Learning Innovation

Dear Dr. Matloff. Thank you for contributing to our community's discussion about the pros and cons of MOOCs. I thought that your critique of the limitations of the current MOOC offerings in your Bloomberg opinion column Dumbed-Down Math and Other Perils of Online College made many valid points about the challenges of bringing a college course to scale.

I've become enamored with the iPad mini as an e-learning device. The iPad mini, which is 7.9 inches tall and 5.3 inches wide, fits nicely in one hand. It is also a quarter lighter and half the weight of a standard size iPad, making reading or watching course videos a pleasure.

The School Technology Leadership Program at the University of Kentucky is an excellent example of an MTOP (Micro-Targeted Online Program).

Why should MOOCs get all the ink? Let's coin a term, a phrase, a meme. Will the MTOP - the Micro-Targeted Online Program - go viral?

Our students are leveraging the the web and mobile apps to collaborate, share information, and study together. They are sharing online resources such as videos and learning objects Khan Academy, digital textbook resources, YouTube, iTunesU, and other open online education resources. Students are actively sharing information about study strategies and techniques designed to help each other learn the material and do well on quizzes, tests, and papers.

This week I led a discussion on academic/vendor relations with a product group at an edtech company. The meeting was in Canada. I never left my office in Hanover NH. We did the whole thing on a Web based collaboration platform.

Below is a screenshot of what I saw when I opened my Audible.com Library this morning. 0 results. No audiobooks. Nothing. Nada.

The text that you're reading now did not come from my fingers hitting the keyboard, rather me speaking to my MacBook Air.