Month: January 2013

Although normally a pretty upbeat and optimistic person, I end a lot of my different talks these days with a pretty scary, even dystopic slide:    “IF WE PROFS CAN BE REPLACED BY A COMPUTER SCREEN, WE SHOULD BE.???

 

That gets people???s attention.   And it makes people mad.   My meaning is often misunderstood at first???and that???s what I want.  I want profs in the audience to be outraged that I???m saying they can be replaced by a computer screen.   And, if they think they are not replaceable by a computer screen, I want them to articulate why. 

 

If they can make a good case for what they add, then my conditional statement is answered negatively:   No, I cannot be replaced by a computer screen because of . . .       Making that case accurately and persuasively (to the public, to legislators, to donors, and mostly to our students)  is the single most important thing any professor can do because, if we don???t, it will be made for us.  And we won’t like the result.

Colleges and University Professors are Improving Learning Outcomes, and Lowering Costs, with Flipped Classroom Techniques.

When you think about it, hoping that a 21st century middle or high school student will obsess over reading like they do. . .say. . .Tumblr or their new iPhone. . . is almost laughable. It is as anachronistic as wishing for an age before freeways or toys before plastic.

Indeed, expecting kids to deeply embrace and read books today whether for independent reading or homework is not a whole lot different than asking them to churn their own butter, carry their favorite music around in their backpack as an LP collection, use a telephone that is wired to the wall, or watch their favorite shows on a black and white tv with rabbit ears. But really ??? have books jumped the shark?

For learners,  and I am one, learning is a lifelong continuum . I still think though that those who deliver learning and the accreditation of learning still live in silos,  worse some of them have stopped learning.

Richard Mayer and Ruth Clark areamong the foremost researchers in the empirical testing of media and media mixhypotheses in online learning. Theire-Learning and the Science of Instruction (2003) covers sevendesign principles; multimedia, contiguity, modality, redundancy, coherence,personalisation, and practice opportunities. Clear explanations are given aboutthe risks of ignoring these principles – with support from worked examples andcase study challenges. It should be a compulsory text for online learningdesigners.

Microsoft is supporting the WW competition and in the UK were having a dedicated competition at each event and online.

So even if who cannot physically attend the event can enter the online competition see  http://www.ubelly.com/global-game-jam/