunities. To listen to The EvoLLLution’s interview with Dan Pontefract, please click here. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Tags: Business
About MOOC Completion Rates: The Importance of Student Investment | the augmented trader I just finished teaching a Massive Online Open Class (MOOC) titled “Computational Investing, Part I” via coursera.org. 53,000 people “enrolled,” which is to say they clicked a “sign up” button. How many finished? related post regarding lessons learned Completion rates are low, but that statistic is misleading Much of the criticism of MOOCs centers on supposedly low completion rates. One of the 53,000 students in my class watches a lecture video. What does it cost a student to enroll in a course? The economics are significantly different for a student at a traditional university than for a student starting a MOOC. At a regular university all of the students starting a course have paid tuition, they have moved to an apartment or dorm near the university, and they’ve set aside time to complete the course. Also, at most universities, students may withdraw from a course early in the semester with no penalty. What’s the cost of failure or withdrawal? What are the implications for completion rates?
A Review of What Instructional Designers Do: Questions Answered and Questions Not Asked | Kenny Richard F. Kenny Zuochen Zhang Richard A. Katy Campbell Authors Richard F. Zuochen Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia. Richard A. Katy Campbell is the Associate Dean, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta and Editor, Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education. Abstract: The purpose of this literature review was to determine what evidence there is that instructional designers apply ID Models, as well as to establish what other activities and processes they might use in their professional activities. Résumé: L’objet de cette revue de la littérature consistait à identifier les preuves selon lesquelles les concepteurs de matériel pédagogique appliquent les modèles de conception pédagogique et à identifier les autres activités et processus qu’ils pourraient utiliser dans le cadre de leurs activités professionnelles. Introduction The research literature pertaining to Instructional Design (ID) or Instructional