[LINK] Review of Australian Higher Education
Tom Worthington
Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Fri Mar 14 09:29:29 AEDT 2008
At 05:33 PM 12/03/2008, Roger Clarke wrote (was: "Re: OT [Was Re:
[LINK] ANU Lecture Recordings"):
>Was I the only one who attended the first lecture of each new
>lecturer, and thereafter ignored the lousy ones and depended on the
>text-book?...
No doubt a topic for
the
<http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/policy_issues_reviews/reviews/highered_review/default.htm>Review
of Australian Higher Education announced 13 March 2008, by Julia
Gillard, Minister for Education.The review will be chaired Emeritus
Professor Denise Bradley AC, with an interim report in October, and
final report by the end of 2008. Details at:
<http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/higher_education/policy_issues_reviews/reviews/highered_review/default.htm>.
My summary of the review, links and thoughts on it at:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/03/australian-higher-education-review.html>.
A major issue for the review should be how to apply the
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/02/digital-education-revolution.html>digital
revolution in education which the new government has set in train for
the school and vocation education sector to higher education. The
vocational and higher education sectors need to be better linked (the
VET sector has much to contribute). Higher education needs to address
the needs of industry for skilled staff and research without loss of
academic excellence. Australia's higher education sector needs to
both compete and cooperate with the rest of the world.
I have been involved in some of this with the ACS, which is is
leading a project
to<http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=notice¬ID=740&temID=noticedetails>
align professional standards for ICT globally, providing
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/02/ict-professional-developemt.html>online
post gradate education and building a free open access online digital
publishing facilitiy for global ICT research at the ANU.
Getting back to what Roger was discussing:
Unfortunately there aren't any textbooks for the new ICT stuff, so I
provide extensive web notes. I would much prefer the students to come
to the tutorials and labs, where they can try things out, than attend
the lectures.
> I never feel bad about the substantial numbers of students who
> aren't in the lecture theatre. In the fields I've worked in, it's
> the least important of the multiple, inter-leaved ways in which
> learning occurs. ...
I never actually liked attending lectures and don't enjoy giving
them. My hope is that when the infrastructure catches up
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/labels/flexible%20learning%20centre.html>,
we can have a combination of online, real time and face to face
learning modes (so called "blended learning").
My ideal would be a pull based approach, where the student says: "I
want to be able to do this", and the learing system then plans what
they will need to know to get there.
See also my "How to Create On-line University Courses in Electronic
Archiving" Parts 1 to 13:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/labels/Information%20Management%20Course.html>.
Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, ANU
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