The poet T S Eliot once observed that when it comes to studying and analysing Shakespeare all we can hope for is to be wrong about him in a new way (Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, p2). But perhaps not, because recently we...
Beginning next week MITx on edX will offer a philosophy course via a MOOC which will enable students to obtain a verified certificate and have their work “graded and commented upon by professional philosophers”. Learners from any background, anywhere in the world, “can pursue the certificate option...
Tony Featherstone asked a great question in his blog this week: “If students could swing a giant wrecking ball through Australia's university sector and rebuild it from the ground up, what would tertiary education look like?” His point in posing the query was that in all...
By KYLIE COLVIN The Academic Ranking of World Universities tells a very good story for Australian university research. The number of Australian universities in the top 500 increased from 20 in 2015 to 23 this year with the inclusion of La Trobe, Western Sydney and RMIT...
The light bulb is commonly used as an illustration to accompany articles about innovation and science (see above). It is a universally recognised symbol of discovery – the a-ah! moment when the researcher/inventor finally finds the big breakthrough or cracks a hitherto unsolvable problem. A light...
Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel is proving to be one of the country’s most stimulating thinkers. This entrepreneur, engineer, neuroscientist and educator has a way with words that enables him to talk about complex issues in an engaging manner. He makes the problems and...
There used to be at least a couple of ways you could make it in this world besides being born rich and lucky. The Beatles became “the toppermost of the poppermost” not by chance, but by unconsciously following what Malcolm Gladwell called the 10,000 hour...
This year’s NMC Horizon Report on shifts and currents in higher education spotlights a “long term impact trend” which it says will need governments to prioritize major education reforms to help universities “restructure themselves around increasing the employability of their students”. The report, now in...
She is no doubt some kind of genius but Coursera chief Professor Daphne Koller doesn’t inhabit some other-worldly dimension in which the enigmatic and the ambiguous are essential vocabulary. She talks common sense, and she talks it good. Coursera has been in the MOOC business since 2011,...
An amazing event happened this week that simply could not have been conceived of in any practical sense in previous eras. It took place, along no doubt with many other splendid things, big and small, amid the business-as-usual tragedy and turmoil that haunts our planet....