E-Learning-Inclusivo (Mashup)

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Via Bobbi Dunham

"Understanding the likelihood of successful adoption before embarking on a reform can help colleges invest wisely in new technologies ..."

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Via Leona Ungerer

College and university reviews and images of architecture, interior, and landscape projects from Architecture Media.

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

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Facing skeptical customers, declining enrollment, an antiquated financial model that is hemorrhaging money, and new kinds of low-cost competition, some U.S. universities and colleges may be going the way of the music and journalism industries.

Their predicament has become so bad that financial analysts, regulators and bond-rating agencies are beginning to warn that many colleges and universities could close.

'A growing percentage of our colleges and universities are in real financial trouble,' the financial consulting firm Bain & Company concluded in a report—one-third of them, to be exact, according to Bain, which found that these institutions’ operating costs are rising faster than revenues and investment returns can cover them."

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

"Many parents lament the amount of time their children spend glued to iPads, but instead of reaching for the parental controls, ex-Google engineer Pramod Sharma figured out how to harness its addictive powers as an educational tool. The result, called Osmo, uses the iPad’s cameras and display to turn any kitchen table into an interactive learning lab. ... Osmo uses letter tiles, colored blocks, random dinosaur action figures, and even a kid’s stick figure drawings as video game controllers when placed in the camera’s field of view. Osmo’s sophisticated vision systems recognizes the objects and uses them to trigger animations and effects on screen. Now, with over a million dollars in pre-orders, Osmo is on its way to market just in time for the Christmas season and Sharma is sharing background on the design process."

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

"...Cornell hosts the application system: students don’t apply directly from their LinkedIn accounts (not yet, anyway) ..."

Via Leona Ungerer

This year has been a fantastic year for Science Leadership Academy college acceptances. We’ve seen our kids get into some of the most well respected schools in record numbers – and many of our kids are the first SLA-ers to ever get accepted into these schools. Whether or not they are able to go to …

Via Bobbi Dunham

"Learning analytics stand poised to benefit students in previously impossible ways. Alongside innovation, however, ethical discussions need probing questions, assessments of possible outcomes, and active disagreement about future developments. Ethical modeling will not achieve these, at least not in a substantive way; principled reflection needs to keep up with the speed of innovation as closely as possible. An inner matrix of tensions will achieve ethical reflection aligned with innovation — or at least get us closer to that goal. When schools or companies build new learning analytics systems, or when schools are deciding between competing products, ethical discussions ought to be in the forefront of outcomes-based commitments. The proposed tensions of utopianism (what is the very best outcome?), ambiguity (are the outcomes knowable?), and nihilism (how are unexpected outcomes handled?) can help institutions and companies fulfill the goal of assisting student success."

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

Very few, if any, organizations operate with anything remotely resembling clockwork precision. As for stability, many organizations need to regularly adapt new practices just to maintain their status quo. Higher education institutions, perhaps more than other organizations, need to consistently practice adaptability to remain competitive and relevant.

SCUP Planning Institute faculty trainer, Robert P. Delprino, has drawn on his education, professional life, and experience as an institute faculty member to write a book every planner should read. “Change is a people process; the strategic planning process is not a solitary activity but one that involves a number of players. Its success depends on the individuals and groups who participate in the plan’s development, application, and evaluation.”

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

"Certainly there are limitations to the model described, some of which I have identified and others which I'm sure readers will point out. It is currently being modified to eliminate some of its shortcomings.

But as flawed as it may be, it serves to point out several key points. First, different approaches to attaining goals have different cost consequences.

Second, in almost all scenarios, resources required by community colleges outstrip those that will be required by four-year institutions. This is a direct contradiction to priorities typically assigned in the appropriation process. Institutional costs can be reduced under an assumption of marginal costs being less than average costs, but this doesn't change the need to assign priority to funding for those institutions that will have to do the heavy lifting if attainment goals are to be met.

Third, the largest component of costs in both scenarios is student financial aid. The real-world examples reinforce the point made earlier in this paper that concentrated attention to the design of financial-aid programs is perhaps the key element in the development of cost-effective means of reaching aggressive attainment goals.

Finally, it drives home the point that reaching such goals will take substantial additional resources. Ways can be found to mitigate these costs, but success will be impossible without additional state investments."

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

Using methods familiar to designers as an approach to problem solving in organizations is not a particularly new development, but now higher education may be looking at it as a way to reform how education is delivered.

Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)

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Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa) , Adelina Silva