Martin Weller does it again!

I’m older than Martin Weller. So his new book, 25 Years of Ed Tech, doesn’t seem to cover a long enough period to me (reminder: print is a technology). Nevertheless, it’s a full and enriching outline of the impact of the internet and associated technologies on education, so you’d better read it. Thanks to Martin and Athabasca University Press, the online version is free. Continue reading

The battle takes a new twist: mutiny

The rise and rise of the ‘openness’ movement in education is well documented, having gained momentum in the last few decades through open learning, open educational resources and other associated areas of endeavour. A particular hotbed of continual debate and conflict is the area of open publishing, well documented in Martin Weller’s The Battle For Open (2014). Continue reading

Weller on winning … sort of

Martin Weller makes me tired. He does so much, writes so well, is an encouraging and supporting professional colleague (even at a distance – I’ve never met him in person), and runs great distances (1008 miles in 2014). We knew he’d been writing a new book, as he’d been providing updates and ideas on his blog site, but it’s still exciting to see the finished product: The Battle for Open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like a victory. Continue reading

Recent ruminations on higher education … in the US

It started with Clay Shirky. Like many commentators from the US, he can at times come across as somewhat pompous (not just the province of the English!) or grandiose. There’s a tendency of such writers to make pronouncements as though they’re the first to have thought of it, or to take their arguments just a tad too far (or even much too far!). Continue reading

Not just MOOCs: catching up with links

MOOCs are the current hot topic. And you might not be just reading about them, you may also be trying them. If so, are you one of the small band of ‘completers’, or did you discontinue? If you did drop out, then you’re not alone, as attested by the interactive graph produced by Katy Jordan. But there’s a lot more than MOOCs going on at present, and one way I try to keep up is to peruse my links from time to time. Continue reading

A MOOC on open education: go on, enrol now!

It’s only just started, so don’t delay, enrol for the UK Open University MOOC on Open education. Yes, our old friend Martin Weller has been at it again, and this time it’s a version of the Masters unit H817, ‘Openness and innovation in elearning’ made available to all via the UKOU’s OpenLearn initiative. Continue reading

A nice little publication worth a squiz

Martin Weller is certainly a busy fella, isn’t he though? This time he’s a co-author of an excellent new publication from the UKOU, Innovating Pedagogy 2012. It’s apparently the first of a regular series, and seems a great idea: a short (38 pp.) report “Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers”. Continue reading