3 questions about educational data
Doug Johnson, Blue Skunk Blog, September 17, 2013

In the wake of Desire2Learn's recent acquisitions, Doug Johnson asks some intriguing questions:

• Is the technology a decision-making tool or a diagnostic tool?
• Why haven't we been able to apply the concept of mass customization to education?
• If want to use data to help individualize students, what is the most valuable information to record, organize and analyze?

These are good questions. I tend to think of data analytics as providing diagnostics (the way an exercise monitoring tool provides feedback) with the decisions left to students and teachers. We need customization (despite the protestations of learning styles sceptics) but via individual preference and decision, not automation. As for the third, well, that's a very good question.

[Link] [Comment]

MOOCs Forum
September 17, 2013

Volume 1 Number 1 of MOOCs Forum is now available. According to editor Nish Sonwalkar, "There is a critical and imminent need for MOOCs Forum to be the journal that will allow scholars, developers, processors, administrators, and students to share their experiences, research, and innovative ideas for the advancement of MOOCs." The issue includes an interview with Peter Lange, Provost at Duke University, a SWOT analysis of MOOCs aty the program level, and several other articles, all (for now) open access.

[Link] [Comment]

TechStars-powered Kaplan EdTech Accelerator holds its first demo day in NYC
Devindra Hardawar, VentureBeat, September 17, 2013

I was sent this link via email and while I'm not sure exactly what to make of it, I nonetheless found it interesting (and worth passing along). The bulk of the post is a list of ten startup companies seeded with $30K from Kaplan, each developing some typew of educational technology. They each now have a product and a pitch, and have raised substantial sums of money. Newsela, for example, "personalized literacy solutions using current news content," is raising $1.2 million, with $900,000 committed. The projects are incubated by Kaplan’s EdTech Accelerator, which has the backing of startup accelerator TechStars.

[Link] [Comment]

MOOC Discussion Forums: barrier to engagement?
Phil Hill, e-Literate, September 17, 2013

I reiterated recently my observation that centralized discussion forums are not effective in massive courses, and while David Luebke disagreed, based on his experience teaching a course through Udacityh, the data are on my side, I think. That's what this post from Phil Hill seems to show, in any event. "There are several studies that appear to show that MOOC discussion forums have few students participating and that the forums are dominated by a small number of students," he writes. "I think it is becoming quite clear that certain elements can scale quite effectively (videos, quizzes), but that centralized discussion forums do not scale."

[Link] [Comment]

Minecraft: A reply to the NYT post
Dean Groom, Playable ~ The Weblog of Dean Groom, September 17, 2013

This is an angry informed response to a New York Times article titled Disruptions: Minecraft, an Obsession and an Educational Tool so ignore the typos and get to the sense of the piece. Which is this: the Times is pandering to people's fears without evidence or substantiation, and misunderstands in general the role of games in learning. "Kids play games because they want to. They choose the games because of what they need to resolve in their brains – and in response to their own life story. The fact you can teach maths with it, or build a Roman Fort is insignificant to me, and certainly doesn’t help parents deal with the anxiety and real behaviours of children around games. Kids learn about the world by playing it out." And it's precisely this which makes them inappropriate as 'teaching tools': "Minecraft is a fantasy, it has emergent narrative which would be immediately killed in the hands of … well teachers, or people who are not teachers, just enthusiasts." (Photo: Michael Citrone via The New York Times)

[Link] [Comment]

The Digital Learning Transition MOOC for Educators: Exploring a Scalable Approach to Professional Development
Glenn M. Kleiman, Mary Ann Wolf, David Frye, Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, September 17, 2013

This is a report on a MOOC supporting professional development for educators (9 page PDF) called MOOC-Ed. I appreciated the level of detail, and the lessons learned were exactly those we've observed in several years of building cMOOCs. Here they are:

• Continue DLT MOOC-Eds to provide much-needed professional development.
• Design MOOC-Eds to serve a diverse group of participants.
• Provide flexibility to accommodate participants’ schedules.
• Recommend and support participation by local teams.
• Support personalized definitions of success and completion.

"MOOC-Eds are built on research-based models of effective professional development, professional learning communities, and online communities of practice. The courses focus on authentic, project-based learning, collaboration, and peer-supported learning, rather than tests and grades that are needed in other types of MOOCs."

[Link] [Comment]