December 4, 2012
The MOOC movement is not an indicator of educational evolution
Andy Oram,
O'Reilly Radar, December 4, 2012.
Maybe ds106 - which Alan Levine and Jim Groom keep saying is "not a MOOC" - is a fab course. "DIY courses, as popularized in the book Fab by Neil Gershenfeld at the MIT Media Lab. O’Reilly’s own Make projects are part of this movement. Fab courses represent the polar opposite of MOOCs in many ways. They are delivered in small settings to students whose dedication, inspiration, and talent have to match those of the teacher — the course asks a lot of everybody." Of course, this is yet another case where someone from MIT found something, gave it a name, and is now the 'inventor'.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Traditional and Online Courses, Books, Project Based Learning]
Montevideo, Uruguay
Stephen Downes,
Flickr, December 4, 2012.
Large set of spectacular photos that will change your understanding of Montevideo, Uruguay's capital city. Of course you should view the slide show version.
Why I think (OPEN) courses should be about content creation
Dave Cormier,
Dave’s Educational Blog, December 4, 2012.
Good ppst from Dave Cormier on how learning is about content creation, dealing with the argument that "you don't learn about Irish history by writing about it, you learn it by studying it." Cormier writes, "The power relationship between a content giver and a content receiver is such that the legitimation of knowledge is controlled by the giver. I think we had to do things that way for a very long time because ‘memory’ and ‘paper’ forced us to move perspectives around in locked boxes. In this day and age we no longer need to shove subtlety into neat little truth boxes. We can learn things as they are, rather than as other people would try and force us to remember them. Learning to choose amidst uncertainty."
And without doing anything, I created an Open Educational Resource
Clint LaLonde,
ClintLaLonde.net, December 4, 2012.
It's interesting to read discussion about open educational repositories when as Clint LaLonde remarks of his own work, everything I create here becomes an open educational resource. Now true, you can't stick a paywall around my site and start charging access, but that is not what defines an open educational resource. Rather, any person in the world can access it and learn from it, and any course or educational institution can link to it and, if they share it openly, post it on their own website or their own course. So I figure my own 'repository' includes (if you add photos) about 30,000 resources - 16K posts, 15K photos, and maybe 1K presentations, articles and oddements. Every time I write something, every time I present, I create an OER. That's how we create OERs, we don't need big funding programs (that give their money to well-established fund-raisers like MIT).
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Open Educational Resources, Learning Object Repositories]
Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network 2.0
David Warlick,
2¢ Worth, December 4, 2012.
There has been a lot commentary about how the term MOOC has been appropriated and redefined, but not nearly as much discussion of now the term 'personal learning environment' (PLE) was rebranded as 'personal learning network' (PLN) and turned into a minor industry south of the border. Just saying.
3 Big Takeaways for Higher Ed From The Future of Digital
Kyle James,
.eduGuru, December 4, 2012.
Business Insider has posted a big slide deckon the future of digital technologies; this article is a summary of three major take-aways:
- first, that mobile technologies will continue to expland rapidly, particularly with respect gto location-based activity
- second, online advertising continues to increased, but is dominated by Facebook and Google
- and third, ecommerce has become mainstream and issues like user experience are beginning to differentiate vendors
Good observations all, and inreaisngly the focus of my own thinking in e-learning technology. (p.s. Kyle, put your last name on your articles, you're not 10 years old.)
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Books, Marketing, Google, Experience, Online Learning]
Commission presents new Rethinking Education strategy
Press Release,
Europa, December 4, 2012.
Europe is not alone in this but the case is clear nonetheless: "The youth unemployment rate is close to 23% across the European Union – yet at the same time there are more than 2 million vacancies that cannot be filled." Unfortunately, they are moving in what i think is exactly the wrong direction: "Rethinking Education calls for a fundamental shift in education, with more focus on 'learning outcomes' - the knowledge, skills and competences that students acquire. Merely having spent time in education is no longer sufficient. In addition, basic literacy and numeracy still needs to be significantly improved, and entrepreneurial skills and a sense of initiative need to be developed or strengthened." This strategy is a hedge. It attempts to deflect the need for more education and social spending, especially in struggling economies. Instead, it focuses on targeting education funding toward outcomes. Not only will this not produce outcomes, it will weaken existing education funding. This is a recipe, in my view, for deepening the divide between rich and poor, the very divide that is the cause of the education gap in the first place.
The Future of Creative Commons: Examining defenses of the NC and ND clauses
kira ,
QuestionCopyright.org, December 4, 2012.
I don't agree with the argument, but this statement of it i well-formulated and interesting. And it reflects a sentiment on the part of a certain community to eliminate the 'NC' and 'ND' variations from Creative Commons altogether. But I don't think it addresses my own concern, that licenses that allow commercial use allow for the enclosure of content, resulting in people being force to pay money before they can access it. Related: open course on open licensing (I wonder whether they will present the pro-NC argument at all).
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