Edtech and online learning – Page 3

Business as usual

Kate Bowles June 2, 2013 3 Comments

In an evolving market, the development of sustainable business models is always a challenge but I believe that if we build something great, a whole range of business opportunities could come our way. Simon Nelson, CEO, FutureLearn, Feb 2013 Over the past year, MOOCs have opened the doors of access to quality education, and have captured the attention of educational leaders and students worldwide. Today, we’re excited to announce the next step in our mission to foster student learning without…

Being an academic, Casualisation of work, Edtech and online learning, Rankings

The value of bad ideas

Kate Bowles May 5, 2013 17 Comments

I use a trick with co-workers when we’re trying to decide where to eat for lunch and no one has any ideas. I recommend McDonald’s. … Everyone unanimously agrees that we can’t possibly go to McDonald’s, and better lunch suggestions emerge. Magic! It’s as if we’ve broken the ice with the worst possible idea, and now that the discussion has started, people suddenly get very creative. I call it the McDonald’s Theory: people are inspired to come up with good ideas…

Change management, Edtech and online learning, Risk

Clinical strength solutions

Kate Bowles March 13, 2013 4 Comments

How do you gain consumers’ trust? By listening to them and knowing exactly what they want. And by turning this knowledge into innovative and compelling products. (Beiersdorf, brands overview) The thing about jetlag in America is that it leaves you stranded in the middle of the night with nothing to do but watch middle-of-the-night American TV. And so last night I learned about “stress sweat”, which is apparently a much worse kind of sweat than the regular kind. To protect…

Change management, Edtech and online learning

Visions always belong to someone

Kate Bowles January 25, 2013 16 Comments

The awkwardly titled Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in a Digital Age that was released this week has generated a ton of coverage, which is interesting given its niche provenance. An apostolic group of North American educational stakeholders, including some very high profile names, got together and co-authored a fairly wordy document about the values and entitlements that we might protect in the name of online learners. What I’ve found useful is that most of the people involved…

Change management, Edtech and online learning, Higher education, Student engagement

In the grupetto

Kate Bowles January 18, 2013 20 Comments

No-one sat on and everyone drove as hard as they could. Matt Stephens, Life in the Grupetto Here’s the thing about professional cycling. It’s not the lycra, it’s not the drugs, and it’s not the spectacle of Lance talking about himself in the third person as that flawed guy who did the bad things. It’s the grupetto: the paradoxical collaboration that breaks out among rivals who are struggling at the back of the race, once the whole thing starts climbing…

Edtech and online learning, Student engagement

The time we give each other

Kate Bowles December 8, 2012 7 Comments

In the second week of the new summer course, we spent the day together in class. Because summer in Australia is already snapped in two by Christmas, a whole lot of other weirdness can go on while no one’s looking, so we’re flipping the normal timetable and going with two all-day workshops supported by online reflections and activities. Thanks to Steve Wheeler, I’ve also discovered that we’re also haphazardly and instinctively following a primer on the 10 characteristics of authentic…

Being an academic, Edtech and online learning, Student engagement

Under pressure

Kate Bowles November 29, 2012 7 Comments

It’s week one again, and I’m up late reading students’ introductory posts at the start of a mostly online course. They don’t know each other, and in sharing photographs and writing publically about why they’re taking the course, they’re showing quite a bit of trust in strangers that they haven’t met in person, including me. This care that they show each other is really why I still choose to work online, after a year immersed in the blither of techno-futurism,…

Being an academic, Casualisation of work, Edtech and online learning, Rankings

The view from here

Kate Bowles October 13, 2012 12 Comments

Here come the planes They’re American planes. Made in America. (Laurie Anderson, O Superman) Being a terrifically slow learner, I’ve signed up for another MOOC. In my defense, I enrolled a while back and forgot, and now it’s come around just as I’ve been forced to admit that there are only so many chocolates you can eat or stuff down your cleavage before it all falls over. So now I’m in with x thousand others, trying a constructivist MOOC focused…

Edtech and online learning, Higher education, Internationalisation

It’s not you, it’s me

Kate Bowles September 25, 2012 26 Comments

So, I signed up for a Coursera MOOC, and almost immediately the experience turned into Lucy and the Chocolate Factory. It’s a scene that suckers itself onto almost any stressful situation. Lucy and Ethel take a job putting chocolates into wrappers. It’s a conveyor belt scenario, and the task itself is simple; the challenge is to keep pace. Lucy’s enjoying herself, messing about. But one stumble leads to a recovery problem, and before they know it Lucy is eating chocolates…

Change management, Edtech and online learning, Higher education

The revolution might be televised

Kate Bowles July 22, 2012 8 Comments

The first time I watched the awful EPIC2020 videos I was so irked by everything about them that I never went back to look carefully at the details of their campaign to reform higher education. But now I have, and I’m beyond irked. I’ve been boosted into the realm of appalled fascination. They’re going to “shatter the paradigm that the future will be anything like the past as well as facilitate discussion and accelerate actions to bring about the transformation of the…

Change management, Edtech and online learning, Higher education