[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&notID=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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