A session that I’m running this afternoon:
Tech Enhanced Pedagogy & Assessment
View more presentations from Bex Lewis.
RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms (Ken Robinson)
December 16, 2011 Leave a Comment
A really interesting video (using the beautiful RSA Animate style), which takes Sir Ken Robinson, arguing that the education system is no longer suitable for the modern day:
The video was suggested by Clare Killen at the #jiscel11 conference.
Seize the global day @timeshighered #altc2011
September 16, 2011 Leave a Comment
We live in a connected global environment, Graeme Harper says, so why does the sector act like it’s 1911, not 2011?
A really interesting post, which identifies with the paper that John Naughton gave at ALTC2011. Is the HE sector in danger of making itself redundant?
In higher education, you would think this would often determine our activities and institutions’ formal policies regarding teaching and research. Given that the sector is meant to be the site of educated leadership, that would make perfect, appropriate sense. However, in so many instances this turns out not to be the case. What we find instead are outmoded, outdated, inward-looking policies that suggest not a higher purpose to what we are doing, but rather a determination to support systems of nation-state education and exchange that do not match the world we are living in and that deny the interconnected daily exchanges with which most of us are now so familiar.
Such a statement is, of course, a generalisation: undeniably there are instances of higher education institutions embracing the 21st-century global. But why then do we continue to deliver so much university education as if much of the world were not linkable 24/7 by contemporary technology? Why have we built entire campuses in other parts of the world to export what are largely national attitudes to higher education? Is this purely market opportunism, or do the imperialist overtones hide something more altruistic, more humanly valuable? Regardless, is any of this the best we can do to lead the world in delivering the most advanced forms of education?
Worth reading the full story.
Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Media and Implications for Learning and Teaching
May 8, 2011 Leave a Comment
Interesting interview with Henry Jenkins, from edutopia. He debunks the idea of digital natives/immigrants, and says that students/staff are brought together in strong communities around passions.
Don’t be afraid to share @timeshighered
October 14, 2010 1 Comment
Social media allow users to share information about themselves and their interests. Sarah Cunnane examines their role in the academy
Do “too many tweets make a twat”, as David Cameron maintains? Are social media becoming an increasingly useful and powerful force in higher education, or, as Bill Gates predicts, will they cause the death of the academy?
The experts seem to be divided not only on social media’s future, but also on their present in terms of their use by academics, and the research that has been done has reached contradictory conclusions. A survey of UK institutions conducted by online consultants Jadu shows a high level of use among academics, with more than 70 per cent of respondents using social media in some way. However, statistics from the US Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, undertaken by Indiana University Bloomington in spring 2009, suggest that take-up is extremely low. Of the academics who responded, 79 per cent claimed never to have used collaborative editing software such as wikis or Google Docs, while 84 per cent said they had never viewed a blog, let alone written one.
Which survey gives the true picture? Can it really be the case that more than three-quarters of academics have had no exposure to or contact with the social-media explosion?
Read full story, and continue to read ‘Face Values‘ re: NOT oversharing on Facebook
Participatory Media for Education
August 13, 2010 1 Comment
Social Media in the Classroom
November 23, 2009 Leave a Comment
“With the rise of Web 2.0 social media has exploded on the internet. It permeates almost every aspect of your internet experience. The biggest question here is how can we utilize social media to enhance our online and offline lives? I have always been interested in how social media can help teachers and students achieve more value and enjoy a greater, more interactive learning experience. Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed are just a few of the most popular social sites out there. The need for collaboration in the classroom and, indeed the real world work environment is and has been increasing at an exponential rate. In looking at the wide range of uses for these and other sites, two questions come to mind. Are we able to use these applications as tools for learning? What is the future of social media in an educational environment? For brevity’s sake, we will focus on three distinct applications of web 2.0, Delicious, Twitter and the new Google Wave. These will be used as an outline to show how social media can and is being used in the classroom.”
Read full essay.
“An iPod for each pupil … will help school to stay in touch”
November 9, 2009 Leave a Comment
“A pioneering school is staking a claim to make its pupils among the most technologically advanced in Britain.
The oldest students at the Essa Academy in Bolton have each been issued with an iPod Touch. Next month all 900 children and their teachers will have one of the handheld computers, worth £149 each.
A bespoke wi-fi system, with 130 access points around the school, means that children never lose connectivity. If teachers are pleased with a piece of work, they can ask a child to e-mail it to them and, using laptops and a projector, display it on a wall or screen to show the class. They can also annotate it with a handwriting function.
But more is to come. Next spring work will begin to upgrade the school. It will have a 3-D audio visual theatre, writeable glass walls instead of whiteboards and Britain’s first zero-carbon classroom, made from reclaimed materials and generating its own heat and power.”
Read full story in The Times.
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