Archives For Learning

The 21st-Century Campus Report: Campus 2.0 by CDW-G reveals that high school students expect a high degree of technology in the College classrooms they hope to attend. The key findings by CDW-G reveal:

  • Higher education faculty and IT staff value technology as an essential tool for student success
  • Institutions are incorporating newer technology tools that are connecting and resonating with students, who grew up using technology. This technology empowers students and faculty to personalize and expand the learning experience
  • Institutions say that defining – and supporting – the new learning environment is a challenge. Many IT professionals report that their IT infrastructure needs to be updated to ensure future success
  • Incoming college students have even higher expectations for technology than today’s college students

While there appears to be a gap between high school student’s expectations and what colleges are able to deliver this is an even more significant gab between what college IT staffs are able to deliver and what faculty expect. Perhaps the most sobering aspect of the report is that the classroom is still viewed as the primary location of learning and learning outside of the classroom is viewed as access to online learning tools.

Read the full report…

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In this followup to his 2006 Ted Talk Sir Ken Robinson makes the argument that we must not settle for educational reform because this is simply changing an existing system, rather we need an educational revolution to radically change our educational system because it currenlty doesn’t work. Sir Ken Robinson states that there must be:

a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish.

One can hope…

Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet setting, where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same.

Contrary to the claims that are being made in this working paper, lecture capture CANNOT be referred to as online learning. The working paper Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning is a better example of what not to do with online learning than it is an example of face2face instruction being superior to online instruction. The paper also assumes that traditional lectures represent good instruction–which is a false assumption. At best the results of this investigation reveal that poor face2face lectures make for even poorer online instruction. This NOT online learning!

NewSchools

Dwayne Harapnuik —  June 16, 2010 — Leave a comment

NewSchools Venture Fund is a venture philanthropy firm working to transform public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children — especially those in underserved communities — have the opportunity to succeed. The following video documents their development, vision and mission:

NewSchools Summit 2010: A New Policy World from NewSchools on Vimeo.