About Teaching & Learning Online

OU Innovating Pedagogy 2013 Report looks at new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world; and presents 10 innovations - starting with MOOCs - that are currently in practice but have not yet had a profound influence on Education

A lot of food for thought is provided in this post - -MOOCs as the potential answer to the education crisis? Local vs. global; Digital & Social exclusion; Formal vs. Informal; Post colonial tensions; Individual vs. Networked learning; Closed vs.OERs; Technology & infrastructure; Digital Identity

A compilation of links of the theme of connectivism

reference from Bates webinar

Thoughts on what not to do and how to rethink how you will teach online

10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education - Report

Tony Bates

"Mooc.ca is provided by Stephen Downes (books, newsletter) and George Siemens as a place to host MOOC news and information."

A lengthy but good overview of MOOCs, with a close look at xMOOCS - Coursera, Udacity, edX that have taken advantage of scalability but tend to reinforce a traditional teacher-student model, and cMOOCS - knowledge building/networking, flexible tools, self directed, chaotic learning. Siemens goes on to share lessons learned from cMOOCs he has been involved with and provides 9 Steps How to Plan/Create a MOOC [approx 58:00] Around 18:00 he makes a provocative statement that because of the expertise available in xMOOCs, he would throw out all of his content, tell his students to take one of these courses, interact with them around the content themes and then assess their work. Other interesting ideas include: the need for regional MOOCs to diversify and fully explore potential innovation [export vs import]; the concern that mid-range universities stand to loose to the 'superstar' professors in the xMOOC model; & the notion of teaching globally, accrediting locally [e.g. Udacity -Pearson testing option for credit]

The author recounts how he came to choose the Univ of Edinburgh's eLearning & Digital Cultures EDCMOOC, and provides a good analysis of the mooc's design as well as the pros and cons of the experience

A balanced commentary on the pros of the 'instructivist' xMOOC - useful for introductory level learning - and, as argued here, where most current xMOOCs live, and the constructivist cMOOC - ideal for more higher order social learning