Yesterday, I talked about all the good things that are said to be brought by university-industry collaboration. There is, however, other side of this seemingly almighty strategy. Well, “other side” might be a bit too exaggerating. But there are some things we have to keep in our mind when we discuss university-industry collaboration. What I [...]

In Japan, promotion of university-industry collaboration has been a key topic at many levels since the early 90′s, and especially since 2004 when all the former national universities became semi-privatized. With this drastic reform in Japanese higher education in 2004, Japanese former national universities need to be transformed into a new mode of knowledge creation. [...]

I have been reading this book titled “Highly-Educated Working Poor – Graduate School as a Manufacturer of Part-timers ” (written in Japanese).  Sounds pessimistic?  Yep, this is a very pessimistic book, indeed. Pessimistic it may be, the book conveys the critical truth about post PhD lives in my country.  In Japan, a lot of new graduate schools were established around the time all [...]

World Competitiveness. For the first entry of my guest-blogging, this topic would not be too bad, I suppose. Thus, World Competitiveness. According to World Competitive Yearbook 2007 by IMD (International Institute for Management Development), Japan is now ranked in the 24th place, sliding out of the top twenty. Allowing China to pass (China rose from [...]

Ai Takeuchi recently completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration. Her research interests focus on international development with a special interest in gender issues and international study and training. In her study, Dr. Takeuchi explored the issues related to post study-abroad for Asian women. She [...]

Version 2.0 of the open seminar/co-seminar “From information to innovative knowledge: Tools and skills for adaptive leadership” kicked off this evening with its first meetings. The second version of this training program continues the main characteristics of co-seminars: international, bilingual, and supported with Web 2.0 technologies. The course is designed to enhance learning, utilizing methodologies [...]

Slides from last week’s presentations at Edison High School and the Minnesota House E-12 Education Committee Working Group on High School Redesign: These slides are also posted at the LeapFrog Institutes.

I’m not sure how to comment on this one. The most efficient algorithm for me to solve the math problems she steps through is to use tools that are immediately accessible to me: by pressing the calculator button on my keyboard, using the calculator function in my cell phone, or use a standalone calculator. The [...]

Caption: Working late into this evening, the instructional team in Minnesota, Mexico, Ecuador and Chile (that’s a span of nearly 9,000 km among the conferencing sites!) tests various video and audio conferencing connections.

One of the participants in the upcoming knowledge co-seminar, Ismael Peña-López, wrote on the visit of John Seely Brown at UOC as part of the institution’s Innovation Forums. He pondered, “is there anything more in ‘open’ and learning than Open Educational Resources?” From Ismael’s notes: Tinkering — enjoy fixing, experimenting — as a learning platform. [...]