AI. Singularity. Gloom and doom. Don't know Ernie, the stuff is too scary to look at or think about. But since Ray Kurzweil is now at Google, he has unlimited funding. Who knows? 2030? Vinge 2045? Kurzweil.

I didn't see Kurzweil's name on the list. :-)

Modern tract homes, while inexpensive, exemplify the worst of rule #4 -- "We don't pay attention to boring things."


When designing your classes, stay away from repetition without metamorphosis like this

http://blog.pshares.org/files/2013/02/tract-housing.jpg

and try for something a bit more appealing, like this

http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/38359/foinikia_after_1.jpg

What do you think?

Richard

Long ago, when lyrics were not explicit and wardrobes were not raw, Grace Slick, serendipitously slipped a drug reference past the music censors, referring to hallucinating. Medina, years later, makes a much milder reference to hallucinating on p.228, when he proves you are.

This video ends with the lyrics "Feed your mind. Feed your mind."
When I read Medina's rule #1 & #7, I started singing the song except, "Feed you brain. Feed you brain."

It is your brain, after all! Exercise --blood flow. Food --blood flow. Rest --blood flow. Instructional Design-- blood flow.

If you're so inclined, here's a live version of the notorious "Alice in Wonderland" spoof.

http://youtu.be/Vl89g2SwMh4

Now. It's over. Get up. Go for a walk. Get smart.

Hi Folks,

My name is Richard Wilson. I am one of the 2 diigo hosts for the week.

I have a fundamental belief that ANY sound can be called music, if you frame it as music AND you if find it pleasing. When music or sound becomes unpleasant, only then should it be called noise.

Much of the world defines these terms differently and calls every sound NOISE.
It's just not the case. Not all sounds are annoying.

What are your thoughts? How does sound affect your brain during buying experiences? Do you like "specials" on the intercom or quiet popular music softly playing? Does one run you out of the store and the other "keep you there longer"? What about while studying? Silence, the sound of nothing at all. The sound of your refrigerator or AC? Tunes?

This man, in a most potent way, explores how sounds affects our brains and our daily lives in unmeasurable terms.

Good stuff when you're considering your video designs.

http://youtu.be/rRepnhXq33s

Thanks Jeff,

The real trick is selecting the right music at the right volume. Some courses are great at this, some annoying. It is a fine balance.

Hi Katy Lu,
That is "Morning Has Broken" written and released by Cat Stevens circa 1971. He made many good relaxing songs in the early seventies. Thank you for bringing this memory back.

Please listen to his whole album "Tea for the Tillerman". 36 minutes of pleasure to go with your 2nd pot of Oolong tea.

http://youtu.be/T-jzxiyFgfM

Ok, Almost everyone has been caught off-guard by coffee. Maybe it was an espresso at Starbucks or a Vietnamese ice-coffee at your favorite Asian restaurant. Maybe you just got giddy from chocolate birthday cake.

In terms of brain wiring and re-wiring, I thought I might post a picture of how caffeine affects spiders and their creative work of building webs. It has this affect because spiders metabolize caffeine slower than we do.

So maybe it affects us in the same way if we take it in faster than we metabolize it.

Thinking critically, do you feel that caffeine might have re-wired your brain similarly in the past?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caffeinated_spiderwebs_modified.jpg

Yup. It probably doesn't apply, but nonetheless, it caught my attention. It was interesting because it was so measurable.

I know we've all seen ant farms, but this is an ant farm!!

Drag the start button to 2:30. Just a few seconds needed. Do not miss.
http://youtu.be/1IugvemOyZY

Ant's brains, I suppose, are wired together, a wiring form we do not possess. Imagine if 6,000,000,000 human brains could momentarily wire together -- cancer, renewable power, maybe even world conflict -- solved.

While designing future courses for collaboration, borrow ideas from ants, and cleverly assign different levels of tasks to different individuals to achieve productive, non-overlapping outcome.

What do you think? Could you reduce redundancy and conflicting thoughts? How would you actually implement this concept in your course?



http://youtu.be/1IugvemOyZY

Hi Juan,
You have just frightened me. The Borg is Hive-Mentality gone totally wrong. The Borg was actually what came to my mind when originally typing, so I added the word "momentarily" to my post.

Google actually has much more than an intangible contribution to MOOCs. Look at the Google App Engine. It is what Udacity bases their courses off of.

https://developers.google.com/appengine/

When I took EdTC 6323, I "accidently" designed a MOOC using the Google App Engine. Yes, I almost bit off more than I could chew, but I managed to finish in time. So this was a semester's work.

It's very rough, but here's a proof of concept of the tools available to ANY of you as Instructional Designers. The course defaults to tracking scores for 300,000 students, but you can change that if you choose.

http://sirius4323.appspot.com/

Oops. Didn't mean for you to take the course. Just wanted to let you know about the Google App Engine and show an example of what can be done by 1 individual in a short time. It's a pretty clean looking user interface. You can also just peruse the "Google Power Searching" example they give. No registering. Worth a 2 minute look.

Interesting article Jennifer. Here's an actual professor that stopped his MOOC because of the fears mentioned in your article.
http://m.chronicle.com/article/A-MOOC-Star-Defects-at-Least/141331/?cid=at

As far as policy and undermining goes, I'm not really qualified to make a statement. But I do know that some of the best college courses I've taken have been taught by people active in industry, not in education. In the STEM subjects, they know the latest tools and how to drive them. There will always be that ubiquitous bond between education and industry, just because of their given roles. Could the private Universities of today not be considered "private companies" and the MOOC industries of the future be classified as non-profit entities? I think it may be more a fear of the unknown, an incomplete formula that has yet to prove itself and a fear of job loss by some.

This infographic summarizes MOOCs but comes to an erroneous conclusion -- MOOCs cannot be free forever. UT spent $1.2 million recently to design an online course. Udacity had 300,000 sign up for CS101. If Udacity had charged only $4 per student, they would have recovered $1.2 million. Granted $4 is not free. But an entire college course for less than a hamburger? One last a lifetime, the other 6 hours.

http://www.onlineschools.org/visual-academy/mooc-money/


http://www.onlineschools.org/visual-academy/mooc-money/

Sometimes its a good day to look at the percent. Sometimes, its a good day to look at the numbers. If 300,000 sign up and only 10% finish, in the end, that's 30,000 enriched people or roughly the equivalent of 1000 instructors teaching 30 students at a time. Sounds pretty good to me.

An alternate viewpoint is that 75% of the San Jose State students fail certain courses.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/2013-udacity-sjsu-mooc/

Sebastian Thrun, if no other CEO, is very optimist about MOOCs at Udacity.
http://www.informationweek.com/education/online-learning/udacity-ceo-says-mooc-magic-formula-emer/240160169

In 2011, I entered into an extended coma -- 2 months. After awakening and 3 months of cognitive therapy I could only recall a verbal list of 6 items. Longer than that and my brain got scrambled. I would forget the whole list. I felt that I had not recovered very well, but then I saw this article.