Lecture on Internationalising education

At the annual 'Onderwijsparade' at Utrecht University (back on the 3rd of March) the organisers had invited Marijk van der Wende (CHEPS and VU) to talk about Internationalising Education. You can read an account (in Dutch) at the UU website.
At present Dutch government is focussing strongly on improving international cooperation at all the universities and all the universities are of course following suit. However, for many institutions it would be wise to sit back and first define the goal(s) of the internationalising efforts. Are you out to generate more income through foreign students, are you out to share knowledge and research or are you trying to attract and bind excellent students and researchers from around the globe?
The four approaches she defined were:
- mutual understanding (university as an institute of education)
- skilled migration (university as an employer)
- capacity building (socially engaged university)
- revenue generating (higher ed as an export product)
It was an inspiring lecture, it is a shame the slides aren't on the internet somewhere....

Internationalising our education - use of video

We had a seminar on Internationalising our education at Utrecht University last Thursday. It was great to see the efforts being made at the WUN (World Wide Universities Network) and Penn State. We still have a long way to go...

Together with Lex Hermans I gave a presentation on the use of video in distance education both for a-synchronous and synchronous learning. The slideshare is included below.





David Pilsbury also pointed out the Research channel, a collection of high quality videos covering some serious subject matter. This would require a tad more investment than the simple recordings we have being doing of late and would also require some serious commitment at all levels in the university. Great for your public relations though...

Swedes on a visit

Last Thursday we had a group of Swedes on a visit to Utrecht University. They were on a trip from the NSHU. Renée Filius and I organised a round table and we discussed a number of propositions on ict in education. We did not disagree on many points though. One major difference between Sweden and the Netherlands appears to be their experience in distance learning. Another difference is their focus on getting everybody involved in education. This is something which has received a lot less attention in the Netherlands of late, though I hope the new government will focus more funding on this. So not just life long learning, but learning for everybody.

After the round table we listened to some comparisons on student participation in decision making and forming the curriculum in higher ed. I was very impressed by the amount of attention that is directed at this.