The most retweeted tweet of the EMOOCs 2014 conference was from Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera: “We hope to get to that future where students that’re so hungry, so eager, so desperate to get an education can get one.” (more…)
Tag: open education
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In education also, users come first!
Panel discussion with Pierre-Antoine Ullmo, P.A.U. Education, Spain; Johannes Heinlein, EdX, USA; Andrew Ng, Coursera, USA; Simon Nelson, FutureLearn, UK at the EMOOCs 2014 conference. -
First lessons from the Open Education Challenge
Transforming education. © Syda Productions | Dreamstime.com Graham Attwell makes an interesting review of the Open Education Challenge in his blog. He rightly questions the meaning of our phrase: “All projects are welcome; the only condition is that they must contribute to transforming education”.
What do we mean by transforming education? I would suggest three things:
– Trusting enough in the individual talents of teachers, educators, researchers and students to find innovative solutions for the future of teaching and learning;
– Thinking that innovation in education also means creating new jobs in the education sector;
– Considering education as a global issue that transcends borders, nationalities, skills…
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MOOCs in secondary school: an incredible project!
MOOCs: a collective challenge ©Yaacov Hecht An incredible project is changing the way MOOCs will be used to support innovation in the classroom. This is happening right now in Israel in secondary schools. It is launched in partnership with the Ministry of Education by the team of Yaacov Hecht, founder of the Democratic Schools, and also a very good friend that was with us in Barcelona for the last three days. (more…)
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Dear Johana, no need for a PhD to innovate in education
Innovative ideas in education. ©Skypixel “I am preparing a project for an innovation approach to learning. I am a PhD student in the UK. We are very committed with education and teacher professional development as well as a PGCE program. What I do not know is if the team has to have a company already established for submitting? And the team for the moment is composed of two PhD students one in computer science and me in math education with the support of one faculty member. Would that be ok?”
This is the first query we have received, and it comes before the Open Education Challenge has launched. No and yes are the answers. No, you don’t have to have a established company to start submitting. And yes, it will be OK.
However, this potential applicant’s questions made me think more in depth about who the true innovators are in education.
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“More” is what we need
Innovation in education. Photo credit: leighstjohn.com Who are the innovators in education?
We – at P.A.U. Education – are about to launch the first European Incubator for Innovation in Education. Our Open Education Challenge is an invitation to all education practitioners and all innovators passionate about education to push forward their ideas and their dreams, create a startup and contribute to changing education. The launch is around the corner and we are still wondering:
- How can private entrepreneurial initiatives truly transform the way we learn, and how can they adapt to our education systems in an ethical way?
- How can startups respond to education challenges in terms of efficiency, social equity and cultural diversity?
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Investing in education
Investing in education. ©Sergey Nivens Why invest in education? Why invest now? Where should we invest?
Asking these questions is already a sign that much has changed on the education scene. Education is no longer a matter reserved for public authorities or free from real life constraints. The world is spending more on education than ever before. Education is the answer to parents’ desire to guarantee a future job for their children and to companies’ needs for more innovation and better skilled employees. Education is the key to building better lives for hundreds of millions worldwide and responding to challenges such as climate change, sustainable development and gender equality.
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Ask provocative questions to change education
It is time for change in education. Boosting innovation in education was one of the main objectives of the first Erasmus+ call for proposals that has just been published.
But what do we mean by innovation in education? And what are the keys to making innovation in education possible?
Innovation in education is often considered as the development of curricula that will provide students with “the knowledge and skills necessary for a knowledge and entrepreneurial society.” This is the core of the Knowledge Triangle designed by the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology).
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Opening up education to children: a lesson from PISA
PISA results and education inequalities For those who travel in Europe on a weekly basis, the publication of the OECD PISA results just confirmed the heterogeneity of European education systems. This is what you could have read in the press while crossing Member States borders: that Swiss students are the best in Europe at maths; German students have improved their maths scores once again; Italian students have improved in maths; and that Spanish students keep falling short in maths. A more in-depth reading would also have told us that Finland has fallen from the podium, Sweden had entered a period of turmoil… The only certainty we can take from last week is that Singaporean students again emerge world beaters in international assessment.
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The end of eLearning
The new EU Open Education portal Do you remember eLearning?
Back in 2000, the European Union launched its “eLearning action plan” to enhance the use of “technology serving lifelong learning”. By adding an ‘e’ to learning, we thought we could invent a brand new vision for learning. But it didn’t happen. Technology was simply not good enough, and our minds not ready. We ended up creating more, or less, user-friendly online training courses that were commercialised by training companies as a substitute for traditional courses. But learning remained mostly untouched, still based on a top-down relationship between teacher and learners. The classroom — even in its virtual definition — was still based on a conventional concept well described by Sir Ken Robinson in his popular TED conference.
We desperately needed a vision for the future of learning. Said another way, we had to “open up education” and get rid of the ‘e’!
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“L’école de la vie”
‘Mind the Gap – education inequality across EU regions’ report pg. 82. The results of the first OECD Survey of Adult Skills just confirmed a trivial fact: the more and the longer you invest in education, the better trained your population is.
Italy, Spain, France and Ireland occupy the lowest ranking positions of the survey in reading and basic numeracy. Is that surprising?
A year ago, the European Commission published a report entitled Mind the Gap — education inequality across EU regions. One map – page 82 – showed that the countries that have most suffered from the financial crisis – Italy, Spain, France and Ireland — are also the ones with the lowest percentage of adults with upper secondary education.
