March 14, 2012
Presentation
Education as Platform: The MOOC Experience and what we can do to make it better
Stephen Downes, March 14, 2012,
EdgeX, Delhi, India
In this presentation I outline the motivation and design of the massive open online course (MOOC) and then outline a number of criticisms of the form as it has evolved thus far. My argument is that to the extent that a MOOC focuses on content, like a traditional course, i begins to fail. A MOOC should focus on the connections, not the content. I outline some ways of focusing on connections, using connectors. By way of an example, I discuss structured connections such as chess games and budget simulations.
Sky View
Gary Wolf ,
Text to All, March 14, 2012.
This is a great example of the use of augmented reality. I've long been interested in stars but have never been able to make the transition from printed page to what's up in the sky. But this app allows you to point your iPhone or iPad up, straight up, at the sky and see what's there. "When I point my phone camera at the night sky this app displays the heavens, as if through a window, overlaid with the specks of stars, at appropriately varying brightness."
The Reproduction of Privilege
Thomas B. Edsall,
New York Times, March 14, 2012.
It's ironic. Efforts to increase access to education opened the doors just wide enough to create a significant barrier to lower income people trying to get ahead. Now that most jobs require a degree, a degree has become a virtual necessity. But for the most part, it is the wealthier sector of society that obtains a degree. The university has become (as it always was, perhaps) a mechanism for preserving the status and position of the rich. Yes, the poor can still get a degree - and 8.3 percent of them do. But this pales in comparison to the 82.4 percent of the wealthy who access a university education.
The Holy Grail of Learning
June Breivik ,
Tanker, March 14, 2012.
It's an interesting question. How do we get from free online learning, such as we see in iTunes U, Teachers Tube, YouTube Education, Kahn Academy and all the rest of them, to some sort of recognition of learning? The answer? Not credentials or badges or some such thing, writes June Breivik . "My answer will be: your digital identity." After all, she writes, employers are increasingly using Google to research candidates for employment. "In the future, to present your digital resume get more and more important than your so-called formal qualifications."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: YouTube, Video, Research, Google, Online Learning]
A Tracking Inspired Hack That Breaks the Web...? Naughty OpenLearn...
Tony Hirst,
OUseful Info, March 14, 2012.
Tony Hirst has a first-hand experience with the problem of open data: "I started a script, full of joy and light and happy intentions.... Then I got the error message, ran round in circles for a bit, got ranty and angry and developed a really foul mood, probably tweeted some things that I may regret, one day, figured out what the issue was, but not how to solve it, thus driving my mood fouler and darker..."
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