The Napsterfication of Learning - 0 views
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All Things Education: Research Papers vs Blogs: Defending "Antiquated" Teaching from 21... - 1 views
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But Thiel’s issues with education run even deeper. He thinks it’s fundamentally wrong for a society to pin people’s best hope for a better life on something that is by definition exclusionary. “If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates?” he says. “It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.”
Thiel notes a handful of students told him that whether they were selected or not, they were leaving school to start a company. Many more built tight relationships with competing applicants during the brief Silicon Valley retreat– a sort of support group of like-minded restless students.
Of course, if the problem Thiel sees with the higher education bubble is elitism, why were so many of the invitees Ivy League kids? Where were the smart inner-city kids let down by economic blight and a failing education system of a city like Detroit; the kids who need to be lifted up the most?
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“Everyone thinks kids in inner-city Detroit should do something else,” Thiel says. “We’re saying maybe people at Harvard need to be doing something else. We have to reset what the bar is at the top.”
That hints at another interesting distinction between the housing bubble and the education bubble: Class. The housing bubble was mostly a middle-class phenomenon. Even as much of the nation was wrapped up in it, there was a counter narrative on programs like CNBC and in papers like the Wall Street Journal pooh-poohing the dumb people buying all those condos in Florida. But with education, there’s barely any counter-narrative at all, because it is rooted in the most elite echelons of the upper class.
iPads for College Classrooms? Not So Fast, Some Professors Say. - Technology - The Chro... - 3 views
But Mr. Steinhaus and other administrators soon realized that the iPad, with the slow finger-typing it requires, actually makes written course work more difficult, and that the devices wouldn't run all of the university's applications.
When the University of Notre Dame tested iPads in a management class, students said the finger-based interface on its glassy surface was not good for taking class notes and didn't allow them to mark up readings. For their online final exam, 39 of the 40 students put away their iPads in favor a laptop, because of concerns that the Apple tablet might not save their material.
iPads also foster collaboration. Students using them for group assignments in a math class at Pepperdine University were more in sync than were students in a section not using iPads. The iPad-equipped students worked at the same pace as one another and shared their screens to help one another solve tough problems, says Dana Hoover, assistant chief information officer for communications and planning.
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At Reed College, having all the texts available in a political-science class on the iPad meant it was easier to refer to readings and pull in outside material for discussion, says Martin Ringle, the college's chief technology officer.
Course readings were converted to PDF's at Reed, which allowed students to mark them up using an application called iAnnotate, but Mr. Ringle acknowledges that this wouldn't work for all classes, because many texts can't easily be converted to PDF's, and many electronic textbooks don't allow annotation.
While Apple has promoted the iPad's ability to change learning, Ms. Simon says that as far as she knows, the company isn't working with leaders in the learning process: professors themselves.
but consumer decisions rather than educational ones will probably determine which tablets students purchase—and which ones colleges will support, he says.
EC&I 831 - 1 views
The goals of this course follow. Participants will:
- better understand the historical role technology and media have played in educational & social change;
- become knowledgeable of social learning tools & FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) as tools for teaching, facilitating learning, & designing educational environments;
- become familiar with the wealth of open educational resources (OERs), learning-related content, & media available for teaching & learning;
- become knowledgeable of relevant social learning theories and philosophies that respond to learning in the digital age;
- better understand the many social, educational, political, cultural, and administrative issues often associated with technology & media in education and society;
- become critical consumers and producers of digital media and information; and,
- build sustainable, personal learning environments and networks.
A significant portion of the course learning will happen outside of the scheduled, synchronous sessions. Participants will gain experience in social learning processes such as: writing reflective blog posts, commenting on participant blogs, reading and commenting on educational blogs from outside of the course, microblogging, reading and exploring other educational technology and learning-focused media, exploring social learning tools, and creating educational media.
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