Because of the volume of stuff that comes through my portal, I don’t usually cover k-12 reports, but I’m including this one because it provides some excellent examples of what I like to call hybrid learning (reduced but not eliminated face-to-face [...]]]> Van Dusen, C. (2009) eSN Special Report: Beyond the Virtual School eSchool News, Nov 1

Because of the volume of stuff that comes through my portal, I don’t usually cover k-12 reports, but I’m including this one because it provides some excellent examples of what I like to call hybrid learning (reduced but not eliminated face-to-face time plus online learning) that could easily be adapted for post-secondary education use. It also looks at some ‘desperate’ schools that are using online learning materials in the classroom because they are short of qualified teachers.

This has prompted me to float an idea that has been bubbling around for some time in my head, to do with very large lecture classes.

We now have initiatives such as Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative that develops high quality e-learning material that is designed to be used with local instructors. Carol Twigg’s National Center for Academic Transformation has also been re-designing large lecture classes with increased time being spent by students working online.

Why not go the next step, and have a state/province-wide or national program to develop high quality online materials for first and second year university students on at least a 50-50 model of face-to-face and online learning that can easily be adapted to local needs? (For example, modular, so if a local professor wants to add in something to the program face-to-face an online module can be replaced).

Do we really need Mathematics 101 poorly designed differently from scratch every year by thousands of professors then delivered badly by graduate students? Why not have a well-designed ‘core’ hybrid online program that can then be adapted and modified, supervised and managed by local research professors, with (specially trained) graduate students as online and face-to-face tutors?

Some students may need all the face-to-face teaching they can get; others may manage the whole program online; while others will appreciate the blended model. Some departments may well be happy to take the whole online program; others may want to use only small bits of it; others may want to mix and match with local, face-to-face teaching. All we need to make this happen is for professors in different universities to agree to work together on the initial design. Not much to ask, is it? (Yes, I’m joking.)

Comments, please!

Will three-dimensional video be the next flavour of the month in educational technology? Quite possibly.

Costs of creating and showing 3-D video have dropped dramatically – under $700 for projection/viewing. Throw in 3-D sound and you are running up to $8,000 on the ’show’ [...]]]> Stansbury, M. (2009) eSN Special report: Learning in 3D eSchool News, December 11

Will three-dimensional video be the next flavour of the month in educational technology? Quite possibly.

Costs of creating and showing 3-D video have dropped dramatically – under $700 for projection/viewing. Throw in 3-D sound and you are running up to $8,000 on the ’show’ side towards the top end. However, the real costs are going to be on the content production side, and we run into the same problems here as with educational gaming: is the market big enough to justify the investment?

The other challenge as always is pedagogy. What are the educational benefits and how will 3-D be integrated in the curriculum? I think in terms of educational benefits, it’s really easy to make the case. Many concepts that we deal with in educational are three dimensional, and students would certainly get a deeper understanding of many concepts if they can be displayed three-dimensionally. However, it is also important in higher education at least to be able to move from the concrete to the abstract and back again, so the teaching challenge will remain.

This is a report well worth reading if you are interested in being on the cutting edge of educational technology – but remember, you often bleed on the cutting edge.

An interesting article on educational games with excellent links to the original research reports. Also a good analysis of the barriers to educational gaming. Perhaps the most important point made in the article is that ‘researchers are still in the early stages of trying to [...]]]> Stansbury, M. (2009) Can gaming change education? eSchool News, December 9

An interesting article on educational games with excellent links to the original research reports. Also a good analysis of the barriers to educational gaming. Perhaps the most important point made in the article is that ‘researchers are still in the early stages of trying to determine what works and what doesn’t when it comes to educational gaming design’.

This is a report of a recent speech by Karen Cator, the new director of education technology at the US Department of Education. The new National Education Technology Plan will have four areas of focus: access, assessment, learning support, improving cost-effectiveness/productivity.

Cator said [...]]]> Downey, G. (2009) ED’s new tech chief previews national plan eSchool News, December 2

This is a report of a recent speech by Karen Cator, the new director of education technology at the US Department of Education. The new National Education Technology Plan will have four areas of focus: access, assessment, learning support, improving cost-effectiveness/productivity.

Cator said that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will unveil the first draft of the administration’s National Education Technology Plan next month.

U.S. Department of Education (ED) is preparing a new National Education Technology Plan and is accepting public feedback as it develops the new plan. A department spokesman did not know how long the public comment period would remain open, saying only that ED [...]]]> eSchool News (2009) Stakeholders advise on national ed-tech plan eSchool News, November 17

U.S. Department of Education (ED) is preparing a new National Education Technology Plan and is accepting public feedback as it develops the new plan. A department spokesman did not know how long the public comment period would remain open, saying only that ED hopes to release the new plan in early 2010. More than 200 comments had been submitted to EdTechFuture.org, the new plan’s web site.

This article discusses recommendations from Susan Patrick, the person who oversaw creation of the last national ed-tech plan in 2004.Her submission states; “Online course enrollments are growing at 30 percent annually, but fall short of [student] demands. National surveys show that the [percentage] of [middle and high school] students [who] are interested in taking an online course is 40 percent. … [That's] far more than the 2 million enrollments today. Outdated laws, policies, teacher preparation, professional development, and funding models limit student choices … made possible through online learning.”

Her recommendations include:

• A call for teacher-education programs at colleges and universities to train every pre-service teacher to teach online.

• Provide incentives for portability of credits among institutions and across state lines to support virtual learning.

• Provide incentives for true reciprocity of teacher professional licensure for online teaching.

• Encourage states to expand online-learning opportunities for students by making this a requirement for federal innovation and ed-tech funding.

• Invest in the development of open courses and curriculum with federal and state funding.

• Finish the job of ensuring ubiquitous internet access in schools and at home.

This eSchool article also includes discussion of submissions from other organizations, such as the Creative Commons and Sesame Street

Now wouldn’t it be nice if there was a similar initiative from the Canadian Federal Government for Canadian universities – oh, I forgot, education is a provincial responsibility, and universities are autonomous, eh?

A report of work at Northwestern University to provide an open-source integration of Google Apps and Blackboard, facilitating group project work and other educational applications.

This article raises a critical question for the future of online learning. Should telecommunications companies be allowed to ‘manage’ who gets priority over the Internet?

This article discusses steps by USA’s Federal Communications Commission to ensure a ‘net-neutral’ system, which would prevent telecommunications companies [...]]]> Carter, D. (2009) FCC Moves Closer to Net Neutrality eSchool News, October 23

This article raises a critical question for the future of online learning. Should telecommunications companies be allowed to ‘manage’ who gets priority over the Internet?

This article discusses steps by USA’s Federal Communications Commission to ensure a ‘net-neutral’ system, which would prevent telecommunications companies for charging differential rates, depending on the size of the customer. This would really affect the ability of public service organizations, such as schools and small colleges, to pay for service.

For a Canadian perspective, see the National Union of Public Employee’s site, which provides a comment by Canada’s leading Internet policy commentator, Michael Geiss, on the CRTC’s recent ruling on net neutrality.

It seems that Canada has taken a weaker position on this than the USA – so watch this space. This is not an issue that’s going to go away.

The U.S. Justice Department advised a federal judge on Sept. 18 that a proposed legal settlement giving Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices unless it’s revised. The Justice Department also [...]]]> eSchool News (2009) Feds want Google to rewrite book deal eSchool News, Sept 21

The U.S. Justice Department advised a federal judge on Sept. 18 that a proposed legal settlement giving Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices unless it’s revised. The Justice Department also expressed concerns that foreign copyright holders were not sufficiently compensated.

Despite its misgivings, the Justice Department expressed confidence that Google and the authors and publishers could negotiate changes so the settlement will adhere to U.S. copyright and antitrust laws.

This article discusses two recent papers from the the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN): “Social Networking: Personalized Content, Conversations & Communities,” and “How 2 B a Disruptive Technology Leader,”

Both reports are available only to CoSN members.(Individual membership: US$125.)

From the full article:

Students at a Baltimore County high school this fall will explore the area surrounding Mount St. Helens in a vehicle that can morph from an aircraft to a car to a boat to learn about how the [...]]]> Prabhu, M. (2009) Virtual 3-D lab aims to stimulate learning eSchool News, Aug 24

From the full article:

Students at a Baltimore County high school this fall will explore the area surrounding Mount St. Helens in a vehicle that can morph from an aircraft to a car to a boat to learn about how the environment has changed since the volcano’s 1980 eruption, using a three-dimensional Virtual Learning Environment developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) with the university’s Center for Technology Education.

A coalition that also included Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the University of Baltimore is deploying the environment, which was modeled after a state-of-the-art, 3-D visualization facility at APL that was used for projects by the Department of Defense and NASA.