The Economist (Economist.Com) is sponsoring a series of debates on the future of education. Each debate topic considers the educational impacts of technology, globalization, and changing nature of social relationships. The third (and final) debate, which runs from from January 15th through January 25th, focuses on "social networking," specifically on the proposition :

Proposition: Social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom. .

The debate is based on an online variant of the Oxford Debate rules - each speaker has three chances to advance his view - an opening statement, a rebuttal, and a final summary. Observers (who must register) may participate, mainly though a discussion with the moderator who will raise relevant points to the debaters. In addition, Observers may also vote for the side of the proposition they most agree with.

Speaking to the Affirmative: Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching Scotland. Mr McIntosh writes for The Guardian newspaper and the BBC on social media and learning issues, speaks internationally and consults for organisations on how social media can be harnessed for to improve learning in the organisation

Spealing to the Negative: Michael Bugeja, Director of Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, ISU. Mr. ,Bugeja is the author of 21 books, with research often being cited by NYT and IHT to name a few, Dr Bugeja was among the first to analyse the use of Facebook before many professors realised that most of their students were already registered and of Second Life before many students had ever heard of it.

Moderator: Robert Cottrell, Deputy Editor of Economist.com. Mr Cottrell has been deputy editor of Economist.com for the past two years, and online editor of Intelligent Life magazine since its re-launch this year. He is based in New York.

Image source: BBC News, Ban Foxhunting? - Oxford Union says no, Thursday, October 22, 1998 Published at 20:23 GMT 21:23 UK. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/198249.stm

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The University of Vermont is now a member of Educause's Learning Initiative (ElI).

ELI explores the interaction among learners, learning principles and practices, and learning technologies. Membership benefits include reduced rates on ELI events and access to all resources on their web site, including archived web seminars and podcasts.

There are three upcoming events that may interest you:
January 14: Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 (online event)
January 28 - 30: ELI 2008 Annual Meeting - Connecting and Reflecting: Preparing Learners for Life 2.0 (San Antonio, TX)
March 18 - 19: Real World and Technology-Rich: Learning by Doing, Learning in Context (Raleigh, NC)

To access ELI resources and register for events, you will need to set up a member profile that connects you as an UVM affiliate. Go to the the Educause home page and follow the directions in the "Manage your personal profile" (under the "What would you like to do?" section).

We hope that you will explore the resources on the ELI site. If you find these resources valuable and/or are interested in attending an event, please let us know.

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On Sunday (November 25, 2007), Justin Pope interviewed a number of university faculty to explore how faculty and students are handling the large lecture class. He begins his article with some telling comments with Carl Wieman, University of Colorado Nobel Laureate (Physics, 2001) who observes:

Students often tune out and are turned off. Charismatic lecturers get good reviews but, the data show, are no more effective than others at making the most important concepts stick.

Most remarkably, when it comes to teaching not just "facts" but conveying to students the scientific approach to problem-solving, research shows that students end up thinking less like professionals after completing these classes than when they started.

"In a very real way, you're doing damage with these courses," Wieman, now a leading voice for reform, said in a recent interview."

The article then provides a nice exploration of the scope of the issue as well as how several colleges are dealing with the recognized problems in the lecture format class through a variety of pedagogical, technological, and institutional reforms.

Thanks to Beverly Wemple, Department of Geography, for suggesting this article.

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