Here is the small blurb in today’s edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grant. The Virginia Community College System has awarded $3,000 grants to 12 faculty members to increase use of open-resource materials to help reduce textbook costs. The grant program will promote the use of freely available Open Educational Resources in [...]
The VCCS is getting even Googlier
by rsebastian •
When VCCS students, faculty, and staff log in to My VCCS to access their Gmail accounts after the Blackboard upgrade on May 17th-18th, they will notice that they have a host of new Google apps available to them. During the scheduled outage, not only will Blackboard Learn be upgraded to Service Pack 11, which includes [...]
And the winners are…
by rsebastian •
Congratulations to the following twelve VCCS faculty members (and their college partners) who have been awarded a $3000 Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grant. To find out more about this grant, click here.
Zero. Zilch. Nada: Textbook Zero @ TCC
by rsebastian •
I have to admit I am a bit giddy to finally and formally announce Tidewater Community College’s Textbook Zero project, an exciting and innovative pilot project aimed at easing the pain of soaring textbook costs for college student by offering a no-textbook-costs associate of science degree in business administration based on the Textbook Zero model developed [...]
2013 Horizon Report: Higher Education
by rsebastian •
I am a bit late to the game on posting this, but better late than never. A few weeks ago, the New Media Consortium released the 2013 Horizon Report for Higher Education, the yearly prognostications of educational and political thinkers on what educational technologies they see coming “on the horizon.” It is always an interesting [...]
Innovations Conference | Dallas, TX
by rsebastian •
Here’s a quick update on my brief visit to Dallas for the Innovations 2013 conference to present on a Textbook Zero project of a VCCS college that I will discuss at length First, a little bit about my trip to Dallas. I have no illusions about air travel–I always take it as a given that [...]
OpenVA closed for the winter
by rsebastian •
Everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Because of the threat of severe winter weather, the First Annual Open and Digital Learning Resources Conference to be held at the University of Mary Washington this Thursday (March 7th) is going to be rescheduled for Fall 2013. It can’t be helped. While it [...]