Learning Innovation

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.

Has IHE ever served as that virtual meeting place that enabled technology and education minded people to get together to start a company?

The first thing we should all do is encourage discussion about edX. This is big, important,and exciting news. Faculty get excited about ideas, and the edX announcement contained some great ones.

This deal could either mean very little or quite a bit for higher ed, depending on how committed Microsoft is to education. Barnes & Noble has 641 college bookstores. Someday soon these bookstores will stop selling dead tree textbooks. Every book, article and textbook on your syllabus will be digital.

I read Why Nations Fail this month while traveling in South Korea. The book was much on my mind as I looked across the DMZ at North Korea on the 38th parallel. South Korea, a country of about 50 million people, enjoys a per capital PPP (purchasing power parity) GDP of around $32,000.

According to James A. Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor, we have evolved into a nation of irresponsible spenders. The central thesis of Shiny Objects is that many of us have replaced traditional values of community, family, and hard work with those of thoughtless consumption.

How many non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with edtech companies have you signed?

Have you signed up for the Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success course?