RSS Changeover Day Experiences
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, July 1, 2013

So today is the day Google Reader is vanishing from the web. What next? Well, I've done my duty and saved my Google RSS data, and now I'm looking for a new reader.

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Learning Object Repositories in e-Learning: Challenges of Learners in the Saudi Arabia
Abdullah Almegren, Siti Zuraiyni Yassin, EURODL, July 1, 2013

The very fact that it's Saudi Arabia, a nation of 29 million people with a unique culture and economy, makes open learning repositories a challenge. "There is no doubt that the financial demand for the implementation of e-learning and its technology is enormous, especially in Saudi Arabia [but] Saudi Arabia has lacked the local expertise or mastery necessary in various areas of Internet and e-learning technologies and has therefore relied highly on foreign professionals [and] a person’s actions through sight (e.g., reading and watching), speech, sound (e.g., listening) and touch (e.g., doing) must be in line with Islam." Also, "Women do not receive equal e-learning opportunities, a reality reflected in Saudi universities, where the majority of accepted students are male."

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Teaching English online: opportunities and pitfalls
Sylvia Guinan, British Council, July 1, 2013

Freelance teaching is still a cottage industry, but it's becoming more widespread and systems and supports are being developed. At the leading edge of this wave is the teaching of English online, probably because there is such a large demand. This article from the Brritish Council outlines some of these as it describes sopme pitfalls for online English teachers to avoid. What I wish the article described - and it does not, not even in the comments (which are nonetheless worth reading) is how much you can make teaching English online. If anybody knows, please let me know - it's always nice to have a backup career. :)

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Are Sugata Mitra's ideas on education doomed to failure?
Joe Tibbetts, The Information Daily, June 30, 2013

We learn very little about Sugata Mitra's ideas in this article. Other than one short paragraph, what we are told mostly is that Mitra is a rehash of Ivan Illich and, of course, the author. And because Illich and the author's ideas were doomed to failure, we are to believe, so are Mitra's. Not because the idea are wrong, but because "the stupidity and short-sighted self-interest of politicians combined with the laziness and cowardice of many who work in education is a powerful and deadly brake upon change." I think, personally, there may have been other causes.

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Hacker School: Where Students and Instructors Learn Together
Elisha Hartwig, Mashable, June 30, 2013

The main thing I like about this school is that it exists. People claim the following is impossible: "Hacker School takes a very different approach to training the next generation of programmers. No tuition. No grades. No teachers. No curriculum. Um, what? Hacker School is a three-month, full-time school for programmers in New York City. It is completely free, and the lack of curriculum lets students focus on their passion projects, learning how to improve coding skills along the way."

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MOOC Leader EdX Turns One: What's Next?
Michael Fitzgerald, Information Week, June 30, 2013

Michael Fitzgerald comes out of his experience with EdX with some concerns:

• "I wish MOOCs had fewer problems. They can be just as flat and unengaging as a real-world lecture..."
• "I wish MOOCs were easier to build. I wrote about Eric Lander's biology MOOC, and came away daunted by the amount of work ..."
• "I wish MOOCs would sharply cut the cost of higher education, including at the graduate level."

But MOOCs - at least, those designed by EdX and similar initiatives - aren't designed to do any of those things. In fact, they are the opposite: they are designed to replicate traditional instruction, to depend on bespoke content, and to make someone a lot of money. See also: MOOCs: Interesting Legal Territory Ahead and read aboiut how MOOCs are designed to convert professor content into commodity content.

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Coursera under fire in MOOCs licensing row
Megan Clement, TheConversation, June 30, 2013

The Conversation makes a big deal out of John Daniel's criticisms of Coursera for not using Creative Commons licenses (because it was not news when all the thousands of other people made the same point in the weeks and months preceding this interview). Daniel, a former chancellor of Britain's Open University, said, "“While MOOCs have open enrolment, many of the MOOCs offered through commercial partners do not have open licences. Attempts to monetise internet activity usually degrade the user experience. Copyrighting MOOCs content rather than making it available as open education resource is a good example." Of course, until OpenLearn, which supports a CC-NC license, Open University materials were not open in any real sense. And OERu, the venture launched by the Commonwealth of Learning under his tenure, has a very clear monitization plan. That's why it's a bit hypocritical for him to say "the open education movement far pre-dated MOOCs" and that Coursera's approach is "neo-colonialist".

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