Blackboard and Pearson Launch Integration for MyLab / Mastering and Blackboard Learn
Press Release, PR Newswire, July 3, 2012.

Blackboard is creating a clased marketplace for learning materials. "Blackboard Inc. and Pearson today announced a new integration for using Pearson's leading learning solution - MyLab / Mastering...  Web services that enable instructors to find and access MyLab / Mastering - including personalized study paths, customizable content, responsive learning tools and real-time evaluation and diagnostics - directly in Blackboard Learn." There has been a lot of activity of this type in the marketplace.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Personalization, Blackboard Inc., Customization, Online Learning]

CBS, NBC and Fox head to court over Dish ad-skipping feature
Joe Flint and Meg James, Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2012.

"I can't produce premium shows like 'CSI'without advertising," CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves said. This is a statement that defines simple mathematics. "The ad revenue per user television hour is thus the TV ad dollars / the Hours of TV per year = $0.20 per user hour." This is well within the range subscription services like Netflix have already demonstrated can be successful. Truth is, the people who gain the most from advertising are not the writers, creators, producers or even viewers. It's the advertisers - who have the content economy exactly where they want it, as the most effective means of propaganda ever devised.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Video, Marketing, Subscription Services]

Games Based Learning MOOC
Various Authors, Center4Edupunx, July 2, 2012.

Here's another MOOC. "The Games-based Learning MOOC begins on July 9, 2012 and will run for 5 weeks
with a sixth week and optional project in mid-September. The MOOC is under development and for right now we’re asking
interested participants to go here to register." Topics are as follows:

• Week 1 Games Based Learning/Game Principles
• Week 2 Gamification or Behavior Motivation Elements for the Classroom
• Week 3 Introduction to Alternate Reality Games (ARG)
• Week 4 Epistemic Games
• Week 5 Overview of Commercial Off the Shelf Games
• Week 6 Assessing Student Learning and Data Collection

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Project Based Learning]

Basic Functions of a Social Media Tool
Joyce Seitzinger, Cat's Pyjamas, July 2, 2012.

This is a nice - and, I think, accurate - depiction of the function of a social networking too (image, above). The concept is also associated with Seitzinger's PhD work on teaching as curating. But I look at this - at both posts, actually - and I ask, what's missing? And in both, the sense of doing anything. In both concepts - teacher as curator, function of social network software, it all amounts to shuffling information around. I curate here, yes, and I social network. But none of that would be worth anyhting if not informed by actual experience and/or demonstrations of practice. I write software, I teach online, I take photos, I build furniture, I meet with people, I hike in the forest and cycle in the country, I mange projects - all of these are the essential elements that make what I say (if it has any worth) worthwhile.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Project Based Learning, Networks, Experience]