Harold Jarche's blog

Internet Policy at School
by Harold Jarche | Sun, 01/18/2009 - 16:43

Jacques Cool, a public school system educator, writes about a better way to develop an IT policy for schools. Jacques writes in French, so here is my very loose translation of his post.

Jacques found that the draft policy was too negative and restrictive, in that it focused on what users "shall not do". Jacques instead recommends that a policy on IT and using the Interenet should include:

There is a crack ...
by Harold Jarche | Wed, 01/14/2009 - 10:18

Is the industrial model of education finally cracking?

Donald Clark says:

My suspicion is that the web has done more for pedagogy in the last five years than the entire output of academic educational departments and other institutions in the last fifty years.

It is the System
by Harold Jarche | Fri, 01/02/2009 - 08:09

There is desperation in the way in which we are trying to save our current education and health care systems but in light of the near collapse of our financial systems we should reconsider this. Perhaps the system is the problem. The Support Economy diagnoses managerial capitalism as the primary cause of the disconnect between corporations and markets (people). This form of capitalism robs us of our ability for self-determination:

Will education demand decrease?
by Harold Jarche | Tue, 12/23/2008 - 08:03

It seems that finding buyers of student loans that have been in default is getting more difficult, according to Inside HigherEd:

Check the zeitgeist with hashtags
by Harold Jarche | Thu, 12/18/2008 - 21:16

Twitter is a microblogging platform that has really caught fire this year. It lets you send out a stream of short bursts like quick links to topics of interest only to people who have chosen to follow you. By adding the pound sign (#) to a word you can can create hashtags. Examples of hashtags of interest to readers here might be:

university

edubooks

Out of Control
by Harold Jarche | Sun, 12/14/2008 - 06:57

The institution is losing control. First educational content, in the form of lectures, notes and slides, became available for free on the Internet and from some of the best universities in the world. Then we found ways to rate faculty without consulting the university. The content is now being aggregated as witnessed in iTunes University. We don't have a way to crowd source the lecture rating but Mark Pesce thinks that's coming soon, as he's written in Inflection Points:

Tags: higher_education, internet, university

How do you compete with free?
by Harold Jarche | Thu, 11/27/2008 - 07:17

It's not about the technology. Sounds trite and in some cases we can see that enabling technologies do make a difference. However, the world-changing technology is the Internet and it's already here. So why do institutions spend so much on their VLE or virtual learning environment [also known as LMS, LCMS, CMS, etc]?

In The Vice Chancellor's VLE, a parody of The Emporer's New Clothes, two "scoundrels" sell a VLE to a university:

Time for Institutions to Evolve
by Harold Jarche | Thu, 11/20/2008 - 10:40

It's getting more difficult to be just a run-of-the-mill university in North America today, as noted in Higher Ed: Next Bloated Industry to Go?:

The challenge, of course, is that the needs and composition of students, industry, and state are constantly changing. Federal, State, and Local funding will all be decreasing in the years ahead. So doing the same thing (like GM or Ford) won’t get the weaker colleges and universities through what is ahead.

Three Perspectives on Literacy
by Harold Jarche | Thu, 11/13/2008 - 20:42

Almost everywhere you turn today someone is lamenting the lack of literacy or the inability of certain generations or groups to articulate their thoughts. For instance, Chris Hedges, in America the Illiterate states that the lack of print literacy is creating a society that is not able to reason or understand the complexities of our modern world.

Teaching, Critical Thinking and Love
by Harold Jarche | Sun, 11/09/2008 - 13:54

Most schools say that they promote critical thinking and many do, in some way. Critical thinking requires that you constantly question authority, including your own. However many schools concentrate on traditional teaching. Here you get the facts and establish some common understanding. Some go further and help students gain non-teachable insight through less authoritative methods such as play or metaphor. Finally, some teachers prepare students to seek meaningful conversations and develop their own networks for learning.