Teaching and learning in higher ed have advanced incrementally alongside rapid changes in technology. Is it time for some radical shifts?
Students are moving away from their institutions in terms of their online “center.” They engage independently in learning conversations using applications of their own choosing, and they create their own digital identity--all without using campus-based technology.
As information technology brings us a mind-numbing array of options for mobile learning experiences and communications, an age-old tension between two different visions of learning--content delivery versus discovery learning--intensifies. Along with this, our modern discussions of “student-centered learning” are moving into a more strategic realm.
In the high-intensity world of student prospecting, everyone is looking for a competitive edge--but one of the greatest "edges" you can have is to simply understand what prospective students want, need, and expect and align your actions accordingly. Prospecting expert Michael O'Hara suggests four strategies colleges and universities can adopt to increase success related to prospective students.
At the CT2010 Executive Summit on July 19 in Boston, the morning session was dedicated to a scan of the IT environment in higher education; the afternoon would focus participants’ attention on leadership issues. Discussions suggested that the trend to exclude top IT leaders from the president’s inner strategic circle was premature and perhaps ill advised. And that CIOs who represent their jobs as primarily or exclusively maintaining IT operations may be missing significant national trends and changes.
It is time to ask what outcomes we are looking for from education. Why are our “outcomes” now only about how well a student does in courses? Wouldn’t it be better if students were evaluated on their evidence of learning, and wouldn’t that kind of evaluation have more to do with real life?
Though centralized PC labs have been an important part of both campus space planning and IT infrastructure for the last two decades, this may be changing.
The Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) had its first world conference this last week in Boston, co-located with Campus Technology 2010. The group of learning and assessment experts is organized around its members' interest in ePortfolios.
Defining appropriate room characteristics can simplify classroom design and improve the chances of its success as a teaching and learning space.
The usual criticism of new media in our culture is that the media is making us less able to write well, less inclined to read texts longer than a paragraph, less social or unable to concentrate. A far greater danger is obfuscation....