The government is keen on Australian institutions teaching courses offshore. Like this?

Firbank Grammar announces it will teach the Victorian Certificate of Education at a campus in Sri Lanka. “This initiative has become vital to students who may have difficulties travelling due to pandemic restrictions and reduces the cost of overseas boarding. The students can then attain direct entry to an Australian University to continue their studies,” the college tells prospective customers.

In Features this morning

Frank Larkins (Uni Melbourne) crunches the numbers on uni staff losses. They aren’t as big as reported – but casuals still bore the brunt.

with Angel Calderon (RMIT) on why ratifying the global convention on qualification recognition makes sense for Australia. (It could help here on recognition of prior learning and credit transfer between states and institutions.)

plus  Steven Warburton and Mitchell Parkes (UNE) argue it’s time for the sage to leave the stage, for the guide to sidle off the side and to welcome the agile, adaptive academic – the meddler in the middle! This week’s selection by Commissioning Editor Sally Kift for her celebrated series Needed now in teaching and learning.

and in CMM yesterday (its on the website); Mitch Parsell (U Tas) on the work of John Biggs, the 2021 life-time achievement winner in the Australian Awards for University Teaching.

With a new national funding model imminent Gerald Burke sets out what went before

The learned  VET policy expert, now a Monash U adjunct, details 50 years of policy in a new paper for the estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

Professor Burke makes coherent a compendium of complexity as he sets out policies past and ways they were funded, including states and territories spending, a matter which the National Skills Commission is expected to imminently advise on.

“There have been several national reports including examples of large and seemingly inexplicable differences among states in the levels of subsidy and policies on fees. It can be hoped that real action will be taken in response to the work of the National Skills Commission,” he writes.

Just because it hasn’t happened until now does not mean it can’t.

Last week a review of initial teacher education proposed a national body to recommend the distribution of student places among universities

And Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert appointed Uni Sydney VC Mark Scott to lead a panel that will look “at key aspects” of implementing the review

Strong stuff, so CMM asked the Australian Council of Deans of Education for comment – twice. And if the ACDE ever responds CMM will report.

The feds have been talking about diversifying where international students come from, what they study and in what formats for a year now (CMM March 31). The Innovative Research Universities group warns of possible unwelcome outcomes

IRU warns that recruiting more students from some national markets risks creating an impression in others that they are not valued.

The lobby also suggests that diversifying student markets involves multiple policies and agencies, (such as AusTrade, DFAT, Home Affairs, TEQSA)  and requires “a joined-up approach across government.”

And it warns that if government required universities to diversify their sources of students it could harm those that already have.

IRU suggests its members already have a “diverse set of students” but they could suffer, with “resource-rich universities aggressively targeting students and markets from smaller universities, through incentives such as scholarships. This would distort the market further, undermining diversity gains already achieved.”

The university will issue a $200m green bond, to pay for sustainable campus construction (CMM February 24 )

Ratings agency Moodys  assigned the university Aa2 in December  which is mid-range for “obligations … judged to be of high quality” (and) “subject to very low credit risk.”

The rating reflects “the university’s solid standalone credit quality and support provided by the stable institutional framework for universities in Australia.”

Positives for U Tas include it being, “a key institution to develop and implement state policy, with state law reform undertaken by UTAS (on behalf of government), as well as various partnerships including management of fisheries and biohazards.”

Possible negatives might be “delays, cost overruns or risk management practices proving less effective than assumed” for the building programme at Launceston and the major move from suburban Sandy Bay into Hobart’s city.

Uni Newcastle VC Alex Zelinsky tells staff that there is support for students who are affected by “shocking and heartbreaking” scenes from the Ukraine. “This situation affects us all differently,” he says.

It surely is affecting him directly. Professor Zelinsky is the grandson of Russian-Ukrainian refugees who came to Australia after World War Two. And his son Misha Zelinsky is reporting the war for the Australian Financial Review, from Kyiv.

Verity Firth is the inaugural UTS PVC Social Justice and Inclusion. She is now ED Social Justice at the university.

Brett Hutchins steps up to Deputy Dean R in Monash U’s arts social sciences and humanities faculty.

A strategic reset: micro-credentials for higher education leaders from Smart Learning Environments

Not to brag but I was advocating for micro-credentials/digital badges more than a decade ago. Maybe brag isn’t the best word, given our lack of success at the time. It’s nice to see the dawning realisation in the sector of late that alternate modes of accreditation are actually worth considering. This paper from McGreal and Olcott offers an overview of the current state of play and some strategic guidance for using micro-credentials to broaden the scope of educational programs.

In support of faculty (academic) developers doing tech support: a thread from Brenna Clarke Gray

The work of “Third Space” staff in education, supporting learning and teaching, regularly goes unnoticed but among the various roles involved there is often a hierarchical division between the pedagogical and technological sides. This twitter thread (and resulting discussion) from @brennacgray explores why this is and how it can be counterproductive in the long run.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation: Time for Expansion and Clarification from Motivation Science

When considering how to engage learners – and particularly with gamification – the core ideas of motivation are rarely far away. Extrinsic motivation in the form of points, badges, leader boards and prizes is often dismissed as being like a short-term sugar hit, initially exciting but not sustainable. Finding ways to draw on inner drivers is routinely seen as the gold standard. This fascinating paper from Locke and Schattke questions these ideas and suggests an additional category – achievement motivation.

MySpace and the Coding Legacy it Left Behind from Codeacademy

One of the greatest tensions in the Internet as a communication hub is between control and freedom. This is neatly summed up in this story of the rise and fall of MySpace, which the authors posit is largely about the happy accident that allowed users to customise their pages with HTML and CSS.

Semantle – a semantic word puzzle

Sure, guessing a random five letter word is great but have you tried guessing a random word based on its semantic relationship with 1000 other words? Semantle unashamedly jumps on the Wordle fad but applies an entirely different set of rules. You guess any word and it tells you how semantically close it is to the solution. Guess a word within the set of 1000 words deemed closest and it tells you how close you are. Recently “scholar” was 999/1000 to the solution of historian. This one-a-day game takes you on a bizarre but addictive word association journey.

Colin Simpson has worked in education technology, teaching, learning design and academic development in the tertiary sector since 2003 and is employed by Monash University’s Education Innovation team. He is also one of the leaders of the TELedvisors Network. For more from Colin, follow him on Twitter @gamerlearner