Educational ‘innovations’ are in the news, for example, Harvard Seeks to Jolt University Teaching. The venerable 400-year-old College held a workshop on innovating in teaching, and talked about why lectures may not be the most effective pedagogical device. A cynical commenter replies:
“This sort of work is being done in many places; it’s called the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Perhaps it isn’t news until Harvard does it?“
I had the same reaction to Apple’s iBook annountment. They are not the only ones enabling multimedia authorship, but they may be the best at getting good press mileage out of such announcements. Some are noticing that:
Apple has simply thrown another platform into a crowded and incompatible market.
Likewise, I’ve seen discussions about Khan Academy, as if they are the only ones who put out videos teaching basic classroom material a mere 40 years after the BBC’s Open University pioneered video learning.
There is something profound happening in education, there are innovations and shifts: Separating teaching and assessments, with outsiders doing the grading, part of a disaggregation trend. A plethora of free resources and media, some of it enabled by peer production and lower-cost internet tools and technologies. Not only does that mean more online courses and choices, but traditional education both disrupted and (if they take advantage) streamlined by these innovations.
It would be unfortunate if these innovations are ignored and treated as non-news until Harvard does it, but at least MIT is ahead of the curve.