Missed this statement from ECAR 2013 last pass through it: What Is the Current Context for E-Text/E-Textbook Use in Higher Education? According to a recent ECAR/Intemet2 e-text evaluation project, the cost of textbooks was the most important value driver for e-textbooks, but cost-savings potential did not trump functionality when it came to student use of e-text for coursework.‘ “Students… Continue reading

“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.” – Woody Allen I’ve been using speed reading software for several years now (in combination with more traditional methods) to skim non-fiction books over the weekend. These aren’t like the older programs, which aim to train you to read normal books faster. Instead, they… Continue reading

I’m realizing some of the design description of the Federated Classroom Wiki on Hapgood is out of date. So here is how it is currently working (or soon to work based on some scheduled coding). This is the process you would use as a user. Setup Install! Your institution installs Dokuwiki on a server, on… Continue reading

Ok, I’m playing around with the name of this thing Tim and I are building. If you’re not up to speed on the Federated [something or other to do with education] Wiki, you might want to scroll below and catch up. Or just start with the screencast of the proof-of-concept. Keep in mind when looking… Continue reading

Jared Stein has an excellent post up on a point that is near to my heart. People in the humanities who criticize flipped classrooms often don’t realize that their class is already flipped. The reason why they don’t get “flipped classrooms” is it does not solve a learning problem they have. They’ve been able to teach… Continue reading

Tim Owens and I have been working off and on the past couple weeks on this Federated OER Wiki idea, and there have been times where I’ve looked at the design of what we are doing and thought maybe this was the Plan 9 from Outer Space of Edtech projects. Has an idea ever so… Continue reading

A recent article in The Economist expands on the fascinating presentation Larry Summers gave last summer which expanded on an idea that’s been floating around the economic blogosphere a while. In the old view of the future, productivity gains came through the automation of low paying jobs. Today one person digs ditches and another writes… Continue reading

Now sure, with a title like this I coud probably have this post fire randomly throughout the year and nine out of ten times it would be true. But the discussion Dan has been facilitating over the past several months about what “real world” education means (and why “fake” assignments can be better than “real… Continue reading

Short follow-up to yesterday’s post. As many people do, I referred to the cycle of elite online learning iniatives as “Groundhog Day“. And from our perspective that’s probably apt. But it occurs to me that from their perspective it’s Memento. MASSIVE spoiler alert here, but the premise of Memento is that the memory-damaged Leonard Shelby… Continue reading

From the Chronicle: Beginning in March, HarvardX for Alumni will offer versions of seven Harvard MOOCs exclusively to graduates of the university. The courses will not be full-length MOOCs but “segments” that include some new material developed specially for graduates, according to Michael Rutter, a spokesman. Some professors might even travel to talk about the… Continue reading