Pedagogy Highlights (and Lowlights)
In a similar strand to the post below here is a brief list of the things occuring in the world of education last week, with a particular focus on a series of disturbing and related issues threatening open education.
- First up, if you haven’t already, and are interested in blogging in the classroom check out Matthew Williams Blog. He has some rather extended and in depth thoughts on practicing learner centered classroom pedagogy and the relation to blogging. Looks like Matthew is doing some useful reflection as the semester approaches.
- Blackboard continues to defend its absurd patent which could radically limit the ability of institutions to imploy open learning software. Check out Michael Feldstein’s latest rebutal to Blackboard’s attempt to explain itself. And just as disturbing comes this, apparently some places not only want to support companies like Blackboard, but prevent you from using any technology outside of these course management programs. (Insert long pedagogical rant about education is supposed to be open not closed and lines of frustration about horribly unethical administrators being in bed with companies trying to turn a profit off of education.)
- And the “corporate sell out of education“ move of the week goes to the Commision on the Future of Higher Ed who decided at the last minute to revise their proposal and eliminate language that encouraged open source software development, apparently on pressure from microsoft. Read the commentary at Kairosnews.
This all makes me even more determined to figure out open source alternatives for higher ed. And on that note, I will be posting in the next couple of days about classroom blogging.
September 12th, 2006 at 12:14 am
This latest news is truly disturbing. I’ve been listening to a few education technology podcasts lately (I’ll post a list over on my blog soon) and they’ve been discussing the use of third party sites, especially wiki-based offerings, to support teachers’ in-class activities. Although I can understand to a very limited extent the privacy and security concerns, these do not overshadow the reality that part of the reason faculty are choosing to use third party sites, and in turn, asking their students to contribute to these (e.g., wikipedia) is that everything else out there faculty and students find (much of it freely available) is just so much better. For both commercial and free sites, their focus is on user-friendliness, simplicity, and access. The sites that do these best — paid or free — are the ones that flourish. Alternately, closed, content-management sites like BB operate much like Microsoft: They don’t have to worry too much about the competition and thus, don’t have to truly innovate. Case in point, it takes me 10 seconds to upload and link to a file on my blog. the same task takes about 3 minutes per file on WebCT. It shouldn’t be like that. Unfortunately, unless policies change, things won’t get any easier.
September 12th, 2006 at 12:19 am
academhack » Blog Archive » Pedagogy Highlights (and Lowlights)…
academhack has a few updates on important news including learner centered classroom pedagogy, Blackboard’s patent claims, and the “corporate sell out of education.Link: academhack » Blog Archive » Pedagogy Highlights (and Lowlights). In a similar …