New book: Megaschools, Technology and Teachers

Daniel, J. (2010) Megaschools, Technology and Teachers London/New York: Routledge

COL President Sir John Daniel’s new book advocates new approaches for providing access to secondary education for today’s rapidly growing population of children and young adults.

Sir John describes the  contents of his book in a three-minute video.

Will banning laptops in class work?

de Vise, D. (2010) Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls Washington Post March 9

An article about instructors who have banned the use of laptops in class, and why. I liked the comments by Professor Vaidhyanathan:

“If students don’t want to pay attention, the laptop is the least of your problems,” [...]

Are Canadian students satisfied with university?

Dwyer, M. (2010) 2010 Student Surveys Macleans.Ca OnCampus, February 15

This article provides results of two student surveys conducted by Canadian universities. One is the NSSE, a survey developed primarily for United States students. The NSSE is a study of best educational practices and an assessment of the degree to which each university follows those practices. [...]

New book on e-learning from the Anadolu Open University, Turkey

Demiray, U. et al. (2010) e-Learning Practices: Cases on challenges facing e-learning and national development Eskisehir, Turkey: Anadolu University

E-Learning offers many opportunities for individuals and institutions all over the world. Individuals can access to education they need almost anytime and anywhere they are ready to. Institutions are able to provide more cost-effective training to their [...]

Contact North looks to the future

Introduction

Last week I spent two days at a strategic retreat for Contact North managers in Sudbury, Ontario. I had the privilege last summer of flying across Northern Ontario (twice) in a small plane last summer (see: http://flight.tonybates.ca), so I have some understanding of the geography of the region.

I thought I would provide some information (I [...]