MOOCs: Promise and peril
In his second blog post, UBC Professor of Asian Studies Edward Slingerland looks at the benefits of sharing MOOC content, and the potential downsides this could bring about.
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The accidental MOOC-er
Unlike many, if not most, in the digital learning community, I stumbled into it more or less by accident. About a year ago I was approached by the Deans and asked whether or not I would be interested in applying to develop a lecture course I’ve long been teaching at UBC, Asia/Phil 371 "Foundations of Chinese Thought," as one of UBC’s first humanities MOOCs.
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Flexibility and the teacher-learner-institution triad
The term flexible learning is bandied about a lot these days, but what does it really mean? Does it signify a brave new transformation in approach and practice for teaching, learning and education, and if so, what kind of transformation is it?
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Time waits for no one
Gartner calls it the trough of disillusionment: “Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver..."
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Place of mind learning
Today’s Vancouver Sun has an article by Yvonne Zacharias on CIBT Education Group‘s plans to convert a 17 story luxury hotel in downtown Vancouver into international student housing.
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Fusion courses: A new twist on lifelong education
The traditional idea behind lifelong education is that as individuals progress through their lives they continue to return to school in some form to learn.
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How much active learning is enough?
A couple of weeks ago I went to a parents’ information session at our kid’s school. When I walked into the room it was set up with round tables, half a dozen chairs at each table, and worksheets.
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THE, US News and LinkedIn?
It’s ranking season, and Alex Usher had another post today about problems with ranking methodologies. There are many complaints about the rankings, but nonetheless colleges and universities take them seriously.
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EdX and professional education
EdX just announced its latest initiative, in which they will offer Professional Education courses.
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Blurring and Pearson
A recent article in Slate describes a situation in which students in two different US schools – a college and a university – are taking two different online psychology courses, from two different instructors. Sounds like a relatively ordinary situation.
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