Archive for April, 2012

The value of history

Monday, April 23rd, 2012

Just published is Alexandra Okada, Teresa Connolly and Peter Scott (eds.), Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources, IGI, Hershey, USA, 2012. This is a collection of the latest research, trends, future development, and case studies on how to use OER and Web 2.0 for collaborative learning.

The publisher explains that ‘the purpose of this handbook is to understand how OERs and Web 2.0 can be deployed successfully to enrich the collaborative learning experience and ensure a positive outcome in terms of user generated knowledge and development of skills’.  

The editors work at the OU and there are several chapters by OU staff including one by Andy Lane and Andrew Law. Their ‘Collaborating over rich media: the Open University and the BBC partnership’ has nine references, two of which are items on this blog. Furthermore, those seeking ‘Additional Reading’ are invited to visit the History of the OU website.

More on the New College of Humanities

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Although the New College of Humanities’ plans to charge £18,000 per year fees were mentioned almost a year ago in the Daily Telegraph, (and reported on this blog) it appears that it was only recently that geneticist Steve Jones discovered this. This led the Aberystwyth-born snails enthusiast to distance himself from the unborn institution with which he had been associated. These fees, he said, mean that ‘it can now no longer really claim to be about public education’. He then went on, through a deft classical allusion, to compare the New College of Humanities to a toilet. While other universities plan to charge fees of around £9,000, the OU will charge even less.

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