This is what a professor of the University of Massachusetts has done –and "so far, the results have been extremely positive," he says. "Students are using the online materials, participating actively in the class and their exam scores are significantly higher than when the course was taught in conventional lecture format." He chronicles the process and findings from his blended learning experiment here. The difference between a "MOOC unit" (one week) an a "SPOC unit" (one day) is shown in the figure below:
The U.S. Department of State has launched a new initiative called MOOC Camps to host facilitated discussions around massive open online courses (MOOCs) at U.S. Embassies, Consulates, American Spaces, and other public areas in more than 40 countries around the world. Participation in the program is free and open to the public. These discussions are led by alumni who have participated in U.S. government exchange programs, such as the Fulbright program, and U.S. Embassy staff, who are familiar with the course materials. Subjects range from entrepreneurship and college writing to science and technology. Course content is drawn from major MOOC providers, including edX and Coursera, as well as from multiple CourseWare providers. This is a sample of a course, provided by Berkeley: Writing 2.1x: Principles of Written English Participants in the program will also be able to learn more about opportunities to study in the United States through EducationUSA, a network of hundreds of student advising centers around the world that the State Department supports. In the last weeks France's Ministry of Higher Education announced an edX open-source based platform to power their new nationwide MOOC and blended learning portal, France Universite Numerique. Also, a group of leading Chinese universities unveiled the creation –built through the Open edX software– of a new MOOC portal called XuetangX, which is split into two parts: the massive open online public course and a blended learning portal for on-campus students. Update: Another announcement came this month. The Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development unveiled the creation of the MOOC portal Edraak, becoming "the first massive open online course portal for the Arab world." Edraak will offer, at no cost, Arabic translations of select courses from edX partners. The portal will also develop its own courses in Arabic with help from leading Arab faculty and professionals.
Consider these metrics: "The number of start-up companies begun by undergraduate students as a fraction of the total student body; contributions to society through service, philanthropy and leadership after graduation; and success in life and career 5 and 10 years after graduation." We took this point from a letter I read in the NYT.
The new CEO of BlackBoard delivered this interesting conference in Las Vegas.
The Coachella Valley Unified district in California is rolling out iPads to every student, pre-kindergarten through high school. It stands for a massive distribution of nearly 20,000 iPads! At a cost of nearly $9 million. Students in seventh grade and above take their tablets home on the evenings, weekends and every school break except summer. Sixth grade and below leave the devices in a locked classroom cart. “The whole paradigm has really shifted. Teachers are no longer the possessors of knowledge. They're more the facilitators of learning," has explained the district's educational technology coordinator, according a story posted at NPR. "The goal is to transform what I do in the classroom into something completely different: to take them outside of class, spark curiosity and inspire the learning process," explains another teacher. For sure, the iPad is a fantastic tool to promote individualize learning.
