Introverts: Why their time has come

I heard about this TED talk, and the first thought that came into my head was this (thanks to @shluthra) and I realised I didn’t have anything more to add!

I do have an anecdote, though, dating back to 2003 when @joannejacobs and me tried out a group blog for the first time with an MBA class (we published a paper on the subject in AJET the following year). In this class, one individual developed quite a following because of the high quality of their posts. The person in question had a Chinese name and I’m ashamed to say that — at this time — I did not know if they were male or female. It was quite a large class, and it only ran for six weeks, so I didn’t get to put a face to everybody’s name. At the end of the term, the mystery blogger — a mainland Chinese woman — stayed behind at the end of the last class to personally thank me for allowing her to participate! She was a very intelligent individual who had not been game enough enter into the verbal jousting with the group of extrovert Australian males that had tended to dominate proceeedings during in-class discussions.

The lesson I learnt from this is that, online, everyone has an equally loud voice. Importantly, people get to contribute who might otherwise not, and others in the group benefit considerably from their insights.

MBA via FB

The sceptical amongst us will no doubt look upon the Facebook-delivered MBA by the London School of Business and Finance as a gimmick. This may be the case, but 12000+ hits in just over a month it is hard to ignore if you are a struggling bricks-and-mortar b-school! Another metric that is hard to ignore is the population of FaceBookLand which, last time I checked, was the third largest country in the world.

OBOW exams at Wharton

This blog was pointed out me recently by Wing Lam which shows that OBOW-type exams are not something exclusive to U21Global.

Free trade between the US and Australia

This example assessment item includes audio links (using RealOne Player). It focuses on the deliberations over the proposed free trade agreement between the United States and Australia.

Analysing the world market for coffee

Here is an example of an open-book, open-web, final assessment used in an MBA macroeconomics subject. Note that some links are not accessible to the public as they require a student login to a university library database.