Group items tagged

Blog post by William Bowen, March 25, 2013, on movement towards online education. He would like more hard evidence to understand impact/success among other effects, tool kits (platforms), new mind-set to attempt online to reduce costs without adversely affecting educational outcomes, what we must retain in terms of central aspects of life on campus such as "minds rubbing against minds." Excerpts: "My plea is for the adoption of a portfolio approach to curricular development that provides a calibrated mix of instructional styles." ... "Their students, along with others of their generation, will expect to use digital resources-and to be trained in their use. And as technologies grow increasingly sophisticated, and we learn more about how students learn and what pedagogical methods work best in various fields, even top-tier institutions will stand to gain from the use of such technologies to improve student learning."

REflective presentation by Jupidu (Jutta Pauschenwein), May 2012, on Change 11 MOOC participation.

Interesting assessment of MOOCs and push toward MOOLEs on EdTechDev (developing educational technology), early May 2012 Lisa Lane shows up in comments advocating for her SMOOC (small to medium open online course) on pedagogy. Need to check it out. She has a lot of cred with me!

"attributes. When entities are connected to other entities, different attributes will be activated based on the structure of those connections and the nature of other entities that are being connected. This fluidity of attribute activation appears to be subjective, but in reality, is the contextual activation of the attributes of entities based on how they are related to other entities. Knowledge then is literally the connections that occur between entities. I don't see networks as a metaphor for learning and knowledge. I see learning and knowledge as networks. In global, digital, distributed, and complex settings, a networked model of learning and knowledge is critical."

Prezi by Jenny Mackness, sui Fai John Mak, and Roy Williams on MOOCs, offered at Networked Learning Conference, posted April 2010.

Connecting the dots by brainysmurf on Change#11, reactions to and summary of Dave Snowden's comments

A blog titled "Inside the Ivory Tower" about teaching musings. This blog brings up the issue of cost in teaching and learning, i.e., the online courses that this professor designs and teaches are often shared by students with non-enrolled learners. The nonenrollees get the materials but not the camaraderie in the online classroom or credential or tutoring that completing this class at the instituion under the teacher's guidance provides enrolled students. The professor would like to share his/her knowledge with the world but his/her reimbursement package is based solely on the # of enrolled students. He is still paying for his own higher education and that of two children, and soon, a third child. What is fair use in this situation when the teacher is just getting by economically himself/herself? It begs the question: How can open learning initiatives that have started at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, etc. be emulated at state universities or other less well endowed settings? Further, how can professional associations offer MOOCs or COOLS when they are not capitalized to do so?

Slide show by Harold Jarch on PKM--personal knowledge management--uses systems theory to show how we learn on mega (society), macro (organization), and micro (person) levels. (February 2010) It seems to me that a large part of a MOOC's value is forcing people to build a personal knowledge management process. They might have been able to ignore such a need before enrolling in a MOOC but cannot manage the avalanche of material otherwise. Not only do they need to become better organized in their seeking (this is where the MOOC departs from the day to day personal/professional learning sequence since it aggregates the begining content for them and continues to aggregate the work of MOOC participants), they then need to make sense of it (here again the social filtering and assessment are very helpful), and share their findings/unique perspective. As feedback is received, it motivates the first learner to keep trying to go forward. We all need an alliance of informed and thoughtful folks to keep up with the speed of change. The tools developed in the course of the MOOC can then be the core of PKM. This slide show also makes me realize that ALL online learning communities require some type of PKM and if one doesn't have a regular method for pulling information in and pushing tentative or firm opinions/conclusions out, full value cannot be realized.

blog on connectiv--heutagogy, andragogy, pedagogy

Change MOOC blog "On Brain Rewiring and Speed of Access" by Multilitteratus Incognitus, January 31, 2012. An amusing view that I find myself responding to positively on the assertions being made about the advent of the internet and connectivism and connected learning.

Incredible assessment in less than 2 minutes of Too Big to Know premise and how internet has changed the way we assume knowledge. The certainty, the order of facts and conclusions, the 'proven' nature of knowledge was the "old ideal of knowledge, not human based." Need to watch the hour long full talk by Weinberger.

Interview by Hugh McKellar with David Weinberger, author of book: Too Big to Know: ReThinking Knowledge Now that the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room, 2/1/2012. Discusses how books as a medium for knowledge sharing have been overtaken by knowledge that is drawn from the internet through instantaneous sourcing, updating, etc. Very interesting idea on how greatest value may be derived by network of 'experts' who disagree and differ in their points of view rather than have full harmony on issues. Excerpt from interview: "The value of a web of ideas comes from the differences among the participants in that web. If everybody's saying the same thing, there's negative value in networking them. This gives us an idea that knowledge contains difference, rather than knowledge being that from which all disagreement has been driven, that which has been settled once and for all. I think that in many fields we're finding knowledge to exist in networks that contain disagreement and difference. This is not an entirely new idea, for sure. In Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln's cabinet, this is shown quite clearly. A group of people who disagree is wiser than any of the single people in it. This idea is not new but we now have an environment - a medium of knowledge-that makes it manifest; it's the norm. The medium only has value as far as it contains disagreement. That's a very different idea of expertise-expertise consists of a web of people who disagree-than the old idea of expert advice.

Redo of Wenger's schema on cops and levels of membership

article in eCampus news that Bronwyn Stuckey identified on Facebook for me on what MOOCs don't have but should. I had never thought about the physical lack of immersion in MOOCs. "There is a totality of experience in the classroom that sitting at home with a laptop cannot deliver. In other words, the 'event boundaries' that generate and support the appropriate cognitions, expectations and behaviors for learning are lacking. I suspect some of this problem could be overcome by using wholly-immersible virtual reality delivery methods, where there is a proper 3d perspective present, and even avatars of the other students too (groups contexts are important for learning - think transactive memories)."

Blog post by Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, November 15, 2013, on Thrun's enlightening on MOOC learners failing to complete the courses.

Love this cogent blog post by Jonathan Rees on why MOOCs are failing --because people need the social supports of learning online or in the classroom. published November 15, 2013.

Nice compilation in GlobalHigherED of bloggers' reactions (including Siemens) to Thrun's denunication of MOOCs for regular university students, November 15, 2013.

Very interesting process map on how to argue with research results, Grant Wiggins' blog

Just saw this blog post by Julian Stodd, March 21, 2013, scaffolding social learning. He refers to the bubbles as the discussions or conversations that take place in response to the formal learning/presentation. Like his graphic of the scaffolding with bubbles.

Article on Autar Kaw, mechanical engineering professor at USF in Tampa. He won the professor of the year award from Carnegie Foundation in 2012. "As a pioneer in open courseware resources, Kaw is mindful of the impact that massive open online courses (MOOCs)--those in which students participate through the Internet--will have on learning and higher education. According to Kaw, the most effective MOOCs will include thoughtful interaction between students and their instructor. If MOOCs fail to include this component, "we will start losing a lot of students. Many students will get lost in the material and that will be a travesty, especially for students from low-income families." "