The Online Classroom?

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This looks like a really interesting piece, which I'd like to read in full… but I suspect of interest to a lot of people working in e-learning particularly: The time comes for most teachers to face something they think they cannot do. Such a time came for me in 1993, when a guest speaker at the college where I had been teaching for 20 years invited the faculty to prepare courses for our then-developing online…
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The MOOC: Just the classroom online?

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There's been a lot of fuss about MOOCs, and this article highlights that so many of them are simply traditional education streamed online ... so what can be done differently? Cloud U students could define their own educational paths, deciding what and how they want to learn by purchasing individual courses via an iTunes-like portal, with formats ranging from large, multilayered affairs with online lectures, interactive tutorials and chat sessions to microclasses that would quickly…
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Online Learning in the Middle East?

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Interesting, and often sold as one of the benefits of creating online learning, for those nations unable to afford education, affording global fairness: Building a world-beating academy, so the argument goes, takes decades, even centuries of meticulous investment in infrastructure, postgraduates and reputation. But what if you could use the internet to leapfrog this slow and steady process by plugging your students into the best lectures from across the world? This was the hope of…
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Online Learning: Not Second Class

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Excellent piece in the Guardian today about how 'online learning' is not 'second class', but how it really aids learning in the 21st century: That's something I share in common with my students. They aren't unusual either. They just choose to study online because the flexibility suits them. Online higher education means students can combine education with employment – often fast-tracking their careers as a result – or fit study around family commitments. These students…
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Digital Delivery of Resources in the Developing World

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Whilst universities in the UK consider how to survive in "the current economic climate", digital technology and Open Educational Resources is making a huge contribution to the developing world: Widening access to higher education is one of the great global challenges of the 21st century. Higher education is the key to creating the educated and skilled workforces that developing countries need to grow their economies and to ensure a better life for their citizens, but…
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