James Vernon, a History lecturer at The University of California, Berkeley wrote in the Guardian last week that MOOCs are an 'avalanche' threatening higher education. He wrote that UK academics has failed to respond to the launch of FutureLearn as the first UK MOOC provider. He wrote that MOOCs might...

The New York Times announced this week that forty public US universities are teaming up with the company Academic Partnerships to offer free online courses which lead to the award of credit towards degree programmes. This move, proposed as a 'free sample' to entice more prospective students onto courses is...

The Chancellor George Osborne is set to announce cuts to benefits today which he says could total £10 billion. The right wing press are lauding his efforts to crack done on the 'dossers' 'scroungers' and 'work shy.' They're all missing the point though, which is that not everyone on benefits...

As the annual debacle over A-level results begins, it is clear that one outcome will be fewer students going on to study in UK universities this year. Applications are down overall, with fewer students expected to accept places through clearing this week and more students going abroad to study. But...

Another week has started with yet another alarming story in the press about how the government plans to snoop on us and our electronic communications. Civil rights bodies such as Big Brother watch are up in arms once again about this attack on our privacy but is it really something...

Happy Mother's Day to all you Modern Mummies out there. On your special day, I salute you all. In this week's Times Higher Education supplement there is a fantastically insightful and moving article by anthropologist Eric Michael Johnson on the critical importance of mothers in the long term wellbeing of...

This week the Director General of the National Trust, Dame Fiona Reynolds, spoke to the Times about the Trust's 'Wild Child' campaign to get more children to play outdoors this Spring and Summer. In the article she said, "Children are missing out on the sheer joy and physical and mental...

Happy World Book Day - I hope you find a space in your day to curl up with something good to read. But in these days of the read/write web, Kindles, ebooks and social networking, I think it's a good day to celebrate literacy of all kinds.

I can't remember...

Even usually stoic techie types are excited this week by the launch of the Raspberry Pi. So excited, in fact that on Wednesday, launch day, 29 February the sales website crashed. A slightly smug apology was posted blaming 'a very high level of traffic'. This minor technological embarrassment is better...