The Future of Learning

Professional Development Organizations need Online Learning

2010-02-17T10:03:00.008-05:00

I am presently working on a White paper that is specifically focused on online learning and the challenges that professional development organizations face with growing their membership base.

This link really summarizes the unique challenges that today's organizations face. Look out for more info in the White paper coming soon.

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OCWConsortium

2009-12-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

The Definitive User’s Guide to OCWConsortium.org

by Rachael Holtz on December 15, 2009

College is becoming more expensive, and some colleges this year have set records with their lowest admissions percentage rates in history. If you cannot afford college and your SAT scores are average, you can attend a larger college where the cost is lower and admission rates are higher. And, you can supplement your education with free courses offered through colleges that are associated with the OCW (Open Courseware) consortium.

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We Are All Technology Teachers by Kim Cofino

2009-12-06T14:21:00.001-05:00

We Are All Technology Teachers by Kim Cofino
Cross posted on Always Learning

Last weekend I was honored to present a session at the Bridging the Gap conference at Yokohama International School in Japan. YIS has hosted this community conference annually since 2001, and the topic for this year was "The Future of Education: Using Its Tools Today." The three day conference included formal sessions led by teachers from YIS, other international schools and keynote presenter, Chris Toy, as well as a full day of BarCamp unconference sessions. It was a great opportunity to dialogue about the way schools may look in the near future with not only teachers and administrators, but also parents and students.

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A Manifesto for EduChange on the Eve of Hacking Education

2009-11-22T07:51:00.001-05:00

A Manifesto for EduChange on the Eve of Hacking Education

Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 by jon in Education

I’m currently en route to New York City for an event called Hacking Education that is being put on by the good folks at Union Square Ventures. Fred and crew have invited some of the leading thinkers, entrepreneurs and investors in the edu space for some spirited discussion about how we can revolutionize education. I’m honored to have been invited.

I have a lot of my own thoughts on the subject, some of which I’ve posted here before. I wanted to try to sum up my thoughts in a blog post. I know I’m naive and don’t understand how much of the education world work. But I guess we all to some extent. And I’m not entirely unconvinced that people who are naive won’t come up with the best solutions to the massive and mind-blowingly colossal failure that is the modern education so here goes…

A Manifesto for EduChange

Conference Humiliation: They're Tweeting Behind Your Back

2009-11-18T08:07:00.002-05:00

By Marc Parry

Tweckle (twek'ul) vt. to abuse a speaker only to Twitter followers in the audience while he/she is speaking.

Conference speakers beware: Twecklers are watching.

They're out for blood.

And you may be their next victim.

Once upon a time, conference goers could do little more than passively fork their cheesecake when a snooze-inducing keynote speaker took the podium. No longer. The microblogging service Twitter is changing a staple of academic life from a one-way presentation into a real-time conversation. Flub a talk badly enough and you now risk mobilizing a scrum of digital-spitball-slinging snark-masters. This is from a higher-education conference in Milwaukee:
we need a tshirt, "I survived the keynote disaster of 09"

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Peer-To-Peer Recognition of Learning in Open Education

2009-11-07T12:13:00.001-05:00

Recognition in education is the acknowledgment of learning achievements. Accreditation is certification of such recognition by an institution, an organization, a government, a community, etc. There are a number of assessment methods by which learning can be evaluated (exam, practicum, etc.) for the purpose of recognition and accreditation, and there are a number of different purposes for the accreditation itself (i.e., job, social recognition, membership in a group, etc). As our world moves from an industrial to a knowledge society, new skills are needed. Social web technologies offer opportunities for learning, which build these skills and allow new ways to assess them.

Authors

Jan Philipp Schmidt
United Nations University MERIT

Christine Geith
Michigan State University

Stian Håklev
University of Toronto

Joel Thierstein
Rice University

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Parents dissatified with the technology skills their children are learning in schools?

2009-11-02T08:56:00.003-05:00

I am always a bit skeptical about sharing survey data especially when large for profit organizations are involved in conducting the survey. I decided to share this article because of my concerns about the digital divide and also because of my belief that today's global society demands superior technology skills.

Read the article here

Digital Divide and The Internet

2009-10-15T11:51:00.001-04:00

By Laurelle Jno Baptiste

The overall effect of the digital divide remains a critical factor in the social and economic welfare of all individuals within world societies. The digital divide represents a complex collection of issues that transcends the globe. Over the past several years, the digital divide has been a ‘hot topic’ for social activists. However, many of these important advocates today appear silent. I contend that it is essential that we continue to raise awareness and champion this issue on behalf of those citizens of the world whose voices may never otherwise be heard.
Traditionally, the term digital divide has referred specifically to access to technology, primarily ownership of, or access to, a personal computer. However, as it stands today, the concept of the digital divide is much broader and multifaceted. Wikipedia.org defines the term digital divide as ‘the gap’ between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. This definition includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, the term digital divide represents the unequal access by some members of society to information and communication technology and the unequal acquisition of related skills. I find Wikipedia’s definition to be quite fitting because it speaks not only to physical access but to corresponding skill limitations as well.
One social phenomenon where the consequences of a digital divide are becoming increasingly evident centers around access to Internet technology. The meteoric growth of the Internet over the past decade is clearly evident in today’s society. Most would agree that the Internet is a catalyst that has, and will continue, to transform societies, and that its social dividend appears limitless. Internet technology has long been recognized as an essential part of social integration and has become central to all aspects of our lives. In the modern day context, access to information online is viewed as an integral part of socialization and key to economic survival. With the successes of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and also the Open Education Movement, just to name a few, the Internet continues to help transform the way we learn, work and play.
Within the education sector, institutions are increasingly relying on the Internet for the delivery of educational materials. Further, the Internet is central to the operations of many academic institutions globally as online learning continues to allow students to learn at their own pace, to provide access to an abundance of information online and to present opportunities to collaborate with peers worldwide. Yet, as the Internet races towards critical mass, research shows that there exists a persistent gap in access. Observed differences in access and use can be directly attributed to differences in income and levels of education. Access to the Internet, like access to books in the past, represents a more recent factor in the maintenance of the socio-economic status quo. Assuming that the correlation between Internet access and social and economic well-being is valid, all individuals need the tools and the benefits that the Internet can provide to improve their collective position in society. My concern about this aspect of the digital divide is that the disadvantaged will become further marginalized as more societies and their educational institutions demand the use of Internet technology as the normal means by which to access their resources. With limited, or in some cases no access to educational opportunity and successful career paths, lack of Internet access leaves the “info poor” with an additional disadvantage they can ill afford to bear.

Within the North American context, researchers have long debated the reasons behind the present divide. Some have placed the blame solely on economics and the inability of individuals to afford technical resources. I do not discount this position but submit that there are other factors that play significant roles. For example, I believe that there is a lack of identification with online content among some groups in our society. Specifically, most of what is written on the Internet is intended for consumers with average or advanced levels of literacy and therefore excludes anyone with below average literacy skills. And most of what is written on the Internet is written in English thus excluding many who do not speak English or those with English as a second language. Arguably there have been some gains in general access and use, but there is still little content that is developed and targeted outside of an English speaking audience.
I must clarify here that a simple focus on technology will not eliminate the digital divide. The best computer or fastest Internet access in the world does not automatically guarantee access to higher levels of education. Social reform needs to be the priority and Internet access will grow as a natural consequence of upward social mobility. That said, as suggested earlier, access to Internet technology is a catalytic and essential factor in the social reform equation. We cannot downplay the part technology plays in this society and its potential to assist movement of the have-nots of society to a haves status.
History records well the effects of mass media in leading lower levels of societies to share in the advantage and rewards of reaching beyond established social and economic boundaries. However, each new form of mass media, from the printing press and telephone, to radio and television, has brought with it an acceleration effect within societies, and with each iteration of media invention, we have witnessed groups of people left behind with little hope of reaching a level playing field. The ability of the Internet to inform, to provide education, to enhance civic involvement, and to generate economic enterprise dramatically exceeds past media inventions. I believe that without access to the Internet, today’s disadvantaged in world society experience unprecedented obstacles to societal advancement. All strategies to overcome the disparity of social groups must continue to include an integration of new media technologies in opportunities intended to create social and economic progress.

Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy

2009-10-15T10:38:00.002-04:00

Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1
By Tony Bates, on October 10th, 2009

Is e-learning failing in higher education?

In previous blogs, I have discussed whether e-learning is failing in higher education. To answer the question, I have examined the expectations or goals for e-learning, and whether they are being achieved.

Finally, I come to the last goal or expectation: that e-learning will increase the cost-effectiveness of higher education. I will argue that this is the most important and valuable of all the goals for e-learning, but is the one that is furthest from being achieved.

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The possibilities of online accreditation

2009-10-06T07:50:00.004-04:00

Yale researchers examine online accreditation
Yale's partnership with tuition-free University of the People will document the hurdles that web-based education must overcome

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor

Read the article here

New E-Textbooks Do More Than Inform: They'll Even Grade You

2009-09-18T15:27:00.003-04:00

I came across this article and wanted to share because this is a hotly debated topic.
There are many who argue against the use of text books based on their high cost. I therefore wonder if this latest attempt by some book publishers is just a means to continue to control the supply of text books.

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Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars

2009-09-11T10:37:00.003-04:00

Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars

By Geoffrey Nunberg

Whether the Google books settlement passes muster with the U.S. District Court and the Justice Department, Google's book search is clearly on track to becoming the world's largest digital library. No less important, it is also almost certain to be the last one. Google's five-year head start and its relationships with libraries and publishers give it an effective monopoly: No competitor will be able to come after it on the same scale. Nor is technology going to lower the cost of entry. Scanning will always be an expensive, labor-intensive project. Of course, 50 or 100 years from now control of the collection may pass from Google to somebody else—Elsevier, Unesco, Wal-Mart. But it's safe to assume that the digitized books that scholars will be working with then will be the very same ones that are sitting on Google's servers today, augmented by the millions of titles published in the interim.

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How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education

2009-08-13T07:38:00.001-04:00

Is a college education really like a string quartet? Back in 1966, that was the assertion of economists William Bowen, later president of Princeton, and William Baumol. In a seminal study, Bowen and Baumol used the analogy to show why universities can't easily improve efficiency.

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Obama Course-Giveaway Backlash?

2009-08-11T10:37:00.004-04:00

The prospects of free courses are causing a stir in the education world.
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Obama Course-Giveaway Backlash?
By Marc Parry

Madison, Wis. – OK, maybe backlash is too strong a word.

But some distance-learning leaders are starting to raise questions and concerns about President Obama’s new online-education proposal, a great-course giveaway that would pump $500-million into freely available Web-based courses.

Are new courses needed? Would students get help working through them? Would their privacy be protected as they use the material? All of those issues came up here during last week’s Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning.

Janet Poley, president of the American Distance Education Consortium, argued that course development wasn’t a “terribly high need.” Many online courses have already been created, she pointed out. Why not start from existing material?

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Be careful what you post online, career counselors warn

2009-08-10T08:51:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) -

People concerned about their careers should be extra careful about what they post on the Internet during a recession, career counselors say.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and other venues present numerous opportunities to sabotage your hunt for a job or promotion at a time when employers can afford to be picky.

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The Rise of Digital Textbooks

2009-07-28T11:14:00.001-04:00

Diverse districts say digital texts are the future; "living textbooks" are part of 21st century learning.

Read more here

The Next Open Source Movement

2009-07-17T10:55:00.004-04:00

Educational institutions continue to embrace open source systems as alternatives to costly commercial systems. Read more here.

Convenience Is the Future

2009-07-13T09:30:00.002-04:00

Monitoring classes on cellphones. Taking courses at multiple colleges. The college students of 2020 are going to demand an education on their terms. Is your college ready? Read the new report, "The College of 2020: Students," from Chronicle Research Services. Click here to read the free executive summary

Personal Learning Environments for Overcoming Knowledge Boundaries between Activity Systems in Emerging Adulthood.

2009-07-11T17:49:00.004-04:00

Stephen Downes posted this article on his blog; OLDaily and I thought it worthwhile to share on my blog:

In this paper we suggest a possible answer to the question on why Social Network Systems (SNSs) are important for bridging social capital and for knowledge construction during emerging adulthood. We argue why web social artefacts 2.0, and particularly those defined as Personal Learning Environments, which consider also SNSs, could be more effective than web artefacts 1.0, such as those defined as Virtual Learning Environments (mainly represented by classical web platforms and web forums), for overcoming knowledge confines between activity systems during transitions in emerging adulthood.

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Whose problem is Digital Divide?

2009-07-02T19:36:00.008-04:00

Source:http://latimes.image2.trb.com

As I mentioned in previous blogs, lately, I have been thinking a lot about the existence of a digital divide. Mainly because I am privy to an abundance of information on how technology is continuing to transform and revolutionize the way we learn. However, globally the majority of world's citizens do not have access to basic necessities, much less educational technology. I was speaking with a fellow education researcher recently and he believes that educators should not be concerned about the existence of a digital divide. His comments left me asking, "whose problem is it anyways?".

About digital divide,Christopher D. Sessums wrote,

"Funding issues for educational technology are not a teacher's problem, right? Many participants in a class I am teaching seem to believe that they must wait for someone else to solve this problem of finding adequate resources to ensure every student has Internet access at home. It is not knowledge of the issues that these teachers lack, but it could be a time and/or leadership constraint. After all, what incentives are there for teachers to work individually or better yet in unison to get community members involved in supporting learning?

In this sense I feel teachers' complacency is part of the reason we have a digital divide--that is, it's not my problem that my kids cannot access the Internet from home."

With teachers these days overly consumed with standardized tests and rigid accountability requirements, is it their responsibility to also fight the battle to eliminate the digital divide that exist?

Technology as important as literacy?

2009-06-28T20:34:00.005-04:00

There are those who argue that exposing children to technology at an early age, is as important as literacy skills and vital to their personal and academic development. I came across this article last week. It speaks to the importance of information technology in the primary school curriculum.

Can We Gauge Technology's Impact on Learning Outcomes?

2009-06-23T12:14:00.001-04:00

The ongoing debate as to the effectiveness of technology use for student learning outcomes still seems to have no clear answers. Recently, some universities have decided to end their laptop programs for students because of the economic challenges facing those institutions. But there is no consistent response as to the effect on students. Some say it has been highly effective for students, and others say that it has not had any significant impact in how students learn.

What is interesting is that there is also no real agreement as to what should be measured or even whether it can be measured in order to quantify success in this regard. Institutions--whether K-12 or higher education--that have adopted technology for instruction, often have little or no systematic methodology in place for instructional technology use or how its success can or should be measured. Rather, the technology use has typically relied upon individual teachers and faculty who have given up time to learn and use new technology and who are always underfunded and unable, as a result, to expand their use to other programs and other instructors for ongoing research.

So technology use remains conflicted between the generalized rollout of hardware and software and the individualized adoption for instruction. What then can be done to truly assess benefits to learning in regards to technology use.

By Ruth Reynard
03/25/09

Read the complete article

What happened to all the talk about digital divide?

2009-06-17T18:58:00.005-04:00

A few years ago the term “Digital Divide” was everywhere. I even joined the bandwagon back in 2003 with my Masters Degree thesis focused on digital divide. It seems that socially conscious researchers have moved away from talking about issues of digital divide. Is it because there is no digital divide anymore? I doubt…

A few weeks ago I met with Don Tapscott and discussed the net generation and his latest book Grown Up Digital. During that discussion I could not help but think about many in North America and globally who belong to the net generation due to age but who have not been exposed to technology because of low socio economics. It seems that an even bigger divide may be happening even though we have moved on to other socially conscious topics like greening.

Global learning content – Is that even possible?

2009-06-15T14:31:00.009-04:00

Photo source: https://sislmc.wikispaces.com/Subjects

It is very obvious that individuals learn differently. Certainly, a lot has been written about this in the past. Click here for information on addressing different learning styles. It is even more obvious that differences exist in learner needs from one country to the next. However, increasingly learning content developers and suppliers are making claims that they produce content for a global audience. Now I am a strong proponent of sharing knowledge globally. Indeed that’s what the open education movement and thus the Open Courseware Consortium is all about. As chair of the membership committee for the Open Courseware Consortium, I certainly do my part to increase access to information globally. However, I am very well aware that the content created for learners in a North American context may not completely fulfill the learning needs of learners in the West Indies and other parts of the world though the subject matter may be the same.

I read this article recently called E-learning on a Global Basis. The author(s) note that launching a global learning strategy is not easy. They go on to state that an effective learning strategy gets all employees — no matter where they’re situated on the globe — on the same page and all working at top efficiency.

In theory this sounds great but I question the need and practicality of a global learning strategy. This is a topic that I will for sure be following up in future blogs.

Classrooms of The Future

2009-06-13T13:15:00.007-04:00

Source:www.woohome.com

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about the classroom of the future. I came across quite a few videos depicting possibilities for the future classroom. I decided to share these with you, not because I agree with the authors but to help demonstrate some of the innovations that may be coming to a classroom near you.

Classroom Of The Future: What's New in Educational Tech

Smart Classroom

Smart Classroom

Students Today

Connected Teachers

Wikis and Blogs? What role do they play in learning?

2009-06-11T22:47:00.008-04:00

We held our weekly ScholarLab team meeting today. Most of our meetings are intended to make sense of the daily overload of information and noise in our very crowded
elearning industry. Today’s meeting was no exception. We chose to discuss the sometimes misunderstood role of wikis and blogs in online learning. This topic was chosen because one of my team members recently returned from a group discussion. The focus of the meeting was integrating wikis and blogs into the online learning environment. He mentioned that the well attended meeting lasted for about two hours with many ‘learning experts’ in attendance. Most of the attendees were adamant that wikis, blogs and other learning 2.0 tools are vital for today’s net generation learners. He questioned some members of the group about their organization’s learning culture, vision, strategy…What he observed was that many rightly saw these tools as a way for learners to collaborate with each other; however their use was not always linked to a specific organizational learning vision or objective.

I generally agree that the way we learn is rapidly changing and tools like wikis and blogs are helping to shape the way we learn. However, like all learning tools, the use of wikis and blogs in a learning environment should be clearly linked to learning objectives. For example, as part of a course, a blog or wiki can we used to complete a specific project, to brainstorm ideas throughout a course, as a reference point for research and documentation and much more. We should always keep in mind that wikis and blogs are merely tools to engage learners and to offer opportunities for creativity and free thinking. They are not in and of themselves the learning experience and therefore their use in an online learning environment should be linked to some form of learning objective.

State of E-Learning in Canada

2009-06-08T08:40:00.002-04:00

Ottawa, May 21, 2009 — A new Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) report offers a unique look at e-learning in Canada, affirming that it holds much promise to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness and prepare Canadians for the demands of the 21st century. However, several issues are constraining the country’s ability to take full advantage of e-learning’s potential.

Read the full report here:

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/Releases/20090514E-Learning.htm

No Future Left Behind

2009-06-08T08:28:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I came across a great video from ‘The Net Gen Education Challenge’ by Don Tapscott. He challenged learners to present their ideas on how we can change the learning experience and in doing so reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness in the 21st century.

This video was submitted by Suffern Middle School in Suffern, New York.

This is a must see!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kra_z9vMnHo

The ideas of the students speak to the need for learning to be more engaging, social, fun and inspiring. It also accurately captures the views of many learners and their need for more challenging learning experiences.

Six Technologies Soon To Affect Education

2009-05-31T17:41:00.001-04:00

The Horizon Report: 2009 K-12 Edition, released earlier this month, identifies and describes six emerging technologies that will have a huge impact on K-12 education within the next one to five years.

The report groups these technologies according to their time-to-adoption horizon--one year or less, two to three years, or four to five years. It also outlines key trends and challenges associated with the their adoption.

Made possible through a grant from Microsoft Corp., the report draws on published resources, current research and practices, and expertise from an advisory board of experts in education and technology. Members include representatives from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), technology vendors, EDUCAUSE, and U.S. school districts and universities.

"This is the first report we have developed with a focus on emerging technologies for elementary and secondary schools, and we hope that K-12 educators will use it as a resource for robust dialog and technology planning," said Larry Johnson, NMC's chief executive. "The technologies we identified have the power to transform teaching and learning both in the short and long term."

The six technologies detailed in the report are...

- One year or less: collaborative environments and online communication tools
- Two to three years: mobile devices and cloud computing
- Four to five years: smart objects and the personal web

Collaborative environments

The report defines this as anything from simple web-based tools for collaborative work to multiplayer gaming environments, and from social-networking platforms to virtual worlds.

Examples of the tools used to create these environments include Voicethread, which allows users to collect multiple voices and viewpoints in a single package, and Ning, which lets teachers set up workspaces that include web feeds to pull in relevant resources, chat spaces (synchronous or asynchronous), forums, profiles, shared documents, calendars, music, and many other tools--all with a few clicks.

The benefit of using these tools, the report states, is to foster teamwork and critical thinking skills. The challenge is for educators to be able to assess these types of skills in real time.

Online communication tools

According to the report, these tools make it easy for students to move past the classroom walls and connect with their peers around the world, as well as with experts in the fields they are studying. Access to these tools gives students an opportunity to experience learning in multiple ways, develop a public voice, and compare their own ideas with those of their peers.

Tools mentioned in the report include Twitter, Skype, and Edmodo, a private micro-blogging platform that gives teachers and students a sheltered place to manage classroom assignments and activities as well as engage in protected conversations.

Mobile devices

Over the past few years, the report notes, smart phones and other mobile devices have become able to record audio and video, store more information, and access the web--making mobiles function like laptops.

"The combination of available applications and a device that [students] can carry provides an opportunity to introduce students to tools for study and time management that will help them later in life," says the report. "The implications for K-12 education are dramatic: the potential for mobile gaming and simulation, research aids, field work, and tools for learning of all kinds is there, awaiting development."

Cloud computing

This is a term for networked computers that distribute processing power and applications among many machines. Applications such as Flickr, Google Docs, and YouTube use a cloud as their platform, just as programs on a desktop computer use that single computer as a platform.

According to the report, cloud-based applications can provide students and teachers with free or low-cost alternatives to expensive, proprietary productivity tools. eMail, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, collaboration, media editing, and more can be done from a web browser, while the software and files reside in the cloud.

Smart objects

A smart object, as defined by the report, is "any physical object that includes a unique identifier that can track information about the object." The object can connect the physical world with the world of information. Smart objects can be used to manage physical things digitally, track them throughout their lifespan, and annotate them with descriptions, opinions, instructions, warranties, tutorials, photographs, and so on.

School libraries, for example, can use smart objects for tracking their collections and checking materials in and out. According to the report, some libraries are investigating further applications for smart objects: A project called ThinkeringSpaces, from the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design, "combines physical and virtual components to produce an environment where physical objects, like books, can be annotated with contextual information that is added manually or retrieved automatically."

Smart objects have recently become cheap for students and teachers to create, using Quick Response (QR) tags and smart-code stickers. Web services such as Shotcode and Kaywa let anyone encode QR tags and print them out. Products like Tikitag and Violet's Mir:ror allow users to attach scannable stickers to household objects.

The personal web

This is a term to describe a collection of technologies "that confer the ability to recognize, configure, and manage online content, rather than just viewing it," the report says. Personal-web technologies give users the ability to sort, display, and even build upon web content according to their personal needs and interests.

According to the report, simple tools to create customized, web-based environments to support social and academic activities are easily available today, but their use in schools is severely hampered by access and filtering policies.

Along with a more fully developed discussion of the relevance of each technology to education, the report also gives examples of how the technology is being--or could be--applied in education. And it notes that two themes arose repeatedly during discussions of these technologies: assessment and filtering.

"Assessment continues to present a challenge to educators at all levels, particularly in the context of new media and collaborative work; evaluating student work that includes blogs, podcasts, and videos, or establishing how much an individual student contributed to or learned from a collaborative project, is difficult," the report explains. "Further, translating assessments of this nature into the metrics measured by standardized tests is not at all straightforward."

Continued the report: "Likewise, the practice of filtering is intimately related to each of these topics. At many schools today, the technologies named here cannot be used because they are blocked by content filters. The advisory board recognized the need for new [filtering tools] that do a better job of keeping objectionable content out of the way, while allowing useful tools and content to be accessed."

Other challenges to the adoption of these technologies in schools include the fundamental structure of the K-12 establishment, which is slow to adapt to new trends.

The full report is available on the NMC web site. The CoSN web site also features an online forum dedicated to an ongoing discussion about the report.

"For education leaders, this report is extremely valuable and critical to making sure that school districts are integrating technological tools that will have maximum impact," said Karen Greenwood Henke, CoSN board liaison. "Having a grasp on up-and-coming technologies empowers technology leaders to plan for the future and keep their students, educators, and administrators on the cutting edge."

Get more information at:
/http://www.educationinthenews.ca/2009/04/six-technologies-soon-to-affect.html

Corporate Social Media: Here to stay?

2009-05-22T08:56:00.000-04:00

Increasingly, corporations are experimenting with social media. They are using this type of corporate engagement to advertise their products and services, and also connect with customers and various audiences globally. Some are even using social media to communicate with employees, to collaborate on projects and to share ideas on every facet of the business.

Here are some examples of how companies are using social media.
http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/corporate-social-media/

The author of social media review, Aaron Uhrmacher notes that “there are no rules to what form of engagement to take”. In my opinion, if your organization is considering social media, be very aware of your corporate culture and have clear objectives. Many of these initiatives fail because “leaders” do not see the value and believe that the costs out way the benefits.

Problem: Long Online Courses, Solution: Shorter Modules

2009-05-17T09:43:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had to sit through a two, three or even four hour online course?

Well, you are not alone. Long online courses are quite the norm. It is customary for educational institutions and corporations to request that learners sit through a lengthy course in order to quickly complete a learning objective. However, after about 30 minutes or so of paying careful attention to the course material, the average person begins to wonder off. We can’t help it this is really just the way the brain works. So, as we click from one screen to the next, we continue to pay some attention to the content but get easily distracted by other thoughts as time passes. At the end of the course how much was retained? It’s hard to say.

I recommend that online learning content be broken up into carefully developed independent modules that are about 30 minutes long.

Dr. Carl Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who directs a science education initiative at the University of British Columbia noted that the human brain “can hold a maximum of about seven different items in its short-term working memory and can process no more than about four ideas at once.”

So you must be wondering, just how does a three hour course become chunks of thirty minute modules? This can be challenging but the key is to have clearly defined learning objectives and to let the learning objectives dictate the content of each module. The goal is to have one or two learning objectives covered in each module.

Book recommendation:
How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school
By John Bransford, Ann L. Brown, National Research Council (U.S.)
Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning, Rodney R. Cocking, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice

What's not so right with online learning

2009-05-14T19:57:00.000-04:00

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing about the challenges with online learning and exploring some solutions.

If you have ever taken an online course, then I am sure you will have lots to say.
I have had my share of poor online learning experiences. So, join me in the discussion.

Focus on education and training to prepare for better times

2009-05-11T14:26:00.000-04:00

Various provincial governments, over the next few weeks, will be finalizing their 2009-10 budgets. The question uppermost in their minds will be how best to assist their residents to cope with the current economic downturn.
My recommendation to each of the finance ministers would be to focus on education and training as their number one spending priority. Such a shift in focus would better prepare Canada to emerge from this recession with the most productive, innovative, and competitive workforce in the world.

More and more people are either seeing their jobs disappear or are feeling more and more vulnerable to the vagaries of the economic slowdown. It is imperative that we do everything in our power to provide them, as well as our young people who will be graduating into a period of reduced job prospects, with the opportunities for continuing education and training which will lead to even more productive employment down the road. Such a shift in focus, of course, will also require a shift in thinking, from the accepted belief in the importance of full and part-time employment to one of the importance of full and part-time education and training.
Such an education-based workplace revolution will require the full and coordinated cooperation of businesses, unions, educational institutions, and governments. Management and labour must make worker education and training a higher priority in collective bargaining agreements. If businesses cannot afford retraining workers as an alternative to retrenchment, they may at least be able to offer factory floors, office space, and hands-on instructors for training programs operated by educational and training institutions.

Most importantly, provincial governments, to whom our constitution grants jurisdiction over education, must make the difficult but necessary decision to assign education and training spending an even higher priority during recessionary times than in the past.
Where will the money come from?

You will note that in each province far more dollars are spent on health care than on education, with health care alone now consuming around 40% or more of the total budgets of Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and BC, and educational expenditures accounting for less than 15% of the total budgets of PEI, New Brunswick, Ontario (yes, Ontario), Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

When these figures and percentages are plotted over time, they show spiralling health-care spending progressively “eating up” provincial budgets to the point where other vitally important social service functions such as education and training are starved for funding. We simply cannot allow this trend to continue.
Of course, a shift in hundreds of millions of dollars from health care to education and training raises the question, how will we achieve and maintain high-quality health care?
The answer for Canada lies in finally biting the bullet and doing what most of the other industrialized countries in the world (including the European Union but with the exception of the US) have done, and that is establish a well-balanced two-track health-care system, providing for both public and private health-care insurance, delivery, and financing.
Before I am accused of using an increase in continuing education and training funding as a backdoor attack on public health care as practiced in Canada, it is best to remember that numerous comparative studies, by the OECD and Canadian think tanks, have demonstrated that two track health-care systems outperform the Canadian health-care system in virtually every category of health-care outcomes. And if President Obama adds public health-care insurance to the current American health-care system, the U.S. will also have a two-track system, leaving Canada even more out of sync.
While there is room for legitimate debate as to what should be the relationship between public and private health-care tracks, and what must be done to maintain high standards of care in both, those are the questions we should be debating rather than whether private health-care insurance, delivery, and financing should be permitted and encouraged.
To offer hundreds of thousands of Canadians productive educational and training opportunities as an alternative to unproductive and disheartening unemployment requires provincial governments to make education and training their number one spending priority. To do that requires major reforms in health-care financing and spending which heretofore has consumed an ever increasing share of provincial budgets. Which provincial government will take the lead in making this important and necessary transition?

By Preston Manning
President and CEO
Manning Centre for Building Democracy
Troy Media Corporation

2009-05-10T09:32:00.000-04:00

I am a member of 'The Canadian Consortium of Technology Support Providers for Adult Basic Understanding'.

The consortium describes itself as "A proposed network of organizations, groups and
individuals interested in maximizing the potential of
technology assisted delivery to address the adult basic
education needs of learners across Canada".

In 2008, the consortium conducted a SWOT analysis of online learning for adult learners in Canada. “SWOT” analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)

Here are some of the results:

Strengths: Good existing on-line resources and strong providers
Creative and engaged practitioners
Established literacy community in Canada
Some government support
Well educated population and workforce
Increasing access to computers
A major area of interest
Innate advantages of on-line learning

Weaknesses: Slow connections in some areas
Access to computers for some learner groups
Lack of critical mass for software developers
Copyright restrictions
Jurisdictional issues
Disparities among provinces, locations and groups
Lack of stable core funding
No systematic framework for professional development
Limited resources for special needs learners
Need for research and evaluation

Opportunities:Harvesting and networking of resources
Partnering and collaboration
Networking and communication through the Web
Technological advances
Proliferation of free on-line resources
National leadership
Addressing individual needs of diverse learners

Threats: Loss of funding
Provincial or sectoral silos
Sustainability issues
Changes in government policy
Canadian Consortium of Technology Support Providers for Adult Basic Education
Digital rights management and commercialization
Competitive culture re: funding
Rapid changes in technology and obsolescence

Top 5 challenges in teaching and learning

2009-05-07T11:23:00.000-04:00

After months of spirited discussion, the EDUCAUSE community has identified their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology.

1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
2. Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty.
3. Reaching and engaging today's learner.
4. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with technology.
5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts.

Read more at http://www.educause.edu/eli/Challenges

Education is now the number one economic priority

2009-05-04T08:50:00.000-04:00

By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute

“Education is now the number one economic priority
in today's global economy.” - John Naisbitt, Author of Megatrends

Transition from Teaching to Learning

Education has traditionally consisted of the two fundamental elements of teaching and learning, with a heavy emphasis on teaching.

Throughout history, the transfer of information from the teacher to the learner has been done on a person-to-person basis. A teacher stands in front of a room and imparts the information for a student to learn. Because this approach requires the teacher to be an expert on every topic that they teach, this is referred to as the “sage on stage” form of education.

While lecture-style teaching has been used for centuries to build today’s literate and competent society, it ends up being a highly inefficient system, in many respects, the “equivalent of using Roman numerals.” For any new topic to be taught, a new expert needs to be created, and this universal need for more and more experts has become a serious chokepoint for learning.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at the example of a new topic that cannot be taught because the expert on this topic lives on the other side of the world. A teacher-dependent education system is also time-dependent, location-dependent, and situation-dependent. The teachers act as a control valve, turning on or off the flow of information.

The education system of the future will undergo a transition from a heavy emphasis on teaching to a heavy emphasis on learning. Experts will create the courseware and the students will learn anytime or anywhere at a pace that is comfortable for them, learning about topics that they are interested in.

In the future, teachers will transition from topic experts to a role in which they act more as guides and coaches.

2.) Exponential Growth of Information

During the time of Gutenberg, people tended to live and die within 20 miles of where they were born, not because they were afraid to travel, but because they had no reliable maps. People during this era had a very limited understanding of the world around them. The flow of information was controlled by just a few elite members of society, and they understood well the concept of knowledge equaling power.

We have gone from that time, just 500 years ago, where information was precious and few, to today, a time where information is so plentiful that we feel like we are drowning in it - information overload.

However, we still see many of the same “information control” issues permeating society today. Elite members of society still control the flow of information, perpetuating the notion that only doctors can understand medicine, only physicists can understand how the universe works, and only teachers know how to prepare us for the world to come.

There are many ways to talk about the rapid growth of information that we have experienced over the past few years. But it is important to pay attention to the changing dimensions of information as well as the sheer volume of it. Information is no longer just text-based, but graphical, musical, audio and visual.

Consider the following statistics

* The number of songs available on iTunes – over 3.5 million.
* The number of books on Amazon – over 4 million.
* The number of blogs available online – over 60 million.
* The number of entries on Wikipedia – over 4 million.
* The number of user accounts on MySpace – over 100 million
* The number of videos on YouTube – over 6.1 million

3.) Courseware Vacuum

After viewing the data above and thinking about the size and shape of information around the world, now consider the number of courses available, either online or in a classroom.

Information is exploding around us in every possible form. Yet, we do not have an easy way to translate these blocks of information into courseware. While some attempts are currently being made to unleash the public on this problem, we remain a long ways from solving the problem.

Open Education Movement - The open-education movement was inspired by the open-source software movement (i.e. Linux). It mixes in the powerful communication abilities of the Internet and applies the result to teaching and learning materials, such as course notes and textbooks. Open educational materials include text, images, audio, video, interactive simulations, and games that are free to be used and also re-used in new ways by anyone around the world.

It is estimated that more than 150 well-intentioned initiatives have been launched in this area. Over time, the increasing levels of attention and activity will cause one initiative to stand out and become the “industry leader.” This leader will, by default, set the standards for everyone that follows.

Some open-education projects are already attracting a large number of users per month. Some, like the MIT OpenCourseWare project and its OCW Consortium, are top-down organized institutional repositories that showcase their institutions’ courses. Others, like Rice University’s Connexions, Wikiversity, and Moodle are grassroot efforts that encourage contributions from all comers.

* MIT OpenCourseWare makes the course materials that are used in the teaching of almost all MIT’s 1,400 undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. MIT now claims 1.4 million visits per month from learners "in every single country on the planet.”
* The OpenCourseWare Consortium is an extension of what MIT began. Students don't have to register for classes but need only to log on to more than 1,800 potential courses at 12 universities that provide the course materials such as syllabi, video or audio lectures, notes, homework assignments, and illustrations.
* Connexions claims more than one million people from 194 countries are tapping into its 3,768 modules and 199 courses developed by a worldwide community of authors.
* Wikiversity is a division of Wikipedia serving as a community for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. Wikiversity is a multidimensional social organization dedicated to learning, teaching, research and service. Its primary goals are to create and host free content, multimedia learning materials, resources, and curricula for all age groups in all languages.
* Moodle is a course management system using a free, Open Source software package designed to help educators create effective online learning communities. Moodle claims over 20,000 participating sites listing over 820,000 courses.
* Curriki.org is an education development resource with over 3,000 members and 450 courses in development.

While we applaud these efforts, there are some critical elements missing. The learning system of the future will have a single access point for all of its courses. Moodle is claiming over 820,000 courses but they are spread over 20,000 sites and many courses are duplicates. We estimate the number of unique and different courses to be less than 50,000, not in the millions like the number of available books and songs.

Using books as a close analogy, it can be argued that every available book has the potential of being translated into courseware and, most often, multiple courses. There are currently far more topics discussed in books than there are courses to teach the material. This leaves an obvious courseware vacuum waiting to be filled, and the key to unlocking this vacuum is the participative courseware-builder described below.

4.) Expanding Gulf Between Literates and Super-Literates

According to the New York Times, there are an additional 20,000 new words added to the English language every year. The primary driver behind this ever-expanding dimension of vocabulary is the ongoing development of science and technology.

Along with the creation of new science and technology comes the need to explain its attributes, its function in technical terms, and its overall purpose. New words and their associated colloquialisms help create meaning and structure around the emerging new concepts as they attract more research and come into focus.

Young students can learn new words quickly: on average, 3,000 new words each year, which works out to 8 words a day. This, of course varies significantly from one student to the next.

In the English language, the 2,000 most frequently used words account for 80-85 percent of the words used in non-specialized written texts and about 90-95 percent in conversational speech.

However, the total number of words in the English language tops out around one million words, and the vocabulary of some of our most gifted scientist and engineers tops out around 200,000 words.

The distance between the functionally literate and the super literate is growing. Some people who have become expert on a specific topic have pushed the envelope of understanding far beyond the comprehension of the rest of the world. And in doing so, have created whole new vocabularies to describe the concepts and phenomenon they encountered. These super experts often live in a research community where they are often the only living person who truly understands the topic of their research.

Until now the primary tool for these super literates to pass along their understanding of research to future generations has been through papers that are published in technical journals. Because of the rigid requirements for publication, these papers often take months to compose, and are written in a vocabulary few can comprehend.

An alternative to publishing papers will soon be the creation of courseware. While developing courseware in the past has been laborious and poorly utilized, the new courseware builder described below has the potential to change all that. Courseware will become an alternative to publishing papers or writing books, and will serve as an additional channel for the super literates to disseminate their understanding of the world.

Drop Out Nation

2009-04-30T07:52:00.000-04:00

I listened to a great conversation about why students drop out of school.
The speakers reiterated that students drop out of school because they are bored.

Please listen to the conversation at:

http://www.educasting.org/Dropout_Nation

‘No Child’ Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap

2009-04-29T07:18:00.000-04:00

Historically, in many societies, exclusionary practices in education have prevented certain disadvantaged members of society from obtaining the type of education required to improve their socio-economic well being. People of color, women and the disabled have all been prone to various types and levels of discrimination.

Fast forward to present day society and evidence shows a continued trend of disadvantage for many racial groups. Here is a link to a recent publication by the New York Times.

Your thoughts?

Link to New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/education/29scores.html

Creating our futures

2009-04-26T19:17:00.000-04:00

The 2020 Forecast illuminates how we are shifting toward a culture of creation in which each of us has the opportunity – and the responsibility – to make our collective future. People are creating new selves, organizations, systems, societies, economies, and knowledge.

We are seeing “educitizens” define their rights as learners and re-create the civic sphere. Networked artisans and ad hoc factories are democratizing manufacturing and catalyzing new local economies. These creators are highlighting the significance of cooperation and cross-cultural intelligence for citizenship and economic leadership.

Furthermore, advances in neuroscience are creating new notions of performance and cognition and are reshaping discussions of social justice in learning. Communities are beginning to re-create themselves as resilient systems that respond to challenges by replenishing their vital resources and creating flexible, open, and adaptive infrastructures.

http://www.futureofed.org/forecast/

Together, these forces are pushing us to create the future of learning as an ecosystem, in which we have yet to determine the role of educational institutions as we know them today.

Globalization and education

2009-04-26T14:33:00.000-04:00

The issue of globalization and its impact on world citizens has become one of the most debated topics of the 21st century. Proponents of globalization tout this movement as a modern catalyst that drives economic, social and political advancement for countries that respond to the call to integrate world economies. Critics argue that, though globalization may have some benefits, these benefits are not transferred equally to all members of society. They further affirm that globalization serves the interests of the elite and negatively impacts historically disadvantaged members of society.

In the past, debates over globalization and its impact have typically occurred among members of society responsible for changes to socio-economic policy and those citizens who took exception to these modifications. Today, however, this debate has increasingly become main stream and ordinary citizens are being forced to take sides. Specifically, parents, students and educators are often encouraged to take a stance on globalization. Supporters of globalization urge them to choose an education system that teaches students the skills needed to serve as members of the global work force, whereas critics of globalization urge them to favor an education system that places emphasis on social literacy and democracy. The choices made by educators, parents and students in this regard will significantly influence the future of the public education system and, in the process, redefine society.

2009-04-25T11:16:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the future of learning.