1,445 research outputs found
Disrupting and democratising higher education provision or entrenching academic elitism: towards a model of MOOCs adoption at African universities
Published ArticleChallenges of broadening access, escalating cost, maintaining desirable quality
and enhancing meaningful learning experiences in African higher education (HE) have
spurred debates on how to restructure higher education delivery to meet the diverse needs
of heterogeneous learners and adapt pedagogical models to the educational realities of lowincome
African countries. In view of these complexities, Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) have been advanced by Western Consortia, universities and online platform
providers as panaceas for disrupting/transforming existing education models African
universities. MOOCs have been touted as disruptive innovations with the potential to
create new niche markets for HE courses, disrupt traditional models of instruction and
content delivery and create new revenue streams for higher education. Yet academic
elitism which manifests in the exclusive selection of top American universities to develop,
host and deliver MOOCs, MOOC providersâ use of university brand and reputation as
benchmarks for charging recruitment fees on headhunters recruiting MOOC graduates and
their complex business models involving the sale of studentsâ big data (e.g. learning
analytics) for profit seem to be inconsistent with claims about philanthropic and egalitarian
drive of MOOCs. Drawing on disruptive innovation theory and a review of mainstream
literature on MOOCs adoption in American and African tertiary sectors, this study argues
that behind the MOOC rhetoric of disrupting and democratizing higher education lies the
projection of top academic brands on the marketing pedestal, financial piggybacking on the
hype and politics of academic exclusion
MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses)
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses available to anyone who can sign up. MOOCs provide an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills, advance in careers, and provide quality educational experiences to a certain extent. Millions of people around the world use MOOCs for learning and their reasons are various, including career development, career change, college preparation, supplementary learning, lifelong learning, corporate e-Learning and training, and so on
Just in Time: The Beyond-the-Hype Potential of E-Learning
Based on a year of conversations with more than 100 leading thinkers, practitioners, and entrepreneurs, this report explores the state of e-learning and the potential it offers across all sectors of our economy -- far beyond the confines of formal education. Whether you're a leader, worker in the trenches, or just a curious learner, imagine being able to access exactly what you need, when you need it, in a format that's quick and easy to digest and apply. Much of this is now possible and within the next decade, just-in-time learning will likely become pervasive.This report aims to inspire you to consider how e-learning could change the way you, your staff, and the people you serve transfer knowledge and adapt over time
Collaborative pedagogy and digital scholarship: a case study of 'Media Culture 2020'
This paper presents an educational case study of âMedia Culture 2020â, an EU Erasmus
Intensive Programme that utilised a range social media platforms and computer software
to create open, virtual spaces where students from different countries and fields could
explore and learn together. The multi-disciplinary project featured five universities from
across Europe and was designed to develop new pedagogical frameworks to encourage
collaborative approaches to teaching and learning in the arts. The main objective of
the project was to break down classroom and campus walls by creating digital learning
environments that facilitated new forms of production, transmission and representation of
knowledge. Media Culture 2020 was designed to pilot a novel mode of âblended learningâ,
demonstrating a number of ways in which âWeb 2.0â networked technologies might be
adopted by academics to encourage open and collaborative modes of practice. The project
utilised a number of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Google
Hangout, Google Docs and Blogger) to enhance the learning experiences of a diverse set
of students from different cultural and international contexts. In doing so, Media Culture
2020 enabled participants with a diverse range skills and cultural experiences to develop
new working practices that respond to the convergence of digital media and art, as well
as the internationalisation of media production and business, through the use of open,
interactive software
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The potential of mobile phones to transform teacher professional development
Futures thinking is used by governments to consider long-term strategic approaches and develop policies and practices that are potentially resilient to future uncertainty. English in Action (EIA), arguably the worldâs largest English language teacher professional development (TPD) project, used futures thinking to author possible, probable and preferable future scenarios to solve the projectâs greatest technological challenge: how to deliver audio-visual TPD materials and hundreds of classroom audio resources to 75,000 teachers by 2017. Authoring future scenarios and engaging in possibility thinking (PT) provided us with a taxonomy of question-posing and question-responding that assisted the project team in being creative. This process informed the successful pilot testing of a mobile phone-based technology kit to deliver TPD resources within an open distance learning (ODL) platform. Taking the risk and having the foresight to trial mobile phones in remote rural areas with teachers and students led to unforeseen innovation. As a result EIA is currently using a mobile phone-based technology kit with 12,500 teachers to improve the English language proficiency of 700,000 students. As the project scales up in its third and final phase, we are using the new technology kitâknown as the âtrainer in your pocketââto foster a âquiet revolutionâ in the provision of teacher professional development at scale to an additional 67,500 teachers and 10 million students
Accelerating Impact: Exploring Best Practices, Challenges, and Innovations in Impact Enterprise Acceleration
The world faces tremendous social and environmental problems. Despite global economic growth, 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty.1 More than 1.5 million children under five die from diseases that could be prevented by existing vaccines.2 One-fifth of the world's population faces water scarcity.3 More money will be needed to address these issues than philanthropic organizations and governments have at their disposal. Recognizing this challenge, they are seeking innovative ideas that leverage their resources. At the same time, private sector actors are bringing market-based solutions to the space, as they look to generate profits alongside social impact. Working together, these different actors can successfully deliver innovative, market-based solutions that address the problems facing poor and vulnerable people globally. An impact enterprise is one such promising solution. Impact enterprises are organizations that intentionally seek to grow and sustain financial viability, realize increasing social impact, and influence the broader system in which they operate.4 Collectively, they have the flexibility needed to adapt to the changing dynamics of problems and can deliver inventive and timely solutions
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