The midden

These 2 posts (Part 1 and Part 2) by Tony Bates, consider the need for change in Higher Education and the role that technology has in supporting that change.
In reading Part 1, the current 19th Century industrial model of education that universities still cling on to is all too familiar.  While many will see what [...]

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One of the highlights of ALT-C this year.

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One of the characteristics of HE teaching is that lecturers tend to teach in the way they were taught when they were undergraduates.  So if they were taught by inspirational teachers who saw the value of teaching, they are more likely to focus on inspiring their own students. If they were taught by lecturers who [...]

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Billed as “a resource for educators planning to incorporate technologies in their teaching and learning activities”, this handbook written by George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger at the University of Manitoba,  is a lot more than this. It starts from the premise that Higher Education, whether individual institutions know it or not, is in the midst [...]

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While this handbook from futurelab is aimed at promoting discussion around the nature and purpose of innovation in schools, much of the evidence, ideas and recommendations it presents are equally valid for HE.
Transformative innovation is radical and challenging. It is the kind of innovation that challenges our assumptions about how we do things and causes [...]

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Half an Hour: The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On

This posting by Stephen Downes provides a useful summary of where we are at now and how we got here. He re-visits a previous article written in 1998, noting that many of his earlier predictions have been remarkably accurate. The main areas he discusses include:

new [...]

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Does this say it all? Why do we undervalue education so much? Why are league tables, saving money and statistics more important than learning?
“Education, education, education” – 11 years of Labour and 11 years of Tory policy to show for it!
What a con!
This report was published on the BBC News website [...]

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