Noble In recent years changes in universities, especially in North America, show that we have entered a new era in higher education, one which is rapidly drawing the halls of academe into the age of automation. Automation — the distribution of digitized course material online, without the participation of professors who develop such material — is often justified as an inevitable part of the new “knowledge–based” society. It is assumed to improve learning and increase wider access. In practice, however, such automation is often coercive in nature — being forced upon professors as well as students — with commercial interests in mind. This paper argues that the trend towards automation of higher education as implemented in North American universities today is a battle between students and professors on one side, and university administrations and companies with “educational products” to sell on the other.
The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You The Wordle of this list! (Click image to enlarge) One of the most popular posts on Edudemic in 2010 was The 35 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You and I felt it might be time for an update to that list for 2011. There were more than 900 submissions but many were duplicates. Modeling Social Media in Groups, Communities, and Networks Vance Stevens Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE Abstract This article views social networking as practiced distinctly in groups, communities, and networks. Drawing from experience coordinating a teachers’ community of practice for the past decade, the evolution of what was initially a group into a community of practice is illustrated, as well as how social media enables one CoP to interact with others to become part of a distributed learning network. Participants in the networked communities continually leverage each other’s professional development, and what is modeled and practiced in transactions there is applied later in their teaching practices.Recidivism is a problem in technology training for education. Teachers can be shown how to use social media, but unless they use it themselves they are unlikely to change their practices. Living with paradigm shift Another incident illustrates this shift. A third token of paradigm shift is my new Kindle, which I both love and hate.
Transhumanist Values 1. What is Transhumanism?Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades.[1] It promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology. Attention is given to both present technologies, like genetic engineering and information technology, and anticipated future ones, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.The enhancement options being discussed include radical extension of human health-span, eradication of disease, elimination of unnecessary suffering, and augmentation of human intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities. The limitations of the human mode of being are so pervasive and familiar that we often fail to notice them, and to question them requires manifesting an almost childlike naiveté.
Why Things Matter OWL Coming Soon: A new look for our same great content! We're working hard this summer on a redesign of the Purdue OWL. Worry not! If you are having trouble locating a specific resource, please visit the search page or the Site Map. The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. For more information about services for the Purdue University community, including one-to-one consultations, ESL conversation groups and workshops, please visit the Writing Lab site. Mission The Purdue University Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement.
Essay critiques the ideas of Clay Shirky and others advocating higher ed disruption Clay Shirky is a big thinker, and I read him because he’s consistently worth reading. But he’s not always right – and his thinking (and the flaws in it) is typical of the unquestioning enthusiasm of many thinkers today about technology and higher education. In his recent piece on "Napster, Udacity, and the Academy," for example, Shirky is not only guardedly optimistic about the ways that MOOCs and online education will transform higher education, but he takes for granted that they will, that there is no alternative. Just as inevitably as digital sharing turned the music industry on its head, he pronounces, so it is and will be with digital teaching. I suspect that if you agree with Clay Shirky that teaching is analogous to music, then you are likely to be persuaded by his assertion that Udacity -- a lavishly capitalized educational startup company -- is analogous to Napster. "In the academy, we lecture other people every day about learning from history. But what do you mean "we," Mr.
How To Create Your Own Venn Diagrams Thursday, January 10, 2013 8:05 am, Posted by | How To Topics: , , , , When I was younger, I thought Venn Diagrams were awesome. I’m pretty sure, looking back, that I just liked the name “Venn Diagram’, but the visual overlapping of ideas can be pretty useful in helping people to understand a concept. So the folks at Visual.ly (a great source for infographics of all kinds) have made a tool that lets you create your own (albeit basic) Venn Diagrams. Featured Image Credit: MaggienotMargaret.com Great Reads From Edudemic Partners:
Designing a New Learning Environment 2012 | Designing a New Learning Environment Sign up What constitutes learning in the 21st century? Should reading, watching, memorizing facts, and then taking exams be the only way to learn? Or could technology (used effectively) make learning more interactive, collaborative, and constructive? Could learning be more engaging and fun? We construct, access, visualize, and share information and knowledge in very different ways than we did decades ago. The ultimate goal of this project-based course is to promote systematic design thinking that will cause a paradigm shift in the learning environments of today and tomorrow. Course Instructor: Dr Paul Kim Paul Kim is Chief Technology Officer and Assistant Dean for Stanford University School of Education. In the higher education space, he advises investment bankers and technology ventures focused on e-learning, knowledge management, and mobile communication solutions. Teaching Assistants: Pamela Levine Shawn Kim Shwetika Baijal Leigh Anne Miller Gilbert About this site Just signed up?
21st century education Revised August 2008. Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It . . . Like Alice, many educators, policy makers and even the general public respond resoundingly with "That's impossible!" when challenged to adopt a new paradigm of education for the 21st century. Most people today adhere to a paradigm of education that is strictly 19th century. Web 2.0 and new Social Communities Dr. What is 21st century curriculum? What does all this mean for how we design and build schools? 1. References Kellner, Douglas; New Media and New Literacies: Reconstructing Education for the New Millennium Grant, Jodi, Director of the After School Alliance; Fourteen Million Kids, Unsupervised McLeod, Scott, Dangerously Irrelevant Time, Learning and Afterschool Task Force, A New Day for Learning Belasco, James A., Teaching the Elephant to Dance, 1991 Wesch, Michael, Ph.
Tablets Tablets Everywhere One thing that became obvious at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago this year was that lawyers are embracing tablet devices like the iPad in great numbers. Some people claimed that iPads even outnumbered laptops at the event. I’m not sure if that claim would have stood up to a head count but it was certainly plausible. The little tablets were everywhere. So, fine, if you’re thinking about bringing a tablet device into your practice I have some advice for you. Connectivity There’s no getting around it – most tablet devices are barely useful without some kind of Internet connectivity. Wi-Fi is great, but you can’t always rely upon having good public Wi-Fi. Virtualization Tablet devices annoy, irritate and even frighten IT people. So what’s the solution? From there he can launch apps, compose documents, handle e-mail, enter his time…almost anything he can do from his desktop machine. Since no data lives on the tablet it’s far more secure. Better Windows 8 Than Never Don’t have a tablet yet? Conclusion