CHECK
Universities with the Best Free Online Courses
No tuition money? No problem! There are many top universities that offer free courses online. This list ranks several of the best free university courses available for people who want to enhance their personal knowledge or advance in their current fields.
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
* Free MIT Courses Online
If you are looking for a wide range of free courses offered online, MIT is your best option. More than 1,800 free courses are offered through the school's OpenCourseWare (OCW) project. Courses are in text, audio and video formats and translated into a number of different languages. Students all over the world use MIT's OpenCourseWare and 96 percent of visitors to this site say they would recommend it to someone else.
2. Open University (open.ac.uk)
* Free Open University Courses Online
The Open University is the UK's largest academic institution and a world leader in distance learning. OU's OpenLearn website gives everyone free access to both undergraduate and graduate-level course materials from the University. Courses cover a wide range of topics, including the arts, history, business, education, IT and computing, mathematics and statistics, science, health and technology.
3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)
* Free Carnegie Mellon Courses Online
Carnegie Mellon University offers a number of free online courses and materials through a program called the Open Learning Initiative. OLI courses are intended to allow anyone at an introductory college level to learn about a particular subject without formal instruction. Course options include such offerings as statistics, biology, chemistry, economics, French and physics.
4. Tufts University (tufts.edu)
* Free Tufts University Courses Online
Like MIT, Tufts has OpenCourseWare that is available free to everyone. Courses are sorted by school (i.e. the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine, etc.) and include assignments, lecture notes and other supplementary materials.
5. Stanford (stanford.edu)
* Stanford Courses on iTunes U
Stanford University, one of the world's leading academic institutions, has joined forces with iTunes U to provide access to Stanford courses, lectures and interviews. These courses can be downloaded and played on iPods, PCs and Macs and can also be burned to CDs. If you don't have iTunes, you can download it here for free.
6. University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)
* Free UC Berkeley Courses Online
UC Berkeley, one of the best public universities in the nation, has been offering live and on-demand webcasts of many of their courses since 2001. Hundreds of UC Berkeley classes, both current and archived, are now available as podcasts and webcasts. Courses cover a range of subjects, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, psychology, legal studies and philosophy.
7. Utah State University (usu.edu)
* Free Utah State University Courses Online
Utah State University also provides access to free online courses through OCW. Study options include everything from anthropology to physics and theater arts. These comprehensive text-based courses can be downloaded as zip files or viewed directly on the site.
8. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (kutztownsbdc.org)
* Free Kutztown University Courses Online
Kutztown University's Small Business Development Center offers the largest collection of free business courses available on the web. Course topics include entrepreneurship, accounting, finance, government, business law, marketing and sales. Comprehensive text, interactive case studies, slides, graphics and streaming audio help to demonstrate the concepts presented in each course.
9. University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)
* Free USQ Courses Online
The University of Southern Queensland in Australia provides free online access to a number of different courses through yet another OpenCourseWare initiative. Courses from each of the five faculties are available covering a broad range of topics, including communication, science, career planning, technology, teaching and multimedia creation.
10. University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)
* Free UC Irvine Courses Online
UC Irvine, another of the nation's top public universities, is also a member of the OCW Consortium. Their growing list of courses covers topics like financial planning, human resources, capital markets and e-marketing. Course materials include syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams.
Δευτέρα 28 Μαρτίου 2011
Τρίτη 22 Μαρτίου 2011
Συνέδριο ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ
Για ενημέρωσή σας
Η Εταιρεία Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού / Λογισμικού Ανοικτού Κώδικα (ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ) διοργανώνει συνέδριο με θέμα “ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ: Ευκαιρίες και Δυνατότητες για Ανάπτυξη”. Το συνέδριο θα πραγματοποιηθεί Παρασκευή 20 και Σάββατο 21 Μαΐου 2011 στην Αθήνα (ΕΜΠ), ενώ την Κυριακή 22 Μαΐου θα πραγματοποιηθούν αντίστοιχες ημερίδες σε Θεσσαλονίκη, Ηράκλειο και Λάρισα.
Στο φετινό συνέδριο θα γίνουν παρουσιάσεις που θα καλύπτουν θέματα όπως τη Δημόσια Διοίκηση, τα Ανοιχτά Πρότυπα και το Ανοιχτό Περιεχόμενο, τις Κοινότητες Ανοιχτού Λογισμικού αλλά και το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ως Εναλλακτικό Μοντέλο Επιχειρηματικότητας. Επίσης θα υπάρξουν πάνελ ανοιχτής συζήτησης με θέματα όπως “Μη κοιτάς μόνο τι κάνεις εσύ για το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, δες και τι μπορεί να κάνει το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ για εσένα”.
Η ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ προσκαλεί δημιουργούς (developers) ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ και γενικώς όσους συμβάλουν (contributors) σε έργα ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, να παρουσιάσουν τη δουλειά τους. Οι ενδιαφερόμενοι θα πρέπει να υποβάλλουν την πρότασή τους και την πόλη που θέλουν να συμμετέχουν, για κρίση από την επιστημονική επιτροπή, συμπληρώνοντας τη σχετική φόρμα, το αργότερο έως τις 10 Απριλίου.
Η εκδήλωση ενδιαφέροντος για συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο να περιλαμβάνει συνοπτική περιγραφή της πρότασης έως 300 λέξεις. Οι προτάσεις μπορούν να αφορούν τόσο παρουσιάσεις, όσο και εργαστήρια (workshops).
Η Εταιρεία Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού / Λογισμικού Ανοικτού Κώδικα (ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ) διοργανώνει συνέδριο με θέμα “ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ: Ευκαιρίες και Δυνατότητες για Ανάπτυξη”. Το συνέδριο θα πραγματοποιηθεί Παρασκευή 20 και Σάββατο 21 Μαΐου 2011 στην Αθήνα (ΕΜΠ), ενώ την Κυριακή 22 Μαΐου θα πραγματοποιηθούν αντίστοιχες ημερίδες σε Θεσσαλονίκη, Ηράκλειο και Λάρισα.
Στο φετινό συνέδριο θα γίνουν παρουσιάσεις που θα καλύπτουν θέματα όπως τη Δημόσια Διοίκηση, τα Ανοιχτά Πρότυπα και το Ανοιχτό Περιεχόμενο, τις Κοινότητες Ανοιχτού Λογισμικού αλλά και το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ως Εναλλακτικό Μοντέλο Επιχειρηματικότητας. Επίσης θα υπάρξουν πάνελ ανοιχτής συζήτησης με θέματα όπως “Μη κοιτάς μόνο τι κάνεις εσύ για το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, δες και τι μπορεί να κάνει το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ για εσένα”.
Η ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ προσκαλεί δημιουργούς (developers) ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ και γενικώς όσους συμβάλουν (contributors) σε έργα ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, να παρουσιάσουν τη δουλειά τους. Οι ενδιαφερόμενοι θα πρέπει να υποβάλλουν την πρότασή τους και την πόλη που θέλουν να συμμετέχουν, για κρίση από την επιστημονική επιτροπή, συμπληρώνοντας τη σχετική φόρμα, το αργότερο έως τις 10 Απριλίου.
Η εκδήλωση ενδιαφέροντος για συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο να περιλαμβάνει συνοπτική περιγραφή της πρότασης έως 300 λέξεις. Οι προτάσεις μπορούν να αφορούν τόσο παρουσιάσεις, όσο και εργαστήρια (workshops).
Σάββατο 19 Μαρτίου 2011
Μέθοδοι και Τεχνικές για τις Παιδαγωγικές μας Παρεμβάσεις Σχέδιο Παιδαγωγικού Συμβολαίου
1. Γνώση του αντικειμένου που διδάσκει.
2. Παιδαγωγικές γνώσεις και ικανότητες/δεξιότητες για την άσκηση του εκπαιδευτικού έργου.
3. Τεχνικές γνώσεις για τη χρήση διαφόρων εκπαιδευτικών μέσων.
4. Κοινωνικές και πολιτικές γνώσεις για τη σύνδεση σχολείου και κοινωνίας, απασχόλησης, κ.ά.
Είναι πάντοτε ανοικτό το ενδεχόμενο να εκτεθούμε στην παιδαγωγική εκτροπή του «δάσκαλε που δίδασκες και νόμο δεν τηρούσες». Έτσι, π.χ., ως εκπαιδευτικοί μπορεί να αναλύουμε θεωρητικά τις «αρχές μάθησης», αλλά, αν αυτές δεν τις τηρούμε στην πράξη με τις επιλογές και τον τρόπο που χρησιμοποιούμε τις εκπαιδευτικές τεχνικές, αναιρούμε και ακυρώνουμε τις ίδιες τις αρχές που υποτίθεται ότι επιδιώκουμε να διδάξουμε. Σημαντικό ρόλο γι’ αυτό διαδραματίζει το παιδαγωγικό φορτίο της «άτυπης μαθητείας» με την οποία ερχόμαστε στο σχολείο ως εκπαιδευτικοί. Γι΄ αυτό προτείνεται η διαρκής επανεξέταση των δεδομένων και των αυτονόητων παραδοχών με τις οποίες επενδύουμε τις παιδαγωγικές μας πρακτικές.
· Ερωτήσεις–απαντήσεις
· Συζήτηση
· Καταιγισμός ιδεών
· Ασκήσεις
· Επίδειξη
· Ομάδες εργασίας
· Μελέτη περίπτωσης
· Παιχνίδι ρόλων
· Προσομοίωση
· Λύση προβλήματος
· Αυτοκατευθυνόμενη μάθηση
· Συνέντευξη από ειδικό
· Εκπαιδευτική επίσκεψη
from STANFORD CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING with Love
Απλά για να μην κάνουμε υπερφόρτωση στα e-mails ...
Tomorrow's Academia
Tips on Time Management and Writing E-mails
IN GRADUATE STUDY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Gregory Colon Semenza notes that "poor time management and inadequate organization skills" often create the major barrier to a successful graduate school experience. To help you manage your time and your work materials, we've summarized some of his suggestions.
DATE BOOKS may be out of date (or style) but...it's important to have something that will help you keep track of your appointments and deadlines. Here's a great tip: create a one- page weekly TO-DO listing of your deadlines, appointments and tasks, and post it somewhere that's easily accessible.
USE YOUR COMPUTER AS AN ORGANIZATIONAL TOOL. Create a folder for each area of your work: research, teaching, coursework and your academic portfolio. In your research folder, begin developing your list of references and keep copies of any papers you've written for any seminar you've taken. Bookmark important websites and electronic databases like Academic Search Premier available on the UNL Libraries resources page. In your teaching folder, keep copies of your syllabi and lesson plans for every course you teach. Begin developing your teaching statement and save each draft (you never know when you'll want to return to an earlier version). Save future job search materials like your CV and other documentation materials in your academic portfolio folder. The time you put into organizing these materials now will save you a great deal of time later.
ESTABLISH A ROUTINE. As much as possible try to follow a regular daily schedule so that by the time you are ready to write your dissertation your work habits will be well established. Doing so will allow you to coordinate your activities with those of your adviser, graduate colleagues, and family and friends, and will alleviate the feeling that someone is always demanding your time.
PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE. In graduate school, you need to be very protective of your research and writing time. It doesn't matter when you set aside time to write or plan your next teaching lecture. It DOES matter that you recognize that these tasks are more important than some of your other tasks, like checking e-mail. Save the more mundane tasks for low energy times. If you're a doctoral or master's student who is expected to complete a thesis, spend the bulk of your day on research-related activities. And learn to say "no" - to friends, family, maybe even your graduate adviserJ. Managing your time in one area of your professional life will help you do it in other areas, too.
Having said that, BE REASONABLE ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO AND WHEN. If you have to work at night or on weekends, try to choose a time that minimizes disruptions of your personal and family time.
USE HOLIDAY BREAKS TO FOCUS ON RESEARCH. Stay near the university during the summer. If you stay on campus and spend time on your research and writing, you'll have a much better chance of finishing in a timely manner.
MAINTAIN SOME SORT OF DAILY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY during graduate school. Exercise can help you structure your day and release stress, contributes to greater confidence, keeps you healthy and clears a space in your mind for those "aha" moments that help you break through barriers in your thinking. Hobbies are good, too. Go to a UNL basketball game. Attend a show at the Lied Center. Learn to knit (yes, there are health benefits to knitting). Like people who exercise regularly, people who take time to enjoy their favorite hobbies tend to experience less stress.
BEGIN WORKING ON YOUR CURRICULUM VITAE NOW. By building your vita early in your graduate career, you'll be able to track your accomplishments while noting the gaps in your experience.
FIVE QUICK TIPS FOR WRITING EFFECTIVE E-MAILS
E-MAIL IS AN INCREASINGLY PREFERRED TOOL FOR COMMUNICATION between students and faculty. When communicating with your professors via e-mail, it's important to remember that many faculty view an e-mail message as a letter that was delivered quickly rather than a quick conversation. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing e-mail messages to your professors.
USE APPROPRIATE SALUTATIONS AND TITLES.
Like letters, e-mails should begin with a proper salutation. If "Dear Dr. Smith" seems too formal, begin your message with "Hello Dr. Smith," but avoid the kinds of casual greetings you would use with friends (e.g., "Hey") or no greeting at all. When in doubt about using Dr. or the professor's first name, use Dr.; the faculty member will let you know when it's okay to use his or her first name.
IDENTIFY YOURSELF.
Faculty interact with a large number of students every semester. At the beginning of your message, refer to the class you're taking with the faculty member or how the faculty member knows you, especially when you're contacting someone who doesn't know you very well. Conclude your message with more than just your first name. Provide your full name and NUID number.
AVOID TEXT ACRONYMS.
If you're responding to e-mails on a Blackberry or smart phone, it's tempting to abbreviate or shorten words and phrases (e.g., u instead of you). However, abbreviations are easy to misinterpret or may be completely misunderstood.
BEWARE OF YOUR TONE.
Perhaps the most difficult part of writing an e-mail is achieving the right tone. If you're writing an especially sensitive e-mail, let your final draft sit overnight and reread it before sending to make sure the message is appropriate. You also can ask a colleague or friend to read your message and offer feedback about how the message might be perceived. Remember, e-mail creates a permanent record of your communication that you have no control over after you click the send button. So if you're worried about the tone of your e-mail, you might want to skip the message altogether and ask for a meeting with the faculty member.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Long e-mails with too many questions can get confusing. If your message is more than one or two paragraphs, rethink the purpose of the message. You may want to start with the most important question or topic. A lengthy e-mail may be a signal that the subject warrants a meeting rather than a written communication.
E-mail communication is an important part of building positive relationships with your professors. It's always worthwhile to take the time to make sure your messages are clear and appropriate.
RESOURCES
Jerz, D. & Bauer, J. (2000, December 12). Writing effective e- mail: Top 10 tips. Retrieved October 7, 2010 from http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/etext/e-mail.htm#message.
Toth, E. (2009, April 28). Don't e-mail me this way. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved October 8, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-E-Mail-Me-This- Way/44818/.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR MAILING LIST
Is sponsored by the STANFORD CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Tomorrow's Academia
Tips on Time Management and Writing E-mails
IN GRADUATE STUDY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Gregory Colon Semenza notes that "poor time management and inadequate organization skills" often create the major barrier to a successful graduate school experience. To help you manage your time and your work materials, we've summarized some of his suggestions.
DATE BOOKS may be out of date (or style) but...it's important to have something that will help you keep track of your appointments and deadlines. Here's a great tip: create a one- page weekly TO-DO listing of your deadlines, appointments and tasks, and post it somewhere that's easily accessible.
USE YOUR COMPUTER AS AN ORGANIZATIONAL TOOL. Create a folder for each area of your work: research, teaching, coursework and your academic portfolio. In your research folder, begin developing your list of references and keep copies of any papers you've written for any seminar you've taken. Bookmark important websites and electronic databases like Academic Search Premier available on the UNL Libraries resources page. In your teaching folder, keep copies of your syllabi and lesson plans for every course you teach. Begin developing your teaching statement and save each draft (you never know when you'll want to return to an earlier version). Save future job search materials like your CV and other documentation materials in your academic portfolio folder. The time you put into organizing these materials now will save you a great deal of time later.
ESTABLISH A ROUTINE. As much as possible try to follow a regular daily schedule so that by the time you are ready to write your dissertation your work habits will be well established. Doing so will allow you to coordinate your activities with those of your adviser, graduate colleagues, and family and friends, and will alleviate the feeling that someone is always demanding your time.
PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE. In graduate school, you need to be very protective of your research and writing time. It doesn't matter when you set aside time to write or plan your next teaching lecture. It DOES matter that you recognize that these tasks are more important than some of your other tasks, like checking e-mail. Save the more mundane tasks for low energy times. If you're a doctoral or master's student who is expected to complete a thesis, spend the bulk of your day on research-related activities. And learn to say "no" - to friends, family, maybe even your graduate adviserJ. Managing your time in one area of your professional life will help you do it in other areas, too.
Having said that, BE REASONABLE ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO AND WHEN. If you have to work at night or on weekends, try to choose a time that minimizes disruptions of your personal and family time.
USE HOLIDAY BREAKS TO FOCUS ON RESEARCH. Stay near the university during the summer. If you stay on campus and spend time on your research and writing, you'll have a much better chance of finishing in a timely manner.
MAINTAIN SOME SORT OF DAILY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY during graduate school. Exercise can help you structure your day and release stress, contributes to greater confidence, keeps you healthy and clears a space in your mind for those "aha" moments that help you break through barriers in your thinking. Hobbies are good, too. Go to a UNL basketball game. Attend a show at the Lied Center. Learn to knit (yes, there are health benefits to knitting). Like people who exercise regularly, people who take time to enjoy their favorite hobbies tend to experience less stress.
BEGIN WORKING ON YOUR CURRICULUM VITAE NOW. By building your vita early in your graduate career, you'll be able to track your accomplishments while noting the gaps in your experience.
FIVE QUICK TIPS FOR WRITING EFFECTIVE E-MAILS
E-MAIL IS AN INCREASINGLY PREFERRED TOOL FOR COMMUNICATION between students and faculty. When communicating with your professors via e-mail, it's important to remember that many faculty view an e-mail message as a letter that was delivered quickly rather than a quick conversation. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing e-mail messages to your professors.
USE APPROPRIATE SALUTATIONS AND TITLES.
Like letters, e-mails should begin with a proper salutation. If "Dear Dr. Smith" seems too formal, begin your message with "Hello Dr. Smith," but avoid the kinds of casual greetings you would use with friends (e.g., "Hey") or no greeting at all. When in doubt about using Dr. or the professor's first name, use Dr.; the faculty member will let you know when it's okay to use his or her first name.
IDENTIFY YOURSELF.
Faculty interact with a large number of students every semester. At the beginning of your message, refer to the class you're taking with the faculty member or how the faculty member knows you, especially when you're contacting someone who doesn't know you very well. Conclude your message with more than just your first name. Provide your full name and NUID number.
AVOID TEXT ACRONYMS.
If you're responding to e-mails on a Blackberry or smart phone, it's tempting to abbreviate or shorten words and phrases (e.g., u instead of you). However, abbreviations are easy to misinterpret or may be completely misunderstood.
BEWARE OF YOUR TONE.
Perhaps the most difficult part of writing an e-mail is achieving the right tone. If you're writing an especially sensitive e-mail, let your final draft sit overnight and reread it before sending to make sure the message is appropriate. You also can ask a colleague or friend to read your message and offer feedback about how the message might be perceived. Remember, e-mail creates a permanent record of your communication that you have no control over after you click the send button. So if you're worried about the tone of your e-mail, you might want to skip the message altogether and ask for a meeting with the faculty member.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Long e-mails with too many questions can get confusing. If your message is more than one or two paragraphs, rethink the purpose of the message. You may want to start with the most important question or topic. A lengthy e-mail may be a signal that the subject warrants a meeting rather than a written communication.
E-mail communication is an important part of building positive relationships with your professors. It's always worthwhile to take the time to make sure your messages are clear and appropriate.
RESOURCES
Jerz, D. & Bauer, J. (2000, December 12). Writing effective e- mail: Top 10 tips. Retrieved October 7, 2010 from http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/etext/e-mail.htm#message.
Toth, E. (2009, April 28). Don't e-mail me this way. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved October 8, 2010, from http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-E-Mail-Me-This- Way/44818/.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR MAILING LIST
Is sponsored by the STANFORD CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Παρασκευή 18 Μαρτίου 2011
Πέμπτη 17 Μαρτίου 2011
JISC keynote calls for universities to use technology to attract students
JISC keynote calls for universities to use technology to attract students
"
Professor Eric Thomas, vice chancellor of Bristol University, today highlighted the importance of colleges’ and universities’ use of technology in encouraging student applications.
He said: “An integrated, sophisticated use of [new technology] is going to mean that the university is seen as cutting edge and more attractive. I see JISC’s role as assisting us in making the university look as attractive as possible.”
JISC’s deputy chair Professor David Baker agreed: “Over the next 5-10 years JISC will have an ever more vital role to play not just in the education sector but across the UK. I don’t believe that JISC or higher or further education can afford to slow down.”
Against the backdrop of an increasingly demanding student body, Professor Thomas predicted that within ten years there would be more students studying in their home towns to save costs, and that they would also have the choice of non-degree entry to traditional careers like accounting.
Professor Thomas also highlighted recent scrutiny of universities’ connections with Libya as an example of how the public see education as operating within a different value system.
He said: “It’s essential that we see ourselves as educational institutions and that we retain our values. People expect higher education to have different value set. It’s really important that we maintain that.”
Professor Thomas’ talk opened the JISC11 conference in Liverpool today, which is attended by nearly 700 delegates from across further and higher education in the UK, China, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and Sweden.
It introduced a day of advice, guidance and future-gazing on the theme of ‘financial challenges, digital opportunities’ to help colleges and opportunities reduce costs and improve their efficiency.
"
NK
"
Professor Eric Thomas, vice chancellor of Bristol University, today highlighted the importance of colleges’ and universities’ use of technology in encouraging student applications.
He said: “An integrated, sophisticated use of [new technology] is going to mean that the university is seen as cutting edge and more attractive. I see JISC’s role as assisting us in making the university look as attractive as possible.”
JISC’s deputy chair Professor David Baker agreed: “Over the next 5-10 years JISC will have an ever more vital role to play not just in the education sector but across the UK. I don’t believe that JISC or higher or further education can afford to slow down.”
Against the backdrop of an increasingly demanding student body, Professor Thomas predicted that within ten years there would be more students studying in their home towns to save costs, and that they would also have the choice of non-degree entry to traditional careers like accounting.
Professor Thomas also highlighted recent scrutiny of universities’ connections with Libya as an example of how the public see education as operating within a different value system.
He said: “It’s essential that we see ourselves as educational institutions and that we retain our values. People expect higher education to have different value set. It’s really important that we maintain that.”
Professor Thomas’ talk opened the JISC11 conference in Liverpool today, which is attended by nearly 700 delegates from across further and higher education in the UK, China, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and Sweden.
It introduced a day of advice, guidance and future-gazing on the theme of ‘financial challenges, digital opportunities’ to help colleges and opportunities reduce costs and improve their efficiency.
"
NK
Συνέδριο
Ενημέρωση
EDULEARN11 (3rd International Conference on Education and New Learning
Technologies)
4th, 5th and 6th of July, 2011
Barcelona (Spain)
Website: http://www.edulearn11.org
The deadline to submit your abstract is 31st of March 2011. You can do it at:
http://www.edulearn11.org/submit
EDULEARN11 will be an excellent opportunity to present your projects and
discuss the latest results in the field of Experiences in Education,
E-learning and New Technologies applied to teaching and learning. Its main
objective is to promote and disseminate the educational experiences in all
fields and disciplines.
This conference will be held at international level. The attendance of more
than 700 delegates from 70 different countries is expected.
You can present your papers in 3 presentation modalities: ORAL, POSTER or VIRTUAL.
Two ISBN publications will be produced with the accepted abstracts and papers:
EDULEARN11 Abstract CD and EDULEARN11 Proceedings CD.
Apart from the professional experience, you will be able to enjoy the
cosmopolitan city of Barcelona, its historical places, its lovely beaches and
unique gastronomy.
EDULEARN11 (3rd International Conference on Education and New Learning
Technologies)
4th, 5th and 6th of July, 2011
Barcelona (Spain)
Website: http://www.edulearn11.org
The deadline to submit your abstract is 31st of March 2011. You can do it at:
http://www.edulearn11.org/submit
EDULEARN11 will be an excellent opportunity to present your projects and
discuss the latest results in the field of Experiences in Education,
E-learning and New Technologies applied to teaching and learning. Its main
objective is to promote and disseminate the educational experiences in all
fields and disciplines.
This conference will be held at international level. The attendance of more
than 700 delegates from 70 different countries is expected.
You can present your papers in 3 presentation modalities: ORAL, POSTER or VIRTUAL.
Two ISBN publications will be produced with the accepted abstracts and papers:
EDULEARN11 Abstract CD and EDULEARN11 Proceedings CD.
Apart from the professional experience, you will be able to enjoy the
cosmopolitan city of Barcelona, its historical places, its lovely beaches and
unique gastronomy.
Τετάρτη 16 Μαρτίου 2011
Τρίτη 15 Μαρτίου 2011
The return of Jedi (1)
Επίπεδο αναφοράς η παράθυρο στη θλίψη??/
regards,
NIKOS
University 2.0
View more presentations from Chris Sparshott
regards,
NIKOS
Κάλεσμα για Εισηγήσεις
[Open-source] Συνέδριο ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ 2011 - Κάλεσμα για Εισηγήσεις
Εισερχόμενα X
Εισερχόμενα
προβολή λεπτομερειών 7:26 μ.μ. (Πριν από 22 ώρες) |
Η Εταιρεία Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού / Λογισμικού Ανοικτού Κώδικα (ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ)
διοργανώνει συνέδριο με θέμα "ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ: Ευκαιρίες και Δυνατότητες για
Ανάπτυξη". Το συνέδριο θα πραγματοποιηθεί Παρασκευή 20 και Σάββατο 21
Μαΐου 2011 στην Αθήνα (ΕΜΠ), ενώ την Κυριακή 22 Μαΐου θα
πραγματοποιηθούν αντίστοιχες ημερίδες σε Θεσσαλονίκη, Ηράκλειο και
Λάρισα.
Στο φετινό συνέδριο θα γίνουν παρουσιάσεις που θα καλύπτουν θέματα
όπως τη Δημόσια Διοίκηση, τα Ανοιχτά Πρότυπα και το Ανοιχτό
Περιεχόμενο, τις Κοινότητες Ανοιχτού Λογισμικού αλλά και το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ως
Εναλλακτικό Μοντέλο Επιχειρηματικότητας. Επίσης θα υπάρξουν πάνελ
ανοιχτής συζήτησης με θέματα όπως “Μη κοιτάς μόνο τι κάνεις εσύ για το
ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, δες και τι μπορεί να κάνει το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ για εσένα”.
Η ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ προσκαλεί δημιουργούς (developers) ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ και γενικώς όσους
συμβάλουν (contributors) σε έργα ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, να παρουσιάσουν τη δουλειά
τους. Οι ενδιαφερόμενοι θα πρέπει να υποβάλλουν την πρότασή τους και
την πόλη που θέλουν να συμμετέχουν, για κρίση από την επιστημονική
επιτροπή, με e-mail στην διεύθυνση proposals @ ellak.gr, το αργότερο
έως τις 10 Απριλίου.
Η εκδήλωση ενδιαφέροντος για συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο να περιλαμβάνει
συνοπτική περιγραφή της πρότασης έως 300 λέξεις. Οι προτάσεις μπορούν
να αφορούν τόσο παρουσιάσεις, όσο και εργαστήρια (workshops).
Για δηλώσεις συμμετοχής για την παρακολούθηση ομιλιών και εργαστηρίων,
μπορείτε να επισκεφτείτε τον ιστότοπο http://conf.ellak.gr/ όπου θα
ανακοινωθεί σύντομα και το αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα του συνεδρίου.
διοργανώνει συνέδριο με θέμα "ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ: Ευκαιρίες και Δυνατότητες για
Ανάπτυξη". Το συνέδριο θα πραγματοποιηθεί Παρασκευή 20 και Σάββατο 21
Μαΐου 2011 στην Αθήνα (ΕΜΠ), ενώ την Κυριακή 22 Μαΐου θα
πραγματοποιηθούν αντίστοιχες ημερίδες σε Θεσσαλονίκη, Ηράκλειο και
Λάρισα.
Στο φετινό συνέδριο θα γίνουν παρουσιάσεις που θα καλύπτουν θέματα
όπως τη Δημόσια Διοίκηση, τα Ανοιχτά Πρότυπα και το Ανοιχτό
Περιεχόμενο, τις Κοινότητες Ανοιχτού Λογισμικού αλλά και το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ ως
Εναλλακτικό Μοντέλο Επιχειρηματικότητας. Επίσης θα υπάρξουν πάνελ
ανοιχτής συζήτησης με θέματα όπως “Μη κοιτάς μόνο τι κάνεις εσύ για το
ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, δες και τι μπορεί να κάνει το ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ για εσένα”.
Η ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ προσκαλεί δημιουργούς (developers) ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ και γενικώς όσους
συμβάλουν (contributors) σε έργα ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ, να παρουσιάσουν τη δουλειά
τους. Οι ενδιαφερόμενοι θα πρέπει να υποβάλλουν την πρότασή τους και
την πόλη που θέλουν να συμμετέχουν, για κρίση από την επιστημονική
επιτροπή, με e-mail στην διεύθυνση proposals @ ellak.gr, το αργότερο
έως τις 10 Απριλίου.
Η εκδήλωση ενδιαφέροντος για συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο να περιλαμβάνει
συνοπτική περιγραφή της πρότασης έως 300 λέξεις. Οι προτάσεις μπορούν
να αφορούν τόσο παρουσιάσεις, όσο και εργαστήρια (workshops).
Για δηλώσεις συμμετοχής για την παρακολούθηση ομιλιών και εργαστηρίων,
μπορείτε να επισκεφτείτε τον ιστότοπο http://conf.ellak.gr/ όπου θα
ανακοινωθεί σύντομα και το αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα του συνεδρίου.
E-Learning, open or closed?
Αγαπητοί / ες φίλοι / φίλες
σας παραθέτω ένα κείμενο του
Sir John Daniel, από το
Commonwealth of Learning
"<<
E-Learning, open or closed?
Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity, Dubai – Annual Congress 2011
Theme:
Being at the Leading Edge – How to give the Quest for Excellence a New Meaning
Keynote address
eLearning: Open or Closed?
Sir John Daniel
Commonwealth of Learning
Introduction
It is a great pleasure finally to be here, more than a year after you kindly invited me to become an associate of the Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity as a member of an advisory committee. I see from the number of appearances that I have on the programme that you are making up for lost time so I hope that I do not wear out your welcome mat.
My title this morning is eLearning: Open or Closed? It is a title that can be interpreted in various ways and I shall explore some of them.
Open and distance learning is still a relatively new phenomenon in this part of the world so I shall begin with some simple statements about how, by applying technology through open and distance learning, we can achieve a revolution in education.
Open and distance learning has long been viewed with suspicion in the Arab world. In the second part of this talk I shall address that issue head on and suggest what we can do to lessen the hostility.
Third, I shall talk about eLearning as a modern expression of open and distance learning, explore its advantages and disadvantages and make a recommendation for improving its quality.
Technology is the answer: what was the question?
I call this first section Technology is the Answer: What was the Question? It is easy to get excited about all the new technologies that have developed in recent years. They must have some useful applications in education and training. But what are they? To date by far the most successful application of technology in formal education is distance learning.
So I start by looking at the purposes of distance education. Why is distance education, long regarded as second rate, and still regarded with suspicion in this part of the world, now of such wide interest? I shall argue that it is not only of interest, but that it contains the seeds of a revolution that can sweep away the biggest obstacle that education has faced throughout human history. If we implement eLearning effectively we can really exploit and embed the distance education revolution.
However, the issue is not technology but what we do with it. Technology may be an answer, but what is the question? What is the educational challenge that technology can solve?
The challenges facing education
Ministers of Education will tell you that their challenge is to pursue three goals simultaneously. They want to widen access so that education and training can be available to all citizens that aspire to it. Second, that education must be of good quality. There is no point in widening access unless education makes a difference to people’s capabilities. Third, the cost must be as low as possible. Governments and individuals never have enough money. It is morally wrong to make education more expensive than necessary, because low cost enables more people to take advantage of it.
The challenge of achieving these outcomes simultaneously becomes clear when you create a triangle of vectors. With traditional methods of face-to-face teaching this is an iron triangle. This iron triangle symbolises the closed system of classroom teaching. You want to stretch the triangle to give greater access, higher quality and lower costs.
But you can’t!
Try extending access by packing more students into each classroom and you will be accused of damaging quality. Try improving quality by providing more and better learning resources and the cost will go up. Try cutting costs and you will endanger both access and quality.
This iron triangle has hindered the expansion of education throughout history. It has created in the public mind – and probably in your own thinking – an insidious link between quality and exclusivity. This link still drives the admission policies of many universities, which define their quality by the people they exclude.
But today there is good news. Thanks to globalisation successive waves of technology are sweeping the world – and technology can transform the iron triangle into a flexible triangle.
The revolution of technology
By using the technology of distance education you can achieve wider access, higher quality and lower cost all at the same time. This is a revolution – it has never happened before. This is what educational technology can achieve if used properly.
What is technology? We can define it as the application of scientific and other organized knowledge to practical tasks by organizations consisting of people and machines, so it draws on non-scientific knowledge as well as applied science. Technology is about practical tasks rather than theory and always involves people and their social systems. Expanding and improving education is a very practical task. People and their social systems are at the heart of it.
But how does technology work? The fundamental principles of technology, articulated two centuries ago by the economist Adam Smith, are division of labour, specialisation, economies of scale, and the use of machines and communications media. I shall argue later that we are in danger of forgetting these principles when we do eLearning – yet we forget them at our peril.
An example: the UK Open University
Let me make this real by showing how the application of technology to higher education has achieved remarkable success. I take the example of the UK Open University.
With 260,000 students in award-bearing programmes the UKOU has clearly expanded access. Furthermore, this is not just in the UK since 60,000 of its students are overseas, and there are a million students around the world taking parts of UKOU courses embedded within local programmes.
Many of these course components derive from the Open Educational Resources on the UKOU’s OpenLearn website, which has 11 million users. I shall talk later about Open Educational Resources. The Open University has done a brilliant job in making some of its materials freely available so that anyone can use them and the numbers are huge.
28 million people – 300,000 every week – download these materials and 80% of them are outside the UK. Then there were over 200 million viewers who watched Open University BBC television programmes last year. Many of them, and the Open University has tracked 6,000 cases, make their way from informal study into formal courses. That expansion of informal learning is also helping to increase the potential clientele for the Hamdan bin Mohammed eUniversity.
More surprising to you no doubt – and more embarrassing for some of the UK’s other top universities – is the UKOU’s performance in national comparative assessments of teaching quality. The Open University places above Oxford, where I once studied. Moreover, the government now conducts annual national surveys of student satisfaction with a very large sample of students and the Open University placed third out of a hundred institutions last year and has come first in earlier years.
Finally, the last time costs were compared, the cost per graduate of the UKOU was 60-80% that of conventional universities depending on the subject.
So the Open University has achieved the technological revolution of wider access, higher quality and lower cost. It has stretched the iron triangle.
How has this been achieved?
It has been done through the combination of Adam Smith’s technological principles. In the category ‘Machines and ICTs’ the UKOU offers a multi-media system of distance learning with strong student support. This multi-media system includes some of the world’s largest deployments of eLearning but the key issue is not the eLearning or any of the other media, but the focus on division of labour, specialisation and economies of scale.
You could say that the UKOU divides the distance learning process into its three constituent parts, gets different people to specialise in doing each part as well as possible, and then puts it all back together again into an integrated system.
Distance Learning: Why the hostility?
So far, so good! But so why do we have to defend distance and eLearning against attack so often?
There has always been hostility to the methods of distance education. Education is a conservative area of human activity and many people, both in universities and among the wider public, do not regard education as legitimate unless a live teacher faces a live class. Classroom are closed, eLearning is more open: that is a threat to traditional thinking.
This derives from more discreet opposition to two of the values implicit in open and distance learning. The first contested value is openness to people. Many still consider that quality in education is synonymous with exclusivity. They define the quality of their institution by the numbers of people they exclude from it. To such a mindset the notion of an open university or an eUniversity, that measures its success by the number and variety of people that it includes, is deeply threatening.
The second contested value is openness to ideas. It is generally true that open and distance learning encourages people to think for themselves. They reach their own conclusions about an issue after studying course materials that present a variety of perspectives. It is an approach to learning that is more open intellectually. Independent thinking derives naturally from independent study, and that is threatening to those who would limit debate and constrain thought. They consider face-to-face instruction less risky.
This paradox is strange but simple. Globally, open and distance learning has grown by leaps and bounds since the creation of the first open universities forty years ago. Most importantly, this growth is not only, indeed not mainly, through the multiplication and growth of open universities. The number of mega-universities with over 100,000 enrolled students has indeed grown steadily since I wrote my book, Mega-universities, in 1996. But even more dramatic has been the growth of distance learning and eLearning programmes within conventional campus universities.
Indeed, there are now very few universities which do not offer some programmes at a distance – or at least, if they want to avoid the ‘d’ word, through forms of what they call flexible or blended learning. It is now impossible to calculate how many of the world’s students are now learning at a distance, but they number in the tens of millions.
The paradox is that at the moment when open and distance education seems to have found its place in the sun by being adopted throughout higher education, opposition to it is emerging all over the globe. But we should see this as an opportunity – not just to reassert the importance of our values and the effectiveness of our methods but also to clean house. We must accept that the opposition to ODL is not solely an expression of bad will or fear of change. Some hostility is a reaction to abuses, which we must address.
Let me reassure you, however, that the opposition we face, although determined, vicious and multi-pronged, will not prevail. As evidence I cite the conclusions of last year’s UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education.
The new dynamics of higher education
The conference title was The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development and it brought together over a thousand government and institutional delegates from most countries of the world.
What are these new dynamics in higher education? They were identified in the conference communiqué that the delegates approved. Since then they have been articulated by the Executive-Secretary of the Conference, UNESCO’s Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić, in many presentations.
The new dynamics are:
1) Rising demand and massification
2) Diversification of providers and methods
3) Private provision
4) Distance education
5) Cross-border higher education
6) Quality assurance
7) Teacher education
8) Challenges to the academic profession
The striking feature about this list is that all these new dynamics relate more or less directly to open, distance and eLearning. Take the first, rising demand and massification.
Today there is a revolution in higher education as countries use the technology of distance education to achieve something completely new: education of higher quality at lower cost. Education can now be scaled up to achieve even lower costs without loss of quality – an important response to massification.
Take the next four new dynamics: diversification of methods, private provision, distance learning and cross-border provision. All these are related to the use of distance learning technologies; Furthermore, technology requires new approaches to quality assurance and only the massive use of distance learning will address the challenge of training ten million new teachers in this decade.
Finally, the last ‘new dynamic’ on the list is challenges to the academic profession.
They may still be a minority, but here in Dubai young and dynamic academics are now introducing a new generation of technology to ensure that university education is accessible and cost-effective. All over the world, in open and campus institutions, academics are learning new skills and adapting to new realities as they offer courses in open, distance and technology-mediated formats.
So my message today is that the current wave of opposition to ODL will not prevail against it. Open, distance and technology-mediated education is now intimately bound up with the future of higher education generally. The clock will not be turned back.
The knowledge that ODL will win the battle should give us the confidence us to see today’s threats as an opportunity to do more and better tomorrow. But how should we address this opposition?
Addressing the opposition to distance learning
Circumstances require that we act on four fronts.
Most governments still wish to increase participation in higher education but, not least because of the current economic climate, they have less money to spend on it. Expanding distance learning must be a major part of the solution to this dilemma.
In the United States enrolments in eLearning courses rose by 21% from 2009 to 2010 compared to 2% for campus enrolments. Many governments have got the message and currently a number of new open universities being created across Africa. This is a time when distance learning can get the ear of government as never before.
We must make two other points while we have the ear of government. First, there is much talk nowadays about the 21st century skills that we want our graduates to have. One important skill is to be a self-directed learner. eLearning and independent study are more likely to cultivate self directed learning than being spoon fed in a classroom.
The second point for government is that distance learning is an effective mechanism for making the use of ICTs effective in higher education. Letting a thousand flowers bloom is pretty, but governments need to be reminded that distance learning institutions like the Hamdan bin Mohammed eUniversity have the muscle to innovate cost-effectively at scale. It is not an accident that the materials of the UK Open University, which operates at scale with 260,000 formally enrolled students, are among the most frequently downloaded from iTunes.
But fourth and finally, we must clean up our act and remove the bad apples from of the barrel. One of the new dynamics of higher education is the internationalisation of quality assurance. We should campaign for our countries to maintain strong and independent quality assurance agencies that have all higher education under their purview, public and private, classroom and distance. What matters is the quality of the output of higher education, not how it was offered or under what corporate structure. I am proud to be on the steering committee of the Global Initiative for Quality Assurance Capacity, which is supporting the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education in its training work.
One area where there is already good international collaboration is the fight against degree mills. We know what needs to be done to discourage degree mills – let’s do it. And let us encourage our governments to participate actively in UNESCO’s portal of recognised higher education institutions, so that students around the world can avoid being hoodwinked by scams and crooks.
eLearning: what’s next?
This brings me to the third and final part of this address. eLearning is the most recent expression of open and distance learning. What are its advantages and disadvantages how can we improve its quality and impact?
The key question is: what does the incorporation of a digital culture add to distance learning – and is it scalable? The aim is increased access, better quality and lower costs. The digital culture has not yet had a giant intellect like Adam Smith to clarify its essential nature for us but, appropriately perhaps for something essentially unstructured, the concepts of networks, connectedness, collaboration and community capture elements of it.
The advantages of eLearning, compared to conventional distance learning, are easy access to diverse learning content and rapidity of feedback and communication. The snags are that most of the world’s population is not yet well connected and, since eLearning tends to stimulate more interaction with tutors, without good organisation it is less scalable than traditional ODL at comparable costs.
In an important survey of eLearning in North America, just published, Professor Tony Bates finds that in general eLearning there is not stretching the iron triangle. Instead of cutting costs, investment in technology and support staff is increasing costs without replacing other activities. Instead of increasing quality, eLearning fails to meet quality standards in some institutions and there is no evidence of improved learning outcomes. In my language, much of eLearning in North America is not open.
This is a serious challenge for you. Can you do better than North America and really reap the advantages of technology? We are entering a new era. A key feature of digital distance learning is that you can find content for learning everywhere. But education is not a do-it-yourself construction kit. In order for education to work within the larger structures of society, clear outcomes are still needed. Learners need guidance to digest the chaotic and ambiguous information climate created by networks.
Most of those who write about digital education have jumped straight to it from the cottage industry style of classroom teaching without experiencing the technology culture of traditional ODL. They talk about the change from teachers ‘controlling a classroom’ to ‘influencing a network’, They leapfrog over ‘technology-culture ODL’ in which learners are not controlled and reach their own conclusions from learning materials developed by teams that present multiple perspectives.
Open Educational Resources
What can we do to incorporate some of the scale advantages of technology-culture ODL into digital ODL?
Time only allows me to identify one very important mechanism, which is Open Educational Resources or OERs. OERs are learning materials, of variable length, which are freely available for adaptation and use. The possibility of adaptation is vital. Content from elsewhere is never totally suitable for our own needs, but if we can adapt it to suit those needs then we can have the best of both worlds, content of world-class quality mapped on to local needs.
There is a splendid example of this in a programme for Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa called TESSA. A consortium of 12 African universities, the UK Open University and international organisations, including COL, has produced a huge range of materials on classroom-focused in-service teacher education. They are available in Arabic, English, French and Kiswahili and were used by hundreds of thousands of teachers all over Africa last year, with a beneficial impact on the many millions of children they teach.
OERs are a beautiful synthesis of the technology culture and the digital culture. Their production relies on specialisation and division of labour across Africa, but because of their digital format and their adaptability they also achieve huge economies of scale.
We are pleased to say that COL is now facilitating a similar process of OER creation for the senior secondary curriculum. One hundred teachers from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia have divided up the last two years of the secondary curriculum with each country team working on a particular subject. The OERs will be available in both print and eLearning formats to the whole world, including Dubai.
We don’t pretend that it has been easy, because connectivity is a constant problem for the master teachers creating the materials in these countries. But we are getting there and since these are OERs the materials will, of course, be available to open schools and conventional schools all over the world, not just in the six countries directly involved.
Conclusion
It is time to conclude.
There are many other things to say about how eLearning can allow digital ODL to be more open and achieve some of the scale advantages of technology-culture ODL. One aim should be to automate the interaction between students and tutors as much as possible, for example by referring students to a website of frequently asked questions rather than dealing with each individually. Another approach is simply a matter of discipline. eLearning tempts teachers to revise material constantly, which has a dire impact on scalability and economics. Most courses do not need changing every few months and teachers would do well to adopt the principle of technology-culture ODL: do a really good job of developing the course and let it run for a while rather than doing a skimpy job and revising it constantly. Use the interactive tutorial system to address new developments in the subject.
If you exploit technology in these and other ways you will succeed in stretching the iron triangle and creating the long-awaited revolution in education. I wish you well in that vital endeavour.
"
>>
σας παραθέτω ένα κείμενο του
Sir John Daniel, από το
Commonwealth of Learning
"<<
E-Learning, open or closed?
Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity, Dubai – Annual Congress 2011
Theme:
Being at the Leading Edge – How to give the Quest for Excellence a New Meaning
Keynote address
eLearning: Open or Closed?
Sir John Daniel
Commonwealth of Learning
Introduction
It is a great pleasure finally to be here, more than a year after you kindly invited me to become an associate of the Hamdan Bin Mohammed eUniversity as a member of an advisory committee. I see from the number of appearances that I have on the programme that you are making up for lost time so I hope that I do not wear out your welcome mat.
My title this morning is eLearning: Open or Closed? It is a title that can be interpreted in various ways and I shall explore some of them.
Open and distance learning is still a relatively new phenomenon in this part of the world so I shall begin with some simple statements about how, by applying technology through open and distance learning, we can achieve a revolution in education.
Open and distance learning has long been viewed with suspicion in the Arab world. In the second part of this talk I shall address that issue head on and suggest what we can do to lessen the hostility.
Third, I shall talk about eLearning as a modern expression of open and distance learning, explore its advantages and disadvantages and make a recommendation for improving its quality.
Technology is the answer: what was the question?
I call this first section Technology is the Answer: What was the Question? It is easy to get excited about all the new technologies that have developed in recent years. They must have some useful applications in education and training. But what are they? To date by far the most successful application of technology in formal education is distance learning.
So I start by looking at the purposes of distance education. Why is distance education, long regarded as second rate, and still regarded with suspicion in this part of the world, now of such wide interest? I shall argue that it is not only of interest, but that it contains the seeds of a revolution that can sweep away the biggest obstacle that education has faced throughout human history. If we implement eLearning effectively we can really exploit and embed the distance education revolution.
However, the issue is not technology but what we do with it. Technology may be an answer, but what is the question? What is the educational challenge that technology can solve?
The challenges facing education
Ministers of Education will tell you that their challenge is to pursue three goals simultaneously. They want to widen access so that education and training can be available to all citizens that aspire to it. Second, that education must be of good quality. There is no point in widening access unless education makes a difference to people’s capabilities. Third, the cost must be as low as possible. Governments and individuals never have enough money. It is morally wrong to make education more expensive than necessary, because low cost enables more people to take advantage of it.
The challenge of achieving these outcomes simultaneously becomes clear when you create a triangle of vectors. With traditional methods of face-to-face teaching this is an iron triangle. This iron triangle symbolises the closed system of classroom teaching. You want to stretch the triangle to give greater access, higher quality and lower costs.
But you can’t!
Try extending access by packing more students into each classroom and you will be accused of damaging quality. Try improving quality by providing more and better learning resources and the cost will go up. Try cutting costs and you will endanger both access and quality.
This iron triangle has hindered the expansion of education throughout history. It has created in the public mind – and probably in your own thinking – an insidious link between quality and exclusivity. This link still drives the admission policies of many universities, which define their quality by the people they exclude.
But today there is good news. Thanks to globalisation successive waves of technology are sweeping the world – and technology can transform the iron triangle into a flexible triangle.
The revolution of technology
By using the technology of distance education you can achieve wider access, higher quality and lower cost all at the same time. This is a revolution – it has never happened before. This is what educational technology can achieve if used properly.
What is technology? We can define it as the application of scientific and other organized knowledge to practical tasks by organizations consisting of people and machines, so it draws on non-scientific knowledge as well as applied science. Technology is about practical tasks rather than theory and always involves people and their social systems. Expanding and improving education is a very practical task. People and their social systems are at the heart of it.
But how does technology work? The fundamental principles of technology, articulated two centuries ago by the economist Adam Smith, are division of labour, specialisation, economies of scale, and the use of machines and communications media. I shall argue later that we are in danger of forgetting these principles when we do eLearning – yet we forget them at our peril.
An example: the UK Open University
Let me make this real by showing how the application of technology to higher education has achieved remarkable success. I take the example of the UK Open University.
With 260,000 students in award-bearing programmes the UKOU has clearly expanded access. Furthermore, this is not just in the UK since 60,000 of its students are overseas, and there are a million students around the world taking parts of UKOU courses embedded within local programmes.
Many of these course components derive from the Open Educational Resources on the UKOU’s OpenLearn website, which has 11 million users. I shall talk later about Open Educational Resources. The Open University has done a brilliant job in making some of its materials freely available so that anyone can use them and the numbers are huge.
28 million people – 300,000 every week – download these materials and 80% of them are outside the UK. Then there were over 200 million viewers who watched Open University BBC television programmes last year. Many of them, and the Open University has tracked 6,000 cases, make their way from informal study into formal courses. That expansion of informal learning is also helping to increase the potential clientele for the Hamdan bin Mohammed eUniversity.
More surprising to you no doubt – and more embarrassing for some of the UK’s other top universities – is the UKOU’s performance in national comparative assessments of teaching quality. The Open University places above Oxford, where I once studied. Moreover, the government now conducts annual national surveys of student satisfaction with a very large sample of students and the Open University placed third out of a hundred institutions last year and has come first in earlier years.
Finally, the last time costs were compared, the cost per graduate of the UKOU was 60-80% that of conventional universities depending on the subject.
So the Open University has achieved the technological revolution of wider access, higher quality and lower cost. It has stretched the iron triangle.
How has this been achieved?
It has been done through the combination of Adam Smith’s technological principles. In the category ‘Machines and ICTs’ the UKOU offers a multi-media system of distance learning with strong student support. This multi-media system includes some of the world’s largest deployments of eLearning but the key issue is not the eLearning or any of the other media, but the focus on division of labour, specialisation and economies of scale.
You could say that the UKOU divides the distance learning process into its three constituent parts, gets different people to specialise in doing each part as well as possible, and then puts it all back together again into an integrated system.
Distance Learning: Why the hostility?
So far, so good! But so why do we have to defend distance and eLearning against attack so often?
There has always been hostility to the methods of distance education. Education is a conservative area of human activity and many people, both in universities and among the wider public, do not regard education as legitimate unless a live teacher faces a live class. Classroom are closed, eLearning is more open: that is a threat to traditional thinking.
This derives from more discreet opposition to two of the values implicit in open and distance learning. The first contested value is openness to people. Many still consider that quality in education is synonymous with exclusivity. They define the quality of their institution by the numbers of people they exclude from it. To such a mindset the notion of an open university or an eUniversity, that measures its success by the number and variety of people that it includes, is deeply threatening.
The second contested value is openness to ideas. It is generally true that open and distance learning encourages people to think for themselves. They reach their own conclusions about an issue after studying course materials that present a variety of perspectives. It is an approach to learning that is more open intellectually. Independent thinking derives naturally from independent study, and that is threatening to those who would limit debate and constrain thought. They consider face-to-face instruction less risky.
This paradox is strange but simple. Globally, open and distance learning has grown by leaps and bounds since the creation of the first open universities forty years ago. Most importantly, this growth is not only, indeed not mainly, through the multiplication and growth of open universities. The number of mega-universities with over 100,000 enrolled students has indeed grown steadily since I wrote my book, Mega-universities, in 1996. But even more dramatic has been the growth of distance learning and eLearning programmes within conventional campus universities.
Indeed, there are now very few universities which do not offer some programmes at a distance – or at least, if they want to avoid the ‘d’ word, through forms of what they call flexible or blended learning. It is now impossible to calculate how many of the world’s students are now learning at a distance, but they number in the tens of millions.
The paradox is that at the moment when open and distance education seems to have found its place in the sun by being adopted throughout higher education, opposition to it is emerging all over the globe. But we should see this as an opportunity – not just to reassert the importance of our values and the effectiveness of our methods but also to clean house. We must accept that the opposition to ODL is not solely an expression of bad will or fear of change. Some hostility is a reaction to abuses, which we must address.
Let me reassure you, however, that the opposition we face, although determined, vicious and multi-pronged, will not prevail. As evidence I cite the conclusions of last year’s UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education.
The new dynamics of higher education
The conference title was The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development and it brought together over a thousand government and institutional delegates from most countries of the world.
What are these new dynamics in higher education? They were identified in the conference communiqué that the delegates approved. Since then they have been articulated by the Executive-Secretary of the Conference, UNESCO’s Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić, in many presentations.
The new dynamics are:
1) Rising demand and massification
2) Diversification of providers and methods
3) Private provision
4) Distance education
5) Cross-border higher education
6) Quality assurance
7) Teacher education
8) Challenges to the academic profession
The striking feature about this list is that all these new dynamics relate more or less directly to open, distance and eLearning. Take the first, rising demand and massification.
Today there is a revolution in higher education as countries use the technology of distance education to achieve something completely new: education of higher quality at lower cost. Education can now be scaled up to achieve even lower costs without loss of quality – an important response to massification.
Take the next four new dynamics: diversification of methods, private provision, distance learning and cross-border provision. All these are related to the use of distance learning technologies; Furthermore, technology requires new approaches to quality assurance and only the massive use of distance learning will address the challenge of training ten million new teachers in this decade.
Finally, the last ‘new dynamic’ on the list is challenges to the academic profession.
They may still be a minority, but here in Dubai young and dynamic academics are now introducing a new generation of technology to ensure that university education is accessible and cost-effective. All over the world, in open and campus institutions, academics are learning new skills and adapting to new realities as they offer courses in open, distance and technology-mediated formats.
So my message today is that the current wave of opposition to ODL will not prevail against it. Open, distance and technology-mediated education is now intimately bound up with the future of higher education generally. The clock will not be turned back.
The knowledge that ODL will win the battle should give us the confidence us to see today’s threats as an opportunity to do more and better tomorrow. But how should we address this opposition?
Addressing the opposition to distance learning
Circumstances require that we act on four fronts.
Most governments still wish to increase participation in higher education but, not least because of the current economic climate, they have less money to spend on it. Expanding distance learning must be a major part of the solution to this dilemma.
In the United States enrolments in eLearning courses rose by 21% from 2009 to 2010 compared to 2% for campus enrolments. Many governments have got the message and currently a number of new open universities being created across Africa. This is a time when distance learning can get the ear of government as never before.
We must make two other points while we have the ear of government. First, there is much talk nowadays about the 21st century skills that we want our graduates to have. One important skill is to be a self-directed learner. eLearning and independent study are more likely to cultivate self directed learning than being spoon fed in a classroom.
The second point for government is that distance learning is an effective mechanism for making the use of ICTs effective in higher education. Letting a thousand flowers bloom is pretty, but governments need to be reminded that distance learning institutions like the Hamdan bin Mohammed eUniversity have the muscle to innovate cost-effectively at scale. It is not an accident that the materials of the UK Open University, which operates at scale with 260,000 formally enrolled students, are among the most frequently downloaded from iTunes.
But fourth and finally, we must clean up our act and remove the bad apples from of the barrel. One of the new dynamics of higher education is the internationalisation of quality assurance. We should campaign for our countries to maintain strong and independent quality assurance agencies that have all higher education under their purview, public and private, classroom and distance. What matters is the quality of the output of higher education, not how it was offered or under what corporate structure. I am proud to be on the steering committee of the Global Initiative for Quality Assurance Capacity, which is supporting the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education in its training work.
One area where there is already good international collaboration is the fight against degree mills. We know what needs to be done to discourage degree mills – let’s do it. And let us encourage our governments to participate actively in UNESCO’s portal of recognised higher education institutions, so that students around the world can avoid being hoodwinked by scams and crooks.
eLearning: what’s next?
This brings me to the third and final part of this address. eLearning is the most recent expression of open and distance learning. What are its advantages and disadvantages how can we improve its quality and impact?
The key question is: what does the incorporation of a digital culture add to distance learning – and is it scalable? The aim is increased access, better quality and lower costs. The digital culture has not yet had a giant intellect like Adam Smith to clarify its essential nature for us but, appropriately perhaps for something essentially unstructured, the concepts of networks, connectedness, collaboration and community capture elements of it.
The advantages of eLearning, compared to conventional distance learning, are easy access to diverse learning content and rapidity of feedback and communication. The snags are that most of the world’s population is not yet well connected and, since eLearning tends to stimulate more interaction with tutors, without good organisation it is less scalable than traditional ODL at comparable costs.
In an important survey of eLearning in North America, just published, Professor Tony Bates finds that in general eLearning there is not stretching the iron triangle. Instead of cutting costs, investment in technology and support staff is increasing costs without replacing other activities. Instead of increasing quality, eLearning fails to meet quality standards in some institutions and there is no evidence of improved learning outcomes. In my language, much of eLearning in North America is not open.
This is a serious challenge for you. Can you do better than North America and really reap the advantages of technology? We are entering a new era. A key feature of digital distance learning is that you can find content for learning everywhere. But education is not a do-it-yourself construction kit. In order for education to work within the larger structures of society, clear outcomes are still needed. Learners need guidance to digest the chaotic and ambiguous information climate created by networks.
Most of those who write about digital education have jumped straight to it from the cottage industry style of classroom teaching without experiencing the technology culture of traditional ODL. They talk about the change from teachers ‘controlling a classroom’ to ‘influencing a network’, They leapfrog over ‘technology-culture ODL’ in which learners are not controlled and reach their own conclusions from learning materials developed by teams that present multiple perspectives.
Open Educational Resources
What can we do to incorporate some of the scale advantages of technology-culture ODL into digital ODL?
Time only allows me to identify one very important mechanism, which is Open Educational Resources or OERs. OERs are learning materials, of variable length, which are freely available for adaptation and use. The possibility of adaptation is vital. Content from elsewhere is never totally suitable for our own needs, but if we can adapt it to suit those needs then we can have the best of both worlds, content of world-class quality mapped on to local needs.
There is a splendid example of this in a programme for Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa called TESSA. A consortium of 12 African universities, the UK Open University and international organisations, including COL, has produced a huge range of materials on classroom-focused in-service teacher education. They are available in Arabic, English, French and Kiswahili and were used by hundreds of thousands of teachers all over Africa last year, with a beneficial impact on the many millions of children they teach.
OERs are a beautiful synthesis of the technology culture and the digital culture. Their production relies on specialisation and division of labour across Africa, but because of their digital format and their adaptability they also achieve huge economies of scale.
We are pleased to say that COL is now facilitating a similar process of OER creation for the senior secondary curriculum. One hundred teachers from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia have divided up the last two years of the secondary curriculum with each country team working on a particular subject. The OERs will be available in both print and eLearning formats to the whole world, including Dubai.
We don’t pretend that it has been easy, because connectivity is a constant problem for the master teachers creating the materials in these countries. But we are getting there and since these are OERs the materials will, of course, be available to open schools and conventional schools all over the world, not just in the six countries directly involved.
Conclusion
It is time to conclude.
There are many other things to say about how eLearning can allow digital ODL to be more open and achieve some of the scale advantages of technology-culture ODL. One aim should be to automate the interaction between students and tutors as much as possible, for example by referring students to a website of frequently asked questions rather than dealing with each individually. Another approach is simply a matter of discipline. eLearning tempts teachers to revise material constantly, which has a dire impact on scalability and economics. Most courses do not need changing every few months and teachers would do well to adopt the principle of technology-culture ODL: do a really good job of developing the course and let it run for a while rather than doing a skimpy job and revising it constantly. Use the interactive tutorial system to address new developments in the subject.
If you exploit technology in these and other ways you will succeed in stretching the iron triangle and creating the long-awaited revolution in education. I wish you well in that vital endeavour.
"
>>
Εγγραφή σε:
Αναρτήσεις (Atom)