Learning Innovation

The success of an academic IT department depends largely on that unit's alignment to the culture of the larger academic organization. Actions, behaviors, and a general outlook that may be appropriate for another industry (and in fact may be recognized as "best practices" within the larger IT world), may result in complete failure within higher ed.

Academic Partnerships this week announced MOOC2Degree, a new program designed to put a sustainable revenue model behind massively open online courses. The program, which so far has 8 schools signed up for the first round of courses, underwrites the development of MOOC courses and then takes an (undisclosed) revenue share for students who enroll in the teaching institution upon completion of the free online course.

For years we have been print Newsweek subscribers. Now that Newsweek has abandoned print and gone to all digital I have abandoned Newsweek.

This week I wrote about how much money I sent to Amazon in 2012 to support my digital book (audio and e-book) habit. The grand total was just shy of a thousand bucks.

Are today's MOOCs the netbooks of 2009? Remember the netbook craze? We were all going to replace are overly expensive and bulky laptops with cheap and light netbooks.

Inspired by Nick Bilton's NYTimes article Disruptions: Impulse Buys, Straight to a Screen, I decided to add up exactly how much money I sent to Amazon in 2012 for digital books.

What is the last book you passed around to your direct reports or your larger organization? A book that you thought was worth the time for your colleagues to read, worth the investment of paying for the book, and worth the time for everyone to discuss? A book that you thought would help get everyone on the same page, challenge current thinking, and inspire your team?

I am fascinated by the transition of Blackboard from a one product business (the flagship LMS) to a diversified educational services company - one that offers both multiple platforms (through it purchase of MoodleRooms and Netspot) and a full range of educational consulting services. A key architect of these changes at Blackboard is Katie Blot, who prior to ascending to the role of president of the Education Service division spent 4 years as an SVP in Blackboard Consulting.