“When students asked what subjects they should major in to become a tech entrepreneur, I used to say engineering, mathematics, and science—because an education in these fields is the prerequisite for innovation, and because engineers make the best entrepreneurs. That was several years ago …” (more)
[Vivek Wadhwa, TechCrunch, 21 March]
“An earlier post commented on the use of iPads in the classroom. The Chronicle of Higher Education notes two contrasting reports of the value of iPads for teaching and learning, the one referred to in the previous post and the other in the FT. The latter was much more positive about the value than the former …” (more)
[Registrarism, 23 March]
“Do you / should you recognise use of Wikipedia as a source of content for student research projects? For years, the answer was an overwhelming ‘no’ …” (more)
[Pennybridged’s Weblog …, 23 March]
“An enterprising academic from Queen’s University Management School has been named the ‘number one’ enterprise educator in the world …” (more)
[Belfast Telegraph, 22 March]
“It is now nearly 25 years since I first assumed academic management responsibilities. At the time, after the untimely death of my head of department in Trinity College Dublin, I became Acting Head of TCD’s business school …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 22 March]
“Some students and profs London’s Imperial College have decided to stop using scary anecdotes to frighten students away from Wikipedia …” (more)
[Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, 21 March]
“‘In the online world you don’t need to fill buildings or lecture theatres with people and you don’t need to be trapped into a lecture timetable’, says Peter Scott, director of the Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute …” (more)
[Merlin John, BBC News, 21 March]
“As higher education budgets are hit more and more seriously, one US state (Washington) is considering a partnership with the entirely online university …” (more)
[Ferdinand von Prondzysnki, University Blog, 21 March]
“I’m very interested these days in how the various social media can be used in order to improve learning in universities …” (more)
[Science, society, stuff …, 19 March]
“Yes, this is another post on plagiarism, which is a topic academics will continue discussing until it disappears (and how likely is that to happen?). ProfHacker has had posts before on preventing plagiarism and responding to plagiarism, and I am sure we will have more posts following this one …” (more)
[HT: Sharon Flynn]
[Nels P Highberg, Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 March]
“With all the hemming and hawing and handwringing about whether and how to reintroduce student fees, something has been lost on almost everyone but working lecturers: the woeful rates of student attendance …” (more)
[Ernie Ball’s Blog, 14 March]
“… The importance of face-to-face lectures for students’ academic achievement has been demonstrated in previous economics studies … Therefore, it should be an immediate priority to establish how online lectures compare …” (more)
[Martin Ryan, Geary Behavioural Economics Blog, 14 March]
“Many institutions seem to be completely obsessed with lecture capture technology as a method of generating flexibly accessible learning content. For me though the large scale implementation of lecture capture is probably one of the costliest and strategically misguided educational technologies that an institution can adopt …” (more)
[Mark Smithers, 11 March]
“1. Don’t rehearse. 2. Have at least 100 slides. 3. Don’t use Powerpoint’s ‘hide’ function: just rapidly flick through the slides that you don’t have time for …” (more)
[BishopBlog, 11 March]
“The Tyndall National Institute and Cork Institute of Technology have been awarded the joint co-ordination of a high-tech EU postgraduate training programme …” (more)
[Irish Examiner, 11 March]
“… The other night I was having a drink with some colleagues after work. Various topics came up, but we spent a bit of time talking about teaching. It appears that I’m in a small minority of my physics colleagues in that I actually like teaching. In fact, the older I’ve got the more I enjoy it. There’s always a limit, of course …” (more)
[In the Dark, 10 March]
“Last week University College London announced to English students, of which I am one, that their one-on-one tutorials are to be cut. Undergraduate students currently have four hour-long sessions with an academic each term. These are to be replaced with half-hour sessions focused solely on submitted work …” (more)
[Sofie Buckland, Guardian, 10 March]
“Hibernia College, the online education institute that trains national teachers in Ireland, is chasing new opportunities abroad and is preparing to train up to 5,000 teachers in Haiti over the next two years …” (more)
[Siobhan Creaton, Independent, 10 March]
“They might attend their lectures, do additional hours of study and get good grades; but … what are students learning in college? A recent article in the New York Times asks just this question: ‘what are America’s kids actually learning in college?’. Thanks to Peter C for sending on the link …” (more)
[Martin Ryan, Geary Behavioural Economics Blog, 9 March]
“Irish language group Conradh na Gaeilge has welcomed the ‘sidelining’ of Fine Gael’s proposal to drop the Irish language as a core subject in the Leaving Certificate. The newly published Programme for Government states that the incoming government will ‘take steps to improve the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Irish at second level’ and that when these steps have been implemented, the question of whether Irish should be optional at Leaving Certificate will then be considered …” (more)
[Lorraine O’Hanlon, Galway Independent, 9 March]
Ninth Level Ireland 