I recently ran across an old PBS News Hour video on digital badging that was a great summary of the business case for using digital badges in higher education. Basically, the reason we should move towards digital badges is to help our students differentiate their skills from other graduates with the same degree. The video…
I was reading an article (THECB, 2018) the other day on the 60x30TX Initiative. This initiative, by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, seeks to bring the percentage of adults with some form of higher education (defined as an associates degree or above) up to 60% by the year 2030. What caught my eye was…
I took two Uber rides today while I was in Washington, D.C. for a conference. It seems obvious that the Uber model of transportation is superior to traditional taxi service. Think about process. With Uber, I make my location, destination, even my identity known to the service provider, whose name and mug I know, not…
A number of initiatives and circumstances have aligned to push the topic of microcredentialing to the surface in the higher education space. Specifically, disruption in traditional undergraduate degree expectations, greater need to demonstrate skills to employers, and heightened control and privacy concerns. Let’s take each of these topics in turn. Disruption in Traditional Undergraduate Degree…
This article from Inside Higher Ed reports that Canvas has surpassed Blackboard as the leading learning management system in American colleges and universities, based upon the number of installations. Michael Feldstein from MindWires Consulting states that this is a “stunning development.” Really? My colleagues have been saying for a number of years that Canvas is…
The good, bad, and ugly at #NASPA18 @NASPAFB from the perspective of an IT guy.
EDUCAUSE recently published their five most popular videos of 2017. One that caught my eye was Students of the Future. This is great summary of where higher ed technology trends are taking us. The video emphasizes the following “hot topics.” Slow Death of Traditional Degrees While the “sheepskin” in higher ed will still be around…
For several years, I’ve been hearing about low-code platforms. These are usually web-based tools such as QuickBase, Appian, and others that focus mainly on the professional developer market and promise to speed up the development process. The disruption created by this model of Software Defined Everything (SDX) has become increasingly evident. But up to now,…
A colleague of mine, who is another division-level IT manager, and I are teaching a course in the fall. The course is a senior level elective that focuses on special topics in technology management. Cool – right up our alley. We were given freedom to pick the topic, and of course we chose DevOps. You…