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. And as predictably as rain, he anticipates that "we" in academe will stick our heads in the sand, will deny the inevitable -- as the music industry did with Napster -- and will "screw this up as badly as the music people did." His views are shared by many in the "disruption" school of thought about higher education.
40 Useful Tips For Anyone Taking A MOOC As these resources have grown in number and the list of institutions providing them has become ever more prestigious, free online courses are gaining legitimacy with employers as a method of learning valuable job skills. While there’s still a long way to go in terms of acceptance, more and more employers are recognizing the value of cheap, effective educational programs that can keep employees up-to-date and engaged in their field without spending a dime. Whether you’re looking to online education for personal reasons or to get ahead in your career, use these tips to help you get more out of open courses and use what you learn to market yourself, improve your performance, and stand out on the job. Treat them like real classes .
Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012: MOOCs Part 5 of my Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012 series The Year of the MOOC Massive Open Online Courses. And oh man, did we talk about it. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that 2012 was dominated by MOOCs as the trend started to really pick up in late 2011 with the huge enrollment in the three computer science courses that Stanford offered for free online during the Fall semester, along with the announcement of MITx in December. Who cares what Cormier thinks and predicts? January: Googler and Stanford professor (and professor for the university’s massive AI class) Sebastian Thrun announces he’s leaving Stanford to launch Udacity, his own online learning startup. February: MITx opens for enrollment. April: Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller (also involved with Stanford’s fall 2011 MOOCs) officially launch their online learning startup Coursera. May: June: July: August: September: October: The University of Texas system joins edX.Coursera strikes a deal with Antioch University. November:
Online courses need human element to educate Online courses are proliferating, says Douglas Rushkoff, but will really succeed when they bring humanity to learning process Douglas Rushkoff: Education is under threat, but online computer courses are not to blameHe says education's value hard to measure; is it for making money or being engaged?He says Massive Open Online Courses lack human exchange with teachersRushkoff: MOOCs should bring together people to share studies, maintain education's humanity Editor's note: Douglas Rushkoff writes a regular column for CNN.com. (CNN) -- Education is under threat, but the Internet and the growth of Massive Open Online Courses are not to blame. Like the arts and journalism, whose value may be difficult to measure in dollars, higher education has long been understood as a rather "soft" pursuit. What is learning, really? Douglas Rushkoff Education is about more than acquiring skills. What we consider basic knowledge has grown to include science, history, the humanities and economics.
Autistic Students Make Music Using iPad Apps (WATCH) The first time you listen to Ryan Rodriguez, Denzel Jackson and Jasmine Latham's music, you might think they sound like any high school band. But the three autistic musicians, along with the rest of their classmates, use a special learning technique and perform on their iPads. The innovative new music program comes out of P177Q, a school for special needs students in Queens, New York. Teacher Adam Goldberg integrated iPads into his class as a way of getting around the challenging, technical aspects of traditional instruments and allowing students to focus on creating music. "Right away, these students are learning to work together, they're learning to share, and cooperate, and to be like a team, because that's really what's going on when people play music -- it's team work," he told Fox News. Goldberg's class performed a challenging jazz song for the reporters, followed by free-styling their own compositions. Are you inspired by the musicians of P177Q?
Open online courses – an avalanche that might just get stopped These days there are plenty of prophets preaching hi-tech and digital solutions to the problems of expanding access to knowledge and higher education. Barely a week goes by without some new hymn to education technology, open-source software or open-access publishing. In the US, the growing chorus for online education through massive open online courses, or moocs, has been deafening. But in Britain, it has barely registered. Last December, the commercial launch of the Open University's mooc platform, FutureLearn, attracted the participation of a dozen universities and the support of David Willetts, but little response from Britain's beleaguered academics. No wonder that last month Sir Michael Barber, the chief education adviser of Pearson, the world's largest profit-making education provider, proclaimed that universities were powerless to stop the online avalanche. Historically, the University of California has often proved a weathervane for global trends in higher education.
Palm Sounds Quelles sont les différents types de plates-formes de MOOC et comment choisir celle qui nous convient ? Le développement des MOOC, initié par les différents facteurs évoqués lors de notre précédent article, est à la fois soutenu et alimenté par les nombreuses possibilités techniques offertes à tous ceux qui souhaitent diffuser leur cours en ligne. Effectivement, l’aspect communautaire lié au MOOC a poussé au lancement de nombreux outils de création, de mise en ligne et de gestion des MOOC, tous plus ou moins destinés à faciliter le partage des cours. Des outils simples et performants étant ce qu’il y a de plus efficace pour aider un enseignant à se lancer. Il existe donc non seulement des plates-formes lancées développées par de grandes universités qui se chargent de les maintenir et de fournir le contenu, mais on peut également trouver des outils open source que l’on peut employer uniquement pour la publication sans forcément avoir l’âme d’un développeur. Il est impossible de réaliser une étude des MOOC sans aborder le point des plates-formes MOOC.
Synthtopia The developers at Retronyms have kicked off a series of weekly video previews on the development of iMPC Pro – a new music production center app that they are creating in partnership with Akai Pro. Continue reading When Akai Pro released the iMPC iPad music production center, a lot of Synthtopia readers were left wanting more. It looks like that may soon change. MobMuPlat (short for Mobile Music Platform) – a free app that lets you create custom audio software for iOS – has been updated to version 1.5. Here’s what’s new: AudioBus integration (input, output, and filter port).Menu widget, to choose item from pop-up list.Button to invert interface.Panels can optionally pass touches to scroll the canvas. Here’s how you can create a custom app with MobMuPlat: Get the MobMuPlat iOS appCreate a user interface in the MobMuPlat EditorCreate an audio engine in PureDataDrag those two files into the MobMuPlat Documents folder in iTunesPlay your app on your iOS device. Here’s a video intro to MobMuPlat:
discchord Garageband in the Classroom » THS Music Department Apple’s Garageband was released in 2004. Since then it has revolutionized music education with its extremely easy to use interface, loads of features and attractive price! How can you use Garageband in the classroom? ComposingCreating loop-based projectsBasic recording conceptsMIDI RecordingAudio RecordingPodcastingFilm ScoringBasic audio mixingSlide Show or Multimedia presentations. Magic Garageband Magic Garageband is a great way to show students different musical genres such as: Blues, Reggae, Jazz and more. Garageband can be used with any age level elementary, middle school, high school or college! Before learning how to use Garageband in the classroom first you should be able to do the following: Curriculum Resources for using Garageband (Mixcraft PC) Books that include resources and lesson plans Torrington HS Music Technology
88pianokeys | it's not all black and white Music Tech for Teachers | Brad Johnston