In what is probably the first public “rejection letter” handed to the heretofore uncriticized MOOC phenomenon, Amherst College has said “No thanks” to joining the non-profit platform, edX. The piece at Inside Higher Ed offers some of the reasons why faculty voted down the prospect after months of negotiations with edX. They’re worth listing out… Read more »
MOOCs
Problematizing the MOOC
The experience of participating in the Intro to Philosophy MOOC over the past two weeks has my ed-tech brain buzzing with questions and possibilities. I’ll briefly say that my suspicions over lack of a sense of cohort were confirmed when surveying the message boards for the course, where tens of thousands of people are posting… Read more »
All aboard the MOOC train!
Many like Nathan Harden are saying that the MOOC signals “The End of the University as We Know It.” Free online higher education, Harden argues, is part of the shifting sands for established higher ed institutions in the U.S. If you put much stock in 20-30 year predictions (I don’t), schools like EMU run the… Read more »
Human connection and ed-tech in Mennonite higher ed
In the January 7th issue of the Mennonite World Review, president emeritus of Fresno Pacific University, D. Merrill Ewert, laid out a few of the 21st century challenges facing Mennonite higher education. They include: A broken financial model (including reduced congregational support of colleges) Rise of the for-profits (University of Phoenix, et al.) New faculty majority… Read more »
Notes from the Teaching, Learning, and Technology conference at JMU
[Editor's note: It's been far too long since I've posted here, and I need to address that with something more substantive than a mere copy/paste of my notes from this awesome conference today at neighboring James Madison University. But until then...] I hopped on my bike this morning wearing flip-flops, which quickly ended up being… Read more »
The frailty of community in MOOCs
Now that the PR hysteria around MOOCs has died down and there are actual courses running, I’m trying to track the experience of MOOC students, some of whom are blogging about their experiences. Here’s a helpful piece from Audrey Watters that talks about the peer feedback system in Coursera, one of the big two MOOC… Read more »