Hubwise

Learning in a Connected World

  • Teaching & Learning in a Connected Age

    This year I finally completed my PhD in Curriculum Theory and Implementation. As my memory of walking across the stage to take my place within the academy fades I have begun thinking about the future. I began this blog the year I entered my doctoral studies and I posted only a few passing thoughts in the […]

  • Competency Based Degree Programs

    Assess learning, not time. Anya Kamenetz, of the NY Post, reports on an emerging trend in higher education regarding how learning is assessed, and degrees are accredited. She writes, In 1893, Charles Eliot, president of Harvard, introduced to the National Education Association a novel concept: the credit hour. Roughly equivalent to one hour of lecture time […]

  • Life on iPad

    What of the liberal arts’ future at Apple? One possible clue to this question lies about an hour into this week’s keynote, where Tim Cook put up a “Life on iPad” video to show the myriad of things people have been doing with their iPads. Jobs credited Apple’s success to working at the intersection of […]

  • Whither Liberal Arts?

    Ben Thompson offers an interesting analysis of Tuesday’s Apple event launching the new iPad mini with Retina display and the new iPad Air. He suggests the loss of Jobs, then, Forstall has led Apple to move away from its prior human centred design tradition (epitomized by Job’s 2010 iPad launch remark that Apple has “always […]

  • Learnable Programming

    An insightful essay by Bret Victor. Considers programming as systems designed to “designed to encourage particular ways of thinking.” Building on Seymour Papert’s “Mindstorms” Victor thoughtfully considers how programming systems might be “carefully and beautifully designed around the way people think and learn.” In short, he argues that for programming systems to be learnable, “we […]

  • Make No Little Plans

    Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. […]

  • A Reimagining of Textbooks

    Inkling is an innovative interactive textbook for the iPad.

  • What does it mean to learn?

    The English word “learn” is a verb that denotes to “acquire knowledge of (a subject) or skill in (an art, etc.) as a result of study, experience, or teaching” (OED). This word comes to us by way of the Old English (c.450-c.1100) word leornian, which meant “to get knowledge” or to “be cultivated”. Further etymological […]

  • End of the PC era?

    Tim O’Reilly, the founder of O’Reilly Media, suggested in a recent NYT interview that the iPad signals the end of the PC era. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, which first popularized the WIMP (window, icon, menu, pointing device) interface design pattern. Now, 26 years later the release of the iPad “signals that cheap sensors […]

  • The Intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts

    At the close of Apple’s iPad product launch on January 27, 2010 Steve Job stood in front his Keynote slide of two street signs, one reading “Liberal Arts,” the other “Technology.” At this juncture, Jobs tells his audience, “Now the reason that Apple is able to create products like the iPad is because we have […]

  • The iPad in Higher Education

    Brian Chen reports that three universities have already begun an educational experiment with Apple’s iPad: Seton Hill University, George Fox University and Abilene Christian University each pre-ordered bundles of iPads — sight unseen — with plans to experiment with how the tablet could change classroom learning. In interviews with Wired.com just prior to the iPad’s […]

  • Rethinking Design Thinking

    Kevin McCullagh offers a critical reflection on the state of design thinking following the recent Big Re-Think conference in London. A key difficulty with the emergence of the “design thinking” movement is the diversity of its associated conceptions: In fact, design thinking always meant different things to different players. For some it was about teaching […]

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