Sebastian Thrun: World's First Massive Online Degree Program Starts Today
Udacity Blog, January 15, 2014

They write: ">A total of 2,360 students applied within the 3-week application period. This is about 75% more than normally apply for the on-campus degree over the duration of an entire year. Of this pool, 375 have been accepted and start today." Not very massive. Also, we will note that they have dropped the word 'open' from the headline. Which makes us wonder what it is that makes it "first". Hundreds of thousands of Indira Gandhi National Online University graduates will want to know.

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Reviewing the trajectories of e-learning
Grainne Conole, e4innovation.com, January 15, 2014

Grainne Conbole offers a timeline history of e-learning with quite a bit of discussion for each item, ranging from learning objects to virtual worlds to MOOCs. I like the idea, but I would probably tell a different story. I'd draaw out the discussion of distance learning and learning media, mentioning (for example) Australia's School of the Air. Programmed learning should get its own section, because it was so influential. Videotables (and later, CDs) were important (and are the major reason we use the term e-learning instead of online learning). Bulletin Boatrd services were important in the late 1980s, and text-based interfaced (FTP, Gopher, IRC, MUD) were important before the web began. Between the late 1980s and early 2000s Usenet and mailing lists were very important forms of online learning. The learning management system predates learning objects. I would talk about the introduction of RSS in 1998 and the Open Archives Initiative, as well as the Budapest Open Access Declaration of 2002, all important forerunners of open educational resources (OERs).

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Gardens of Discussion: What Makes Online Communities Work?
John Drummond, Academic Technology, January 15, 2014

This is one of those posts that feels like it's about half the length it should be - it starts out really well and then just tails off when it gets interesting. Still, there are some good bits, and I haven't linked to this site before, so it's worth a mention. I liked this observation just near the end: "I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to post. After fiddling around for a few minutes... I had the bright idea to look at a thread with only a few replies.  And there was the 'New post' button–right there at the bottom. Back at the 'Introductions' thread, there was no 'New post' button–just a 'More replies…' button.  'Really?  Noooo…' I thought; I clicked 'More replies…' and again… and again… loading 30 or 50 replies at a time. When I finally got to the bottom of the thread, there at last was the button I was looking for. Someone neglected to consider scale."

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George Siemens Gets Connected
Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 14, 2014

Nice article. George does have a doctorate, so I assume the repeated references to "Mr. Siemens" are a mistake. It's a nice gentle story that has some nice insights. I had a long tough interview with Steve Kolowich, none of which made the cut. So I guess they decided to go with the good stuff, and hide the dirt. (Just kidding of course - Steve asked for the low-down on George and I couldn't think of anything bad to say.)

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Students saving money with open textbooks
Catherine Loiacono, B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education, January 14, 2014

I'm not sure exactly how an open textbook initiative could fail, but that said, it's still nice to see evidence of success. "British Columbia's open textbooks project already has helped almost 300 post-secondary students, who saved an average of $146 each on their textbook costs for the fall 2013 semester." So, that's a start. Saving real money for real students - I like that approach.

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