I am very pleased that my most recent book, “Harnessing America’s Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning” (Jossey-Bass, Jan, 2010) was published in January. Writing the book has been a journey for me: changing me in the writing and changing the book as a result of the intellectual ferment created. I have come to understand this technological revolution as more  than a set of linked events with a cumulative widespread impact on almost every facet of our lives. Indeed, I now understand it as a new ecology, a new environment for information and intellectual activity which cannot be controlled by existing hierarchical structures, such as universities and governments. continue reading

Yesterday was graduation day at Concord Law School of Kaplan University, my school. Ours is an online law school program. Anyone with continuing skepticism about whether online programs can create community; can be interactive; can be support students’ work; and can be rigorous and academically challenging should attend our ceremony. Or, go to a Kaplan University graduation or similar events conducted by other high-quality providers of online higher education programs. I suspect that your concerns will be laid to rest. What a great day it was! continue reading

Every so often you just need to take a break to let your mind and your mouse wander around the net. Here are a few items from my recent foraging that readers of Rethinking Higher Education might find of interest. continue reading

The razzle-dazzle around unveiling of the iPad was about much more than the potential of that device to replace the pounds/dollars of textbooks that are part of today’s college life, but there was certainly buzz about its potential to do just that.

It may. Combine what it obviously offers with the increased functionality that businesses like Scrollmotion and Inkling may add to the mix, and you begin to see realized the potential that we all know is there for eTexts. continue reading

If you have not already seen it, check out Hybrid Education 2.0 at Inside Higher Education and then move over to the Open Learning Initiative page on the Carnegie Mellon University site, about which the article reports, to dig deeper into the work they are doing in web-based instruction.

For those of us who are committed to using technology more and better in higher education, there is a lot of good news and hope there as we move into 2010.

Happy New Year to all.

Amazon has released a beta version of its Kindle for PC application. Useful blog postings and reviews about it can be found at EduKindle, Teleread, and the Washington Post.

The application makes a nice presentation of a book on the PC. It’s a step forward in a number of ways, including the convenience of having the same material easily available on the Kindle device, an iPhone, and on one’s PC, with easy syncing among the different devices.

Similar functionality is available with other e-readers, including at least Barnes & Nobles’ offering and Mobipocket. Both of these options provide highlighting and notation capabilities that make them a step closer to realizing the potential of e-textbooks. No doubt these capabilities will soon be available on the Kindle for PC, as well.

Downloads of these PC reader applications are free, and there’s plenty of free content available, too. The interested and the curious should take them all for a test drive. Having knowledge and experience about how different devices and platforms work in the book space in general will be invaluable as we work toward realizing the full potential of e-texts in higher education.

The Wall Street Journal published an interesting story last week about the Cherry Teaching Award, an honor bestowed annually on America’s “top” college professor. Sponsored by Baylor University, the award comes with a nice chunk of change ($200,000), and is somewhat unusual because it measures not scholarly research and publications but rather classroom performance. continue reading