change in higher education
Memorandum of Understanding OCWC ICDE 2013
The OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) and the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) signed on 8 May, 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding between the two global associations.
The signature took place during a ceremony at the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC) Global Conference 2013 at Bali, Indonesia.
With this agreement, ICDE and OCWC enter into closer cooperation in recognition of their mutual interest in expanded access to high quality higher education through open and distance education.
Both parties undertake to explore opportunities in the following areas:
- Mutual promotion of activities.
- Joint regional conference.
- Explore a joint initiative to support policy discussion and development facilitating open and distance education at governmental and institutional levels.
- Joint membership services.
- Opportunities to have synergy in projects, for example in giving attention to and promote "flagship projects".
The Next Game Changer: The Historical Antecedents of the MOOC Movement in Education
Though the history of massive open online courses is very short, scholars can gain insights by looking at similar movements in the past. This paper examines several historical moments in education to develop an understanding of MOOCs and their future.
Specifically, this paper explores two developments that resemble the discourse surrounding MOOCs—the emergence of studia particulare and generale in medieval Europe and the monitorial educational systems of the early nineteenth century. It also looks at several other educational innovations that have been seen as disruptive to the status quo of education. These include land-grant institutions in the United States in addition to the University Without Walls and open education movements of the 1960s and 1970s. These previous movements are very instructive as proponents of MOOC educational systems develop strategies for promoting MOOCs and giving them lasting resonance in the digital age.
ICELW
ICELW works to improve online learning so that it makes a measurable difference in workplace performance and morale. Anyone with an interest or background in workplace eLearning is invited to attend and participate in the conference, which will take place in New York City from the 12-14 of June 2013.
The ICELW program cover a variety of topics relating to e-learning in the workplace and the use of technology to improve job performance, in the form of demonstrations, mini-seminars, case studies, interviews, debates, presentations, and panel discussions.
Book about Personalized Learning Environments - "Entornos personales de aprendizaje: claves para el ecosistema educativo en red"
Linda Castañeda and Jordi Adell are the editors of "Entornos personales de aprendizaje: claves para el ecosistema educativo en red", a book about personalized learning environments (PLE) published under a Creative Commons licence.
The book (only available in Spanish) aims to give the reader an introduction to the concept of PLE ecosystem and the pedagogical ideas underpinning it. It also shares some relevant experiences that exemplify how it can be used in all levels of education and how research is approached from different PLEs perspectives.
The publication includes texts of experienced educators and researchers, such as Jesús Salinas, Oskar Casquero, Ricardo Torres Kompen, Cristina Costa, Ismael Peña-López, Lola Urbano, J. Daniel García, Fernando Trujillo Sáez, David Álvarez, Juan Sánchez, Francisco Fernández, Victoria Marín, Carlos Santos, Luis Pedro, Ana Isabel Vázquez-Martínez, Mª Paz Prendes, Alec Couros, Gráinne Conole and Graham Attwell.
19th EUNIS Congress - ICT Role for Next Generation Universities
The 19th edition of the EUNIS Congress is an ICT conference centered on the theme of higher education in Europe, which will be held in Riga (Latvia) from the 11-14 of June 2013.
EUNIS 2013 is the 19th congress in a series of conferences aimed at audiences from higher educational institutes. The following keynote speeches will be the centerpiece of this year's event:
- Richard Katz (President at Richard N. Katz & Associates) -
- "IT Leadership and Governance for Next Generation University"
- Voldemar A. Innus (Owner and principal of VAI Consulting, Pendleton, NY, USA) -
- "Innovation, incubation and the future of ICT in support of the academic mission"
- Ian Dolphin (Executive Director at Sakai Foundation)
- "The CIO and Finding the Future Technology Ecosystem Fit For Your Organization"
- Dr.Jan-Martin Lowendahl (Research Vice President at Gartner, Higher Education Strategies)
- "Opening Up Education – The European Commission initiative towards more ICT and OER in Education and Training Systems in Europe"
- Ricardo Ferreira (Policy Officer at European Commission)
- "Technological Tools for distance Collaborations"
- Greg Palmer (Executive Director at University of Pennsylvania, MAGPI (the Mid-Atlantic Gigapop in Philadelphia for Internet2))
- "Current status of Open Source and Kuali for administrative systems and the “Marketecture of Community”"
- Jennifer L. Foutty (Executive Director at Kuali Foundation)
- "Management Trends in Educational Institutions"
- Greg Mathers (RTU Riga Business School,Director of Accel Performance Consulting)
- "TERENA initiatives and the future of online video in Higher Education"
- Vicente Goyanes (Head of IT-Media technical assistance for University of Vigo & Campus do Mar, member of the TERENA Technical Committee and the Opencast Boarda)
Perspectives on Open and Distance Learning: Open Educational Resources: Innovation, Research and Practice
“Perspectives on Open and Distance Learning: Open Educational Resources: Innovation, Research and Practice” is one in a series of publications by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) examining Open Educational Resources (OER).
The book, initiated by the UNESCO/COL Chair in OER, describes the movement in detail, providing readers with insight into OER’s significant benefits, its theory and practice, and its achievements and challenges.
The 16 chapters of the volume, published in May 2013, have been written by some of the leading international experts on the subject and are organised into four parts by theme:
- OER in Academia: describes how OER are widening the international community of scholars, following MIT’s lead in sharing its resources and looking to the model set by the OpenCourseWare Consortium
- OER in Practice: presents case studies and descriptions of OER initiatives underway on three continents
- Diffusion of OER: discusses various approaches to releasing and “opening” content, from building communities of users that support lifelong learning to harnessing new mobile technologies that enhance OER access on the Internet
- Producing, Sharing and Using OER: examines the pedagogical, organisational, personal and technical issues that producing organisations and institutions need to address in designing, sharing and using OER
TEL-Map project survey about technology supported, innovative learning practices
The TEL-Map European project, funded by the European Commission, has launched a survey about technology supported, innovative learning practices.
TEL-Map is a Coordination and Support Action focussing on roadmapping activities for innovative forms of learning. A roadmap can be understood as a ‘strategic lens’, through which future developments in a domain or an organisation are analysed for the purpose of channelling available resources wisely.
The aim of this new survey is to collect the views of teaching professionals to inform future roadmapping activities by probing certain statements with regards to their likelihood, desirability and – when it comes to policy measures – their feasibility.
There is no need to be an expert in all areas addressed to answer the survey, as the objective of TEL-Map is to get feedback from people with as diverse backgrounds as possible.
Question blocks have been created for each of the following innovative practices:
- Gamification: using game mechanics and elements of game design in non-game contexts in order to motivate learning. Controversial issues evolve around 'hunting for points as a distraction of learning', neglect of demographic particularities, availability of gamification strategies.
- Free Massive Open Online Course: bringing existing courses to an extended audience by driving technological and economical innovation. Controversial issues evolve around funding models, accreditation, high attrition rates and possible ways of highly automated learner support.
- Flipped classroom: inverting classroom situations so that the lecture part is moved from school to home and the exercise part takes place at school. Controversial issues evolve around managing differences between learners being more or less successful doing their homework, which requires fundamentally new types of in-class activities.
- Seamless Learning (Ubiquitous Learning): obliterating borders between different technologies and learning formats such as formal and informal learning or individual and social learning. Controversial issues evolve around the ownership of learning tools and data generated by learners' activities, or the potentially invasive character of learning technologies to the detriment of a balanced life style.