essay by George Siemens, 1/31/14, on why MOOCs and the discussion/dialogue they promote are good for higher learning overall.

Excellent comparison of xMOOC and cMOOC and justification of cMOOC by who else, the cMOOC creator himself, Stephen Downes, February 11, 2015. Highly recommend it.

Very interesting articles on how MOOCs and people completing them are building respect for their accomplishment with employers. Also an interesting point by Thrun on '"there are a huge number of willing and eager lifelong learners that are underserved" by higher education.'

Article by Adam Grant in the Atlantic, March 17, 2014. Who comes out ahead by helping others and serving as johnnie on the spot repeatedly. Excerpt: "Instead of carrying the burden alone, Allen had the wisdom to engage the whole group in helping. This may be the most valuable skill that a giver can develop. In the long run, inviting others to help may be critical to sustaining our own sanity. It may also be the best way to facilitate learning and growth."

Very interesting assessment of downward appeal of MOOCs and their lack of sustainability, February 5, 2015, Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of HE

A brilliant look by Wenger-Trayners on social learning leadership disciplines, December 30, 2014

Fabulous discussion by Siemens on how their DALMOOC that started recently was designed to solve certain problems such as the 1. students floundering for lack of timely support 2. Learners having limited engagement in developing knowledge together 3. Learners not getting to know each other 4. Availability of MOOC resources after course is finished 5. Lack of adaptivity of content for learners to start where they are and proceed with their interests

Blog post by Mark Athitakis, September 8, 2014 on a statewide association building a MOOC to educate health care workers. "One executive at a state association has taken the lead on educating healthcare workers on a pressing national issue via a MOOC. How do you get more attention for your association? Maybe it's a membership drive. Maybe it's a meeting or an ad campaign. For Jan Grimes, it's meant building a lot of partnerships and putting together a must-attend online course. "

Presentation by Stephen Downes to the London School of Economics, pretty ironic for Stephen to give a lecture on how learning is different now, August 2014. Amazing and funny! "People are looking for learning that isn't so much the repetition of their professors' ideas, but learning that they can apply, that is a part of their life, whether it's part of their life in work, part of their life in their hobbies or their avocations, or part of their life just in what interests them. They expect universities to be flexible." different learning going on The fact is that people learn differently, that they have different objectives, different priorities, different goals, different times that they want to learn, different pets sleeping on their keyboard, all of these impact how people want to learn. That's immediately obvious to anyone who actually looks at people learning. Even as I look around this room, he's on an iPad, she's typing, she's writing on a notepad, he's asleep. Everyone learns differently. Connectivism MOOC George and I launched our MOOC on connectivism, which some of you may have heard of. Most of you may not have heard of it. If you talk about a niche subject, this is as niche as it can get. It's an unknown theory in the field of educational technology.

Very interesting transcript of interviews with two Wharton professors on impact of MOOCs on their MBA programs. "So, in the last year, when I've taught product design, I've posed to myself the challenge: What can we do in the classroom that can only be done when 60 people are together sharing the same time and location? I have them watch the video offline, and then when we get together, we do a simulation or an exercise or presentations or group work - things that can only be done in that location when we're all together." Excerpt on completion rate: Knowledge@Wharton: Despite the evident advantages, one of the challenges that all MOOCs face is that the completion rate typically tends to be pretty low. I wonder both as teachers and as researchers, what you have learned through your experience that might be relevant to business schools? Ulrich: The completion rate statistic is a red herring. People like to trot it out, but it doesn't seem terribly relevant to me. If you think about what the barrier is to registering for a MOOC, it's literally one click in a Coursera environment. So many people enroll to check it out, to watch a few videos, to see what it's all about. Sponsored Content: My MOOC requires hundreds of hours of effort to complete a substantial design project. Very, very few people are willing to put in hundreds of hours, but many people are interested in learning a little bit about customer needs or aesthetics in design or prototyping, so they watch a few videos. We think pretty carefully in MOOCs about three categories of learners. Those who are just browsing; those who want to view the material but won't do the work; and then those who will do all of the work. So as I say, that narrow completion statistic is not meaningful in terms of evaluating the success of the MOOCs.

excerpt from AICPA website on the future of learning "Ellen Wagner has studied the Hype Cycle as it relates to education. In 2012, MOOCs and gamification were trending up the cycle toward the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." In 2013, MOOCs were adopted in many learning capacities and met with some criticism. This, says Wagner, is all part of the cycle. "When this new thing does not do all of the things that we say it's going to, we get disappointed and say, 'Ah, well, it doesn't really work very well.' The fact is that it probably worked fine all along, but when we start inflating our expectations for what it can do, it's not going to ever be able to meet those expectations." MOOCs"

Interesting blog post on a business MOOC out of Case Western Reserve in Entrepreneur, Jane Porter, April 25, 2014. Received $69,000 grant to design and deliver it.

Unusually good assessment IMO by Jane Hart of how modern learning differs from traditional training practices, 4/28/2014. She identifies six key features: autonomy small and short continuous on demand social anywhere, anytime, on any device Are these features then the new standards for learning concierges, learning coaches, learning stewards and facilitators? As well as for the learners themselves?

First article in two part series between Adam Grant, Wharton professor, and Carla O'Dell, CEO of AQPC, April 18, 2014 on how CoPs and corporations should support and reward give and take behaviors by employees. Also wonder how gender plays into this dilemma...when we see the majority of discussants in CPsquare are women (because they are the majority of CPsquare members? And why might that be true?), what does that signal for whether they are givers or takers?

Fascinating interview between Adam Grant, tenured professor at the Wharton School and Carla O'Dell on how to facilitate sharing knowledge in KM communities, April 25, 2014. Explains how to control giving too much counsel/mentoring/assistance and expecting others to pay it forward instead of always asking for help.

Excellent article, third in a series by Jonathan Haber, April 8, 2014, in EdSurge, on the mature folks benefiting from and perhaps rescuing MOOCs with financial support. Haven't read the earlier two or last article yet in the series.

video that came up in CPsquare discussion 10/2013 on Open Social Learning in Higher Education

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)."

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

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