Turn that phone on! Mobile technology in the classroom

This PRF session featured a talk by Anna Hunter who used mobile learning and TweetDeck to encourage engagement in the classroom. Students were expected to set up a twitter account if they didn't already have one by the next session and bring a smartphone or laptop....

Innovations in Higher Education

The internet has been abuzz with all the innovations for teaching and learning, the free online learning platforms and different ways to teach students. Now it is research's turn to be overhauled...

The Sale of UK Higher Education

News has come about regarding the sale of the Charitable College of Law  to a private equity firm, who now has degree awarding powers....

University A Levels

In the news at the moment is a story around universities, specifically 'Russell Group' elite universities  being given control over A-Levels, by the Education Secretary  Michael Gove ...

Digital Literacy in Higher Education

What is digital literacy?  Do we need to expand our definitions to include new social media interactions? What are we talking about?.. What does digital literacy mean to you?

Teaching that matters new million+ report

Teaching That Matters new million+ report is released today on how the modern universities are leading a teaching revolution...

Challenges facing Higher Education

The HE Guardian has come up with this great infographic detailing the research they did on the challenges facing HE today. The changes in the sector section indicated that most people think things are getting worse and that the coalition government has no coherent set of policies to see HE through this turbulent time.... but

social media and a community of co-learners

Writing for Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, Howard Rheingold suggests that academics should use social media to encorporate student feedback into lessons.  He also discussed group work and collaborative learning techniques and sets up a "community of co-learners" The article makes for an stimulating read!

Figshare, a new tool for sharing data or a revolution in academic publishing?

What is figshare? well it seems to be a faster way of sharing your data, away from the ponderous route of normal journal publishing.

"figshare allows researchers to publish their data in a citable, searchable and sharable manner. The data can come in the form of individual figures, datasets or video files and users are encouraged to share their negative data and unpublished results too. All data is persistently stored online under the most liberal Creative Commons licence, waiving copyright where possible. This allows scientists to access and share the information from anywhere in the world with minimal friction."

It already boasts usage by prestigious universities, and uses the creative commons licence.  Could it be a useful way to share openly data including negative results, as it claims, we shall see, it seems to be mainly science based data at the moment but there are no restrictions on what you can upload so it has the potential to upload qualitative data and for performing arts staff to upload videos as well. So we shall see if it will be the ground breaking invention it claims to be. It could certainly come in useful!

Open access learning courses.The top 400!

Open access learning really is taking off, from the Open University  to  MIT OpenCourseWare, the OCW consortium  iTunes U and universities even having their own YouTube channels. Its a wonder where to start or stop.  One website has collated a group of good courses (mostly american) that are sorted by subject. http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses, but my recommendation is have a look around the various options available to see what takes your fancy. The OCW has lots of choice, many universities all over the world take part, including MIT and the OU, the courses are available in many languages and it has a good search facility, so that would be my starting point and move on from there.
Happy new year!
Edit: MIT are expanding on their successful OpenCourseWare and creating a not for profit, free interactive elearning platform which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.
You will not get a full degree but a official certificate from MIT instead. See link.

Free learning platform from Pearson and Google

A free learning management system from education giant Pearson and internet giant Google.
"OpenClass, a free LMS that combines standard course-management tools with advanced social networking and community-building, and an open architecture that allows instructors to import whatever material they want, from e-books to YouTube videos."


http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/pearson-and-google-jump-into-learning-management-systems/


The program will be available via Google apps for education which is becoming increasingly popular in schools and colleges, due its free and user friendly nature. It could potentially save universities and colleges a lot of money that currently goes towards expensive and not very user friendly VLE's
Another useful  tool for the 21st century learner!

New learners of the 21st century!

A good blog and short video on new learners of the 21st century.
Key points are embracing change, learning to join (there is usually already a community of practice to join.) and the power of play. 


http://learnstreaming.com/tinkering-with-john-seely-brown/
http://video.pbs.org/video/1767466213