eclectic, pragmatic, enthusiastic
According to Reuters: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers Inc has reached a deal with more than 70 percent of its creditors to cut $3.1 billion in debt as it faces a lagging textbook market due to drops in educational funding. The publisher said it plans to restructure through a pre-packaged, court-supervised Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The HMH … Read more
One of the philosophical underpinnings of MOOCs as practiced by Siemens, Downes, et al. has been the rejection of the idea of pre-defined learning outcomes. For example, the LAK12 syllabus reads in part: “You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is … Read more
I recently blogged about the Apple announcement and how it amounted to publishers ceding the “traditional” textbook market (whether print or digital) to OER makers. One way to interpret that concession is as a win for open education. And it is a win – temporarily. Another way to interpret the concession by publishers is to … Read more