It's been a while since I've blogged, or at least it really feels like it.  I've had my nose stuck in (virtual) books trying to get through my literature review - but more on that on some other blog post. I came across an article on InsideHigherEd this past week asking whether or not letters of recommendation are really necessary. My most immediate context is admissions, given that that's part

Found image on Google (not actually a photo of me)Happy Friday dear readers! (umm...anyone still there?  I swear! I am alive! 😆)I've been attempting to write a blog post all week (and trying to do the 10 minutes of writing per day), but I've been failing on that account...I guess Fridays are a better day as things wind down from the week.  In any case, there is an article from the Chronicle

Many years ago, maybe around 16 years ago, I was sitting in the office of my computer science major advisor, getting my academic plan for next semester signed off on.  My computer science program was actually an offshoot of the mathematics department, and until recent years (2003?) they were one and the same.  My advisor, while looking at my transcript, noticed that (on average) I was doing

It's been a while since I last just sat down to think and write about something (like the good old days when I was cMOOCing...).  These past few weeks have been about conferences, and getting back on track with my dissertation proposal (although I think I am the only one who is keeping a score on that at this point).In my attempt to get back to writing, and engaging with friends and colleagues

I don't often write about my dayjob - as manager of an academic program. There are probably a lot of interesting and nuanced things to study academically in higher education administration and non-profit management, things that I also find interesting (from time to time) - but I tend to spend most of my time looking at EdTech, pedagogy, language learning, and the like (more so than higher ed administration.Recently

It seems that Inside Higher Education is playing a game of 7 questions. I thought that it would be interesting to respond to these when I has little more brain space to write some more in-depth answer instead of "agree or disagree" which was the original prompt.  These might very well fit into my Educational Leadership course now that I think of it.  So the questions are in italics, and my

Among the many streams of things happening these days is keeping tabs on some interesting things happening in my various internet circles.  I've resolved to just dip into my RSS stream and look at things periodically over a couple of days and not be as 'vigilant' as I have been in the past.  Too many things to focus on, not enough time for news.  That said, I came across an interesting

I know... I know... This is perhaps a tricky question to answer, but bear with me here, Perhaps the answer to this question of "how do we measure learning" is "well, d'uh! with some sort of test or assessment".  This might be true in one-off training, you visibly see employees either performing or not performing, but when it comes to a higher education context what does it mean to have been badged,

This is my mind at the momentI must admit, my attempt at a witty post title probably fell really flat.  Oh well, that's why I am not a comedian :-).  Out of the fire (EDDE 802) and into the Rhizome! This is technically week 2 (or is it week 3?) of Rhizo15.  Normally a cMOOC (or as others in the Rhizo14 gang have named Rhizo - an rMOOC),  there is a little disorientation to be expected,

Rebecca, the other, posted a question on Twitter on #adjunctchat, and later on wrote a little more in length on her blog about this question: What is the value in affiliation? More specifically:In our new world of adjunctification and alt-metrics, does an affiliation matter? Am I better to declare myself as an itinerant scholar than a scholar associated with a particular university? What is the value

In a recent posting about doctoral degrees ("academic" versus "professional") there was one line of thought that I meant to explore, but I really neglected because it didn't quite fit in with the post the way it was ultimately flowed. In the ACM eLearn article that really got my mental gears going, and to which my post was a response to, the professional doctor "is more likely to consume research"

Happy new year to all! The other day I was catching up on some reading in my Pocket account when I read an article in eLearn Magazine about online doctorates. I feel like I should have a grumpy-cat image on this blog with a big "no" on it since there were a number of things that seemed really wrong to me about this article. Some of them are probably the author's interpretation, or way of explicating

[warning: lengthier post than usual] Before I left for December my mini vacation I had a holiday themed catch-up with a number of friends and colleagues on campus. With the semester winding down, and with the holidays as an excuse it was a good opportunity for people to get together and share some news about what had transpired over the past semester, share notes, best practices, and so on. One of

An interesting documentary shared by one of my EdD classmates.

I guess today I will be taking off my "Instructional Designer" cap, and putting on my "Higher Education Administration" cap. My career in higher education goes back to the days of me being a  work-study student, working for the department of Media Services, providing all those nice A/V equipment that professors use as part of their course.  Since then I've had a variety of jobs with an ever

This past week on the #rhizo14 facebook group my colleague, and co-author, Rebecca Hogue posted a link to this TED talk by Shai Reshef on the Ultra-Low Cost University. This talk really bugged me for a variety of reasons. On the facebook group I wrote that I was angry when I saw this, but it was really more of a "WTF" reaction to the video.  More disbelief that the incredible amount of BS†,

It's week 3 in #cfhe12 and the topic of the week is Entrepreneurship and commercial activity in education, and I kicked off the week by reading The Evolution of Ed Tech in Silicon Valley and How the Internet is Revolutionizing Education. There are, of course, other readings that I intent on getting to, but these two were the only HTML documents that were easy to sent to Pocket (I did however skim the

Well, another 6 week MOOC started this week, CFHE12 (which I keep wanting to spell a CHFE12 for some reason) with George Siemens and company.  This seems quite interesting, and it gives me an opportunity to check out the D2L environment in action, considering that  our campus could have been a D2L campus, but we went with Blackboard instead.In any case, one of the first things for this week

I was reading a number of posts last week on Change11 on the topic of the 21st century University. Given how far things had progressed in the previous century it's hard to prognosticate on anything that's more than 10 years away...so in lieu of a guess or prophecy of what is to come, here's more of a wish: let's all just learn to work together!This past year I had attended a few conferences, both

Welcome back to school!!!! I think today I may be channeling the Annoyed Librarian ;-)In any case, here is a response to a blog post on InsideHigherEd.com about Netflix and library collections. Now I have to say that I enjoy reading Josh's posts despite the fact that most of them induce a facepalm gesture. I guess the first thing that gets me about these blog posts is that no one bothers to read them

I came across a blog post on InsideHigherEd recently about PhD programs and the disappearing tenure-track job market and how PhD programs should help their students to do something more than research and specialization in an area that has a focus on tenure-track professorial jobs (because as we all know adjunct instructor pay stinks).The main point of the author here is that PhD programs should include:

I've had a couple of interactions with recent grad students - tapping into my knowledge of 'the system'. There is no doubt that in each person's mind they want to be a successful student - however the definition of what a successful student is varies from person to person.Some people want to be a successful student that takes as many courses as possible in order to graduate as soon as possible. They

I came across this presentation a while back, but I did not have the opportunity until recently to go through it. It's a great presentation and I wish that they also had the audio of the presentation to go with it because it seems like a great topic.I particularly liked slides 100 to 109 where institutions of higher education are likened to the recording instutry ;-) I also liked slide 95 with the

OK, file this under "You needed a study for that?!"I was reading an inside higher ed. article recently with the same title as this blog post. A study was conducted and surprise! surprise! (NOT!) Students have a greater effect on what fellow students choose to major in rather than aptitude in a particular subject!You really didn't need to do a study because this falls under the "D'uh" category. Of

I know, I know, this is a few weeks late - but better late than never :-)In any case, I was reading this Op-Ed piece on the New York Times. The thesis of this op-ed piece is that:Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields

Anytime a bozo takes the stage and proclaims something radical it seems to stir up the educational community. In similar vain an article circulated the interwebs a few weeks ago about David Wiley who is getting a ton of publicity over his comments that College will be obsolete by 2020. I suppose in David's case bad press is good press....In any case his idea that colleges will be obsolete by 2020

I was reading this article on the Chronicle of Higher Ed recently. The article is about teaching customer service as a science. Please forgive my naiveté but calling something a science does not make it so!While there are some scientific elements - what is referred to as social science - such as sociology and psychology, trying to make a whole degree program out of customer service is just plain silly.

I came across this article on the Chronicle of Higher Ed recently. It was an interesting read. I can't really speak to the financial information they give because I am not involved in that area of university management. I did however have a couple of comments on other topics...Millions of workers have lost their jobs in recent months. But tenured professors are hard to fire. And some powerful faculty