Blogs

TED brings us a tool to create our own video content, launched at the end of April: TED-Ed, “lessons worth sharing.” It seems like TED-Ed has successfully capitalized on an emerging ed tech formula of sorts – facilitating the production of content that is visually interesting, sharable, customizable, specific and engaging.

Educational technology is hot (finally!). Thanks to edX and Udacity and Khan Academy and Coursera and the Stanford AI course our world is getting lots of attention. Lots of people have lots of opinions about the growth of the massively open online course (MOOC), but as with most things a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. David Brooks' column The Campus Tsunami (5/3/12) is a case in point.

A longtime correspondent writes: "Out here in California, cc's are facing a real budget crisis. At my campus, we're trying to cut $5 million out of this year's budget, and this year was not a good year."

About a month ago, I got really lucky. My school sent out an e-mail notifying me that the following week would be “Fulbright Week,” and that they would be offering a series of panels to bring me up to speed and prepare me for the application process. I had been planning for a while to apply for a Fulbright to fund my dissertation research on race and slavery in nineteenth-century Colombia, so I was happy Rice had a whole week devoted to getting prepared. As I started looking into the process more deeply, I had a momentary sense of panic as I realized I should have started months before I did.

It's that time of year (mountains of FYC essays) but I also had to do a blind peer-review for a journal submission. It doesn't go well.

I’ll be honest with you. I read Mona Eltahawy’s piece, “Why Do They Hate Us?” with quite a bit of aggravation. I am tired. I am tired and resentful of being put in the position of constantly having to bring nuance to a discussion like this. I am tired, as a Pakistani and an academic, of taking one step forward, two steps back. Of constantly having to tell people that gross generalizations, sweeping statements, and titillating pictures, don’t make the argument any more solid or acceptable, even when used by a “native”or “local” person.

It is clearer and clearer that incorporating active learning and incorporating experiential learning enhances the learning experience. And I believe that any robust assessment program will underscore the importance of more such learning opportunities. It is also clear to me that experiential or active learning shouldn’t take place only in higher education. It should in fact be built into as much of the k-12 learning experience as possible.

“Korean students are everywhere on campus.” Korean students have become the largest group in international students at China’s academic institutions for a decade. In 2004, there were 43,617 Korean tertiary-level students in China, including 14,464 students in degree programs; in 2008, the total Korean students climbed to 66,806, including 25,701 students in degree programs. But along with the large scale participation of Korean students, there are several potential problems that should attract the attention of Korean students and their parents, the Korean and Chinese governments, Chinese universities, and other stakeholders.