July 12, 2012
GEN Seminar Series: The Community of Inquiry Project
Various Authors,
Scope BC Campus, July 12, 2012.
This is an archive of an online seminar that was hosted by the Global Educators Network (GEN) in 2001. It features four facilitators: Terry Anderson, Walter Archer, Randy Garrison and Liam Rourke. At the time, Garrison has just taken a position at the University of Calagary, Anderson has become a Canada Research Chair-holder at Athabasca. I was in the middle of enjoying some time off just before joining NRC so I'm not in this discussion at all. The seminar covers the community of inquiry reserach project at the University of Alberta and explores topics such as cognitive, social and teaching presence online.
Why MOOCs Work
Geoff Cain,
Brainstorm in Progress, July 12, 2012.
Why do MOOCs (the real MOOCs, not the x-MOOCs) work? Geoff Cain has four reasons:
- Student motivation - "This is not a problem with MOOCs. Students can be taught motivation. As Siemens puts it, we need to foster autonomous, self-regulated learners."
- Facilitated connections - "What would happen if the learning materials were in different multiple formats; open, accessible and maybe sometimes asynchronous and the students got to choose which version of the material they used and how they engaged with it?"
- Self-organization - "discussions took place in a wide variety of fora and then a self- or group appointed "leader" would bring our questions back to the course facilitators for clarification."
- Content curation - "You would be really surprised at how open people are in your discipline to being a guest in your course via webinar or Skype."
This is a good list. These are genuine problems facing online learning in general, and the MOOC (if I do say so myself) represents a novel way of addressing each of them.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Connectivism, Accessibility, Traditional and Online Courses, Audio Chat and Conferencing, Online Learning]
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Unpacking the MOOC as Buzzword
Bonnie Stewart,
Inside Higher Ed, July 12, 2012.
"MOOCs are not any one thing, unless we permit them to be," writes Bonnie Stewart in Inside Higher Ed. "MOOCs will not inherently gut faculty positions in higher ed. MOOCs do not have automation and robot grading built into their conceptual structure."
Majority of Canadian universities sign licence with Access Copyright
Peggy Berkowitz,
University Affairs, July 11, 2012.
University Affairs is trying to put the best spin possible on a bad situation. "Only about 14 Canadian universities have announced publicly that they wouldn't be signing the model copyright licence with Access Copyright." Still, the institutions that have not signed represent about 40 percent of the student population. "We’re concerned that 35 percent of the institutions are not covered," says Maureen Cavan, executive director of Access Copyright. She adds, "that represents a larger number... who do not have access to the Access Copyright repertoire of material." Quelle dommage!Of course, this misrepresents the fact that the students could access the same material by other means for much less (and often for free). It's interesting, though, to read why some universities actually agreed to the terms: "Several cited the large amount of copyrighted material for which they already hold digital licences." If they don't sign the new terms, they lose their existing collections - which (it seems to me) sets them up for even more brutal cost-pressure in the future.
A Shot Across the Bows of Software Developers?
Stephen Benz,
The Motley Fool, July 11, 2012.
If you notice software companies clamping down on the resale of discs you bought and thought you owned, it may be in reaction to this ruling in Europe asserting that "exclusive distribution rights are also exhausted after digital first sales." Historically, you've always been able to resell your discs - "This is why GameStop is able to sell used video games without being sued by game developers" (and why the take-down notice on Amazon is an absolute crock). But now you can (in Europe, at least) resell your digital downloads. Not copies - that would still be a violation - but the original download.
Open — it ain’t what it used to be…
Brian Lamb,
Abject, July 11, 2012.
Brian Lamb riffs on the commodification of the term 'open', including bespecially the Monterey Institute for Technology's redefinition, which asserts: "MITE understands that the Noncommercial (NC) restriction on this Creative Commons license precludes institutional use of the materials, including by governments, corporations, public entities, and businesses, whether for-profit or non-profit." That's just wrong, of course - it's a definition that ignores the meaning of "noncommercial". On the other, more enlightened, side: Teemu Leinonen: "Open education can only happen with free knowledge. Free knowledge does not exist without open data (and information). Open education should focus on wisdom, truth, beauty, love and music (art)."
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