The gatherings of a ‘smart’ university

Ben Williamson has written a great post here on the concept and realities of a smart, quantified and data driven university. The post outlines the increasingly overt positioning of universities as conduits for data collection, analysis and exploitation. The datafication of universities as the ‘smart university’ or ‘intelligent campus’ provides a clear pathway for the … Read more

Theorising Technology in Digital Education

These are my notes taken during the presentation and then tidied up a bit in terms of spelling and sense – so they may well be limit, partial and mistaken! Welcome from Sian Bayne with the drama of the day “fire! Toilets!” and confirmed that the event is being livestreamed and the video is available here. … Read more

What is wrong with ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’

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Last Friday I attended a Digital Cultures & Education research group presentation by Sian Bayne on her recent article What’s the matter with ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’? These are my notes taken during the presentation and then tidied up later – so they may well be limit, partial and mistaken! While Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is … Read more

IT Futures Conference – Disruption

Here’s my attempt at live blogging the IT Futures conference at the University of Edinburgh IT Futures conference on the theme of Disruption. The hashtag for the conference is #itfutures The conference is starting with an address from the Principal, Sir Tim O’Shea on disruptions, predictions and surprises and the need for systematic thinking especially on what … Read more

Learning innovations and digital education

An interesting report on Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) from Open University based academics. The report discusses: 1. what is TEL but in terms of technologies “add value to” (enhancing) teaching and learning rather than being indivisible from or enmeshed in teaching and learning. Can you imagine teaching and learning without any technologies (digital of otherwise)? … Read more

Connected & networked higher education

I was interested to read the Connected Learning Environments paper over at Educause. The briefing looks at connected learning environments in higher education and states that: While e-learning often connotes delivery of information in a sequential, linear fashion, the connected learning environment is integrative, personalized, interconnected, and authentic. Across higher education, leaders and learners are taking … Read more

Pearson’s acquisition of Learning Catalytics

A short post on the acquisition of Learning Catalytics by Pearson as discussed here. Note the quote from Paul Corey, president of science, business, and technology at Pearson: “With Learning Catalytics we felt we could accomplish three things: help faculty turn the classroom into an immediate engaging environment while measuring feedback without interrupting flow, help … Read more

Sketchboarding an online course

I’m in the process of reviewing and redesigning an online course. So to get a full visual view of the course, I’ve been experimenting with sketchboarding. The slideshow shows the board as it is the basic design goes up, currently using a temporal frame for the 10 or so weeks course duration. Its clearly far … Read more

Digital Scholarship: day of ideas 2

I’m listening now to Tara McPherson on humanities research in a networked world as the opening session of the Digital Scholarship day of ideas. (I’ve started late due to a change in the start-time). Discussing how large data sets can be presented in a variety of interfaces: for schools; researchers; publishers and only now beginning to realise the variety … Read more

MOOCs and business models in higher education

A great post from @audreywatters here on the education technology start-up ecosystem. This includes asking what the impact of Venture Cap maybe which is something that makes academics (at least in the UK feel uncomfortable about. Indeed, one argument for the development of the OU’s Futurelearn platform – however, this is still operated as a separate company … Read more