It's About Learning

Most College Students To Take Classes Online by 2014

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 29, 2009

Most College Students To Take Classes Online by 2014 — Campus Technology via kwout

David Nagel of Campus Technology refers to a market research report from Ambient Research that points to the their Chief Research Officers claim:

by 2014, at which time, Adkins forecast, only 5.14 million students will take all of their courses in a physical classroom, while 3.55 million will take all of their classes online, and 18.65 million will take some of their classes online.

While I am not surprised by these claims I and led to ask: What are we doing to prepare for this?

In Learning, Online Learning Education, Learning, Market research, online, Online Learning, Online Surveys, Research, Student

BCS & Digital Creator

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 8, 2009 — Leave a comment

The British Computing Society (BCS) has offered ACU the opportunity to use, license, administer and distribute in North America their Digital Creator learning system. BCS is the Chartered Institute for IT in the UK which promotes wider social and economic progress through the advancement of information technology science and practice. In addition to being a credentialing organization they bring together industry, academics, practitioners and government to share knowledge, promote new thinking, inform the design of new curricula, shape public policy and inform the public on information technology.

BCS has recognized that digital media has seeped into almost every aspect of our daily lives, from advertisements, to television programmes, to the music, photos and video we carry on our mobile phones and portable music player. In response to this reality, BCS has developed DigitalCre8or that encourages learners to create real life digital media projects that build into an innovative digital assessment e-portfolio. The syllabus is aligned with the UK National Qualifications Framework and is a nationally-recognised qualification. Digital Creator is ideal for school children or anybody wishing to gain skills in digital media and is a creative and interactive way to learn about the techniques and technologies involved in manipulating these kinds of media.

BCS has asked ACU to consider using DigitalCre8or in its mobile learning program, collaborate on the development of a mobile learning module and become the North American center for DigitalCre8tor distribution and training.

In Announcement, Opportunity Information technology, Learning, media, mLearning, new media, Social Media

StudyWiz – K-12 iTouch Enabled Tool

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 7, 2009 — Leave a comment

One of the biggest challenges that we are seeing with K-12 institutions planning to deploy an iTouch solution in schools is that they must highly regulate their learners access to the internet and are not able to use cloud resources like Gmail, Google Apps, YouTube and many of the tools that we take for granted in higher education. To successfully deploy a mobile solution K-12 need to replace or replicate the cloud. StudyWiz may be the ideal solution to do just this. It not only provides an email, file management, document sharing and a communication platform it more importantly allows schools to closely control how students access these resources.

The initial demonstration that I viewed at HandHeld 2009 looked very promising but we now need to look at the product much closer and see if we can use it in the College of Education at ACU to help prepare future teachers who may be facing this tool in the field.

In mLearning cloud, Learning, mLearning

Off to Europe

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 6, 2009 — Leave a comment

I will be leaving on for a trip to Europe that will start off in London, and include meetings with Cambridge University Press in Cambridge and then finish off with meetings with Alcatel Lucent’s Bell Labs in Paris. There should be an opportunity to take in the final day of the HandHeld Learning conference in London — more specifically take in the presentation by my collegues George Saltsman and Scott Perkins and the final keynote address by Ray Kurzweil.

Despite the high degree of cellular access in Europe free WiFi isn’t as available so my posts may be intermitent and totally dependent on my access.

Stay Tuned…

In Learning Alcatel Lucent, Bell Labs, Cambridge University Press, Learning, Paris

Microsoft Tablet – A History of Speculation

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 5, 2009 — Leave a comment

Jason Hiner of Tech Republic’s Tech Sanity Check pulls together a wonderful history of links on the speculation over the Apple Tablet. Are we any closer to an Apple Tablet. Was a rumored mass purchase of 10 inch touch screens just that, a rumor, or will we see an Apple Tablet release perhaps in the new year? I won’t speculate but simply point to Hiners article and give you the option to make your own decision.