This is really a scream
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQLdhVpLBVE?feature=player_embedded]
online education
Word from the White House: Go Easy on MOOCs
That’s the headline for an article in today’s Inside Higher Ed. According to the article, “President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has a message for the federal government and regional accreditors: Go easy on the MOOCs.” You can read the article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/19/white-house-science-council-recommends-us-accreditors-support-moocs It’s probably OK, however, to sing to them as they are guided along: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2cFji4CmHE?feature=player_detailpage]
Radio Program on MOOCs
Warren Olney You can hear a program on MOOCs on Warren Olney’s KCRW program, “To the Point,” at the link below. The program segment on MOOCs starts at minute 8:06 and ends at 42:14. It aired yesterday. From the segment description: Massive open online courses — MOOC’s — held the promise of higher education for millions who can’t now afford it. But, despite big investment from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Silicon Valley, MOOC’s have not lived up to their billing. We hear about new ways of using the Internet to meet the worldwide demand for focused learning. Click on the…
CSU | Napolitano | online education | UC
UC Prez has some online ed doubts
…In a departure from some of the online education hype that marked the early part of the year, [CSU Chancellor Timothy] White and [UC President Janet] Napolitano said they didn’t see online course technology as a solution for lower-division or remedial course work — though they said it is promising for some specialized courses. White went further, calling a recent San Jose State experiment with the online startup Udacity — in which fewer than half of the students passed online courses — a failure. “For those who say, ‘Well, Tim, you’ll save a lot of money if … you do…
online education | Rutgers | UC | UCLA
Maybe It’s Better to Get Than to Give
We have been following the issues of online education on this blog. $10 million has been earmarked by UC for online course development. So what is currently on offer? And who is doing the offering? Above is the current listing. [Click to enlarge and clarify.] Berkeley, Riverside, Davis, and Irvine seem to be doing the offering. UCLA students can take these online courses (Spanish is now fully enrolled) but UCLA isn’t offering any such courses to other campuses, at least according to the UC websites below. So, despite the holiday season, maybe it’s better to get than to give.http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/30393 http://crossenroll.universityofcalifornia.edu/about/all-courses.html…
Loneliness of the long distance MOOC runner
In a recent study at the U of Pennsylvania, it turned out – as many other studies have noted – that few takers of MOOCs actually complete the course. What’s interesting about the study is that many takers don’t even start them. Emerging data from a University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) study show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) have relatively few active users, that user “engagement” falls off dramatically—especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course—and that few users persist to the course end. Presented today by Laura Perna and Alan Ruby at the…
Bad Dream for Princeton Prez: Faculty May Want to Milk Their Own MOOC
Inside Higher Ed today points to an article in the Princeton University student newspaper in which it is reported that faculty there are interested in having their own MOOC rather than relying on Coursera (with which Princeton has an affiliation). Members of the faculty discussed the possibility of creating a University-specific alternative to Coursera, as well as the proposed creation of a new committee to oversee the continuation of online courses, on Monday at the December faculty meeting. Philosophy professor Gideon Rosen noted that the University is free to explore options outside of Coursera in order to avoid conflicts of…
new hotel-conference center | online education | pension | pensions | privacy | State Budget | UC budget crisis | ucrp
Scary Thoughts for Halloween
Over the past year or so, there have been various scary developments about which we have blogged. Most recently there is the recently-filed anti-pension initiative that sweeps in UC. There is the volatility of state budget because of its heavy dependence on the income tax and the incomes of those in the upper brackets that are reflective of the ups and downs of financial markets. There is the illusion that online ed will resolve the long-term budget squeeze on the university. The hotel shown below is pretty scary but so, too, is the UCLA Grand Hotel, in part because of…
We got a boost. Now we need some answers.
I’ve got the booster. But what’s for dinner? We noted in past postings that new UC president Janet Napolitano was to give an important address yesterday about her vision of UC. The address happened. But her remarks were mainly boosterism. (So far, UCOP hasn’t put the transcript of the remarks on the web, but yours truly has seen them.) Greatest public university, The California dream. Nobel prize. Diversity. The Master Plan. Etc. And, yes, there was reference in the speech to DREAM students – that’s what seems to have been the focus of morning news stories. She said she would…
Davis and Merced Get Drones, But We Have Snodgrass
The website California’s Capitol reports that UC-Davis and UC-Merced have applied to the FAA to have drones. http://www.californiascapitol.com/2013/10/californias-drone-applicants/ and https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/faa_coa_list-2012.pdf. Obviously, the rest of us will be falling behind in this technology. But at least we have Prof. Snodgrass who drones on and on, as former UC president Yudof once reminded us in his soliloquy on online higher ed: