June 6, 2013
Presentation
MOOCs and OERs in Moncton
Stephen Downes, June 6, 2013,
GTA Seminar, Universite de Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick
Long long loooong presntation (almost four hours, though there's 15 minutes of set-up at the start and a 15-minute break in the middle) about the thinking behind MOOCs and the tools I've developed to build them. The first half looks first at the idea of creating and sharing content as a matter of course. Then I look at how people learn, and talk about learning as a process of recognition. Then we go through the animation Connectivism link in today's newsletter. After the break, I take a step-by-step walk through gRSShopper, the software that runs this site and all of the MOOCs I've run, showing how the software and the theory both developed iteratively through use over a period of fifteen years or so.
[Link]
What Do We Actually Learn From TED Talk Videos?
Mark Guzdial,
Computing Education Blog,
June 6, 2013
Good critical analysis desconstructing some of the things people say about how we learn from TED videos. And I think this point is especially relevant: "Nobody watches a TED talk for “just-in-time” learning. People watch TED talk for entertainment." I like TED videos, in MP3 format, to listen to when I'm riding my bicycle. But I wouldn't say I'm really learning from them. TED videos tend to oversimplify and suggest that complex phenomena can be reduced to a single point (did people even say "here's the thing..." before TED videos?) and that intractible problems can be solved by an uninformed outsider with an innovative idea or different perspective.
Spoken Word Poem: Mathematics
Kelli McGraw,
June 6, 2013
Kelli McGraw links to this spoken word poem by Hollie McNishand comments: "a colleague shared it with me today. It has been viewed over 665,000 times. As well as being a stand out piece of speech, this poem would be useful for English teachers looking for texts to explore issues of immigration and racism (arguably with links to ‘numeracy’ capabilities as well!)" Quite so. It would be good listening around here as well, where the people are concerned about children moving away, but do nothing to attract new people from around the world.
The learning revolution in Osun State
gbenro Adegbola,
Nigerian Tribune,
June 6, 2013
This may seem like a small thing, but I don't think it is. The article describes the distribution of the Opon Imo (knowledge tablet) to studnets in Osum State, in Nigeria. "On each of the tablets are preloaded e-books on all subjects that are offered at secondary school level, video lectures and tutoring notes, as well as a test platform for students’ self assessment to monitor their own comprehension and mastery of the subject." Learning benmefits are touted, but also, so are the savings to the Nigerian education system.
Connectivism
Clarissa Davis, Earl Edmunds, Vivian Kelly-Bateman,
Emerging Perspectives on Learning and Technology,
June 6, 2013
I think this article is in some important ways incomplete, but there's a great animation in the middle which is not to be missed, illustrating connectivism with an example based on rebuilding a Mustang.
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