September 16, 2011
COOLCast#1 - September 14, 2011
Lisa M Lane, Vance Stevens, Kate Robbins, Sanford Arbogast and Jeff Lebow,
COOLCast, September 16, 2011.
The alternative MOOC webcasts have started up again for the fall courtesy Jeff Lebow and friends. I haven't been able to listen yet (I've been elbows-deep writing an adapter for Big Blue Button) but I definitely will.
Digging Out My Sash
Bud Hunt,
Bud the Teacher, September 16, 2011.
Good overview and discussion of the Mozilla badges project. "If badges transform all grades that matter into “pass/fail” situations, well, that might be something. To match what students can do with their academic credentials as measured by actual performance tasks would be a good thing. But, if the DML competition encourages thinking and writing and exploration and action around ideas like the idea that any accountability system, or accreditation system, is ultimately a subjective system, made by people, however we design it, then I say, let’s rock. But let’s do so carefully."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Project Based Learning, Assessment, Academia]
Call for Papers: Open Online Courses
George Siemens,
elearnspace, September 16, 2011.
George Siemens has blogged our call for papers for an edited book on MOOCs. This is the academic counterpart to The MOOC Guide (IMO). He also posts the duplication theory of educational value: "if something can be duplicated with limited costs, it can’t serve as a value point for higher education."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Connectivism, Books, Web Logs, Google, Academia]
New Mentality Entering LMS Market
Phil Hill,
e-Literate, September 16, 2011.
New money is entering the field of educational technology, and when that happens, writes Phil Hill, the landscape changes. In particular, Hill highlights two technology companies, Instructure and by LoudCloud Systems. "The change in the market will be more significant than just having two additional competitors. The real significance will be the entrance of a new mentality – one based on new investment (venture capital, private equity, strategic publisher moves), one based on startup companies willing to challenge the status quo with new approaches... Instructure and LoudCloud designed their systems based on market analysis and feedback, rather than by taking a single-institution project and attempting leverage into the market."
Back to school: new technologies, more advantage communities ?
Teemu Leinonen,
FLOSSE Posse, September 16, 2011.
The slides are a bit sketchy, but I was interested in the idea of the evolving sense of community, and the question of where technology takes it from here. Yes, there is a sense to be made of the distinction between (say) family community and ideological community, but does this type of distinction help us understand the impact of technology? Or do we need to be thinking less of natures, and more of structures?
Mozilla Hacks Blog Offers HTML5 Geolocation Primer
Scott Gilbertson,
Webmonkey, September 16, 2011.
"The Mozilla Hacks blog has posted a nice screencast overview of the HTML5 Geolocation API," reports this item. I don't know anything about geolocation (beyond the basics of some geo xml formats) but I'm sure it will come up in some online course in the future, so it's good to have this reference.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Traditional and Online Courses, Web Logs]
You will do what you are told, until the rights to you are sold #altc2011
David Kernohan,
followersoftheapocalyp.se, September 16, 2011.
I admit I'm running this item mostly for the title, which resonates with what so many of us are hearing from our managers these days. The post deals with the announcement of the theme of next year's ALT-C, "a confrontation with reality". As David Kernohan writes, "The reality we are expected to confront is the one that is being imposed on us. The one where there's not enough money to actually try and improve anything, and we'd better be careful to somehow justify what we are doing. The one where we've all 'run out of money', 'maxed out our credit card', and need to enter an 'age of austerity'." We are supposed to 'accept reality', but as he says, "I don't think we can accept it - it is a narrative, and there are other narratives to choose."
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