July 29, 2011
Social Media, Google + and the Golden Eggs with MOOC
Sui Fai John Mak,
Learner Weblog, July 29, 2011.
John Mak writes a longish post on the structure of MOOCs and the nature of learning therein. "Learning is that part of the discovery of curated information and distributed knowledge through such a digital goose, where the goose would help us in hedging the eggs. There is a process involved in this hedging, where thinking and reflection is involved."
I Am Learner
John Connell,
John Connell: The Blog, July 29, 2011.
Laura Fleming used LinkedIn to recommend this post by John Connell. "No one can teach me," writes Connell. "I am not taught. I learn. I am human and a social animal, so I learn with others. I do learn from others, but what I learn is rarely, if ever, what is taught to me." The post is more of a declaration than anything else. There seems to be a trend (I saw it in Chris Lehman's recent keynote address as well) by educators to evangelize rather than to experiment and demonstrate. I can be polemical, but I really feel the scientific approach is the better one. If I did not code, create, try things out, what would I have to be polemical about?
Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium
Kaliya Hamlin and Mary Hodder,
Website, July 29, 2011.
At Marc Canter's suggestion I have joined the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium (as an individual; I can't imagine NRC joining any such thing). The idea of the consortium is to create "a Personal Data Ecosystem where individuals control their own data by enabling a thriving network of businesses around personal data stores and services." I'm not sure whether we can protect personal freedom by commercializing it, but I'm always open to new ideas and this looks like an interesting one.
Chosen
Various Authors,
GitHub, July 29, 2011.
I so love this JQuery library for intelligent drop-down lists. That is all.
Ray Schroeder
Curt Bonk,
TravelinEdMan, July 29, 2011.
Curt Bonk interviews the latest MOOCer, Ray Schroeder. "The reaction (to the MOOC)," says Schroeder, "is very positive. There has been quite a bit of positive press. It seems that most people take this as a natural evolution of presentations – from in-person to online; from small groups to massive online audiences. This is a wonderful way to reach large number of people in a field of study.... We are looking a launching several MOOCs that will be improved by our experiences here. One MOOC may be on the topic of an open textbook we are creating collectively among faculty members at the campuses of the University of Illinois. Combining an open online book with the MOOC should be fun."
Featured Courses at P2PU This Week
Rebecca Khan,
P2PU, July 29, 2011.
I bookmarked this because I wondered whether a P2PU course could be converted into a MOOC. I won't have a chance to check this out, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there.
The New Road to Serfdom
Umair Haque,
Eudaimonics, July 29, 2011.
I think Umair Haque may be becoming increasingly uncomfortable at Harvard Business Review. He is certainly increasingly out of place; far from being an apologists for corporate management culture, he is now standing directly opposed to it. At least, that's how I read statements like this: "our institutions, far from evolving and improving, at the time we need to update them most, are actually moving backwards. We're taking tiny steps--and sometimes giant leaps--backwards in time, deconstructing the basic building blocks of civilization." And his blog, outside the staid shelter of Harvard ivy, is walking even closer to the edge. I like it.
He writes, "We've forgotten what the economy's for. It's not a lowest-common-denominator tool for vulgar material plenitude, or a brain-dead mechanism for mere financial 'enrichment'--but, at its best, its highest, its most enlightened, its fundamentally worthiest, an economy must be an engine of human prosperity: a eudaimonic lever. A lever strong enough to raise human potential to unseen--and perhaps even undreamt of--heights." Quite right.
Building Learning Communities 2011
Darrren Kuropatwa,
A Difference, July 29, 2011.
"These are the slides from the three presentation I did at the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston this week," writes Darrren Kuropatwa. The first two slide sets, each just over 50 slides, look at the idea of learning through design. "Can we create deep learning experiences that encourage students to show and share what they know with the world and contribute to the global knowledge commons?" he asks. There's quite a bit of overlap in the two, but they both contain references to interesting resources (such as the "how to make an interactive presentation using YouTube," illustrated above). There's also a third, longer, presentation called "Design still matters". And for fun, there's a design challenge at the end of the post.
The future of learning and technology
Seb Schmoller,
Fortnightly Mailing, July 29, 2011.
Seb Schmoller writes, "Here is a candid, authoritative and reflective 25 minute talk by BP's Nick Shackleton-Jones, with plenty of memorable lines that will stick in your mind. The focus in on "corporate learning", but Nick's views are relevant much more widely." I haven't viewed it myself (I'm on vacation starting Monday and am scrambling to pull some things together) but I'll take his word for it.
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