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Article identified on Stephen Downes' home page, Juy 20, 2012. Excerpt "Although MOOCs share the common characteristics of being large courses open to anyone, there are two main types, one called an "x MOOC," and another called a "connectivist MOOC." The companies and partnerships that fall into the "x MOOC" include Coursera; an MIT and Harvard partnership called EdX, and a new venture founded by three roboticists called Udacity. Other universities follow a connectivist MOOC model developed by George Siemens, Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier in 2008. What's the difference between the two? Connectivist MOOCs are more social and focused on deriving meaning of the learning experience with others, Virginia Commonwealth's Becker said. And they allow students to participate through blogs, RSS feeds and other decentralized methods, said Downes, a senior researcher for Canada's National Research Council. By contrast, x MOOCs emphasize content mastery, centralizes courses on one website and uses automated grading tools to support hundreds of thousands of students. But regardless of the category, MOOCs as a whole will change how universities offer courses, Downes said. And they're not going away. "Universities can't just keep doing what they're doing and hope this whole online thing goes away," Downes said."

Blog-post by Jenny Mackness, June 2011, summarizing key points from Etienne Wenger's address "Communities of practice CoPs have implications for organisations as they might be working under the radar of vertical accountability of the organisation (working on a horizontal dimension) Communities of practice cannot be built. Only members can build communities. But they can be enabled. A CoP is a learning partnership. A group may or may not be a learning partnership. A team is not usually a community of practice. A CoP is a vehicle by which an organisation can place its strategic development in the hands of the practitioners. A classroom is not a CoP. It is instructional design. Knowledge and learning Knowledge is power. Learning is a claim to competence. Learning is power in both directions. Learning is its own enemy. The paradox is that learning gives you power, but that power also limits your learning. Power and knowledge are always part of the equation. Learning is achieving a state of knowledgeability. The view of curriculum in institutions is 'to fill it up'. CoP theory view of curriculum is that learning has to follow construction of meaning, not precede it."

Interesting blog by Sui Fai John Mak on February 20, 2012 from CCK12 on online leadership and comparing it with transformative and servant leadership practices.

This is a wonderful blog that details different configurations of and commitments to online learning by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, April 2011, prompted by her frustration over someone dismissing all online learning opportunities. Read the whole thing!

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

Interesting blog post by Chris Collison on starting learning initiatives although he calls them knowledge management, posted July 16, 2013. They are more like variations on a theme than discreet choices. Nevertheless, they are important for enterprise learning facilitators to know about. 1. Top Down, Big Bang-"The challenge, of course is to find ways to keep people's attention - particularly when the board or senior sponsors have moved onto their next big bang." 2. Top Down, Bottom Up--"there is a deliberate effort to harness the energy and passion of workers at the front line, and to involve them in the programme, perhaps as group of advisors or a community of practice." 3. Slipstream--"Slipstreaming is about working in partnership with other initiatives or "transformation projects"" 4. Outside in--"Sometimes things just sound better when they are heard from the outside." 5. Viral--"you need to be prepared for it to be messy - it's a case of let a thousand flowers bloom, pick the best ones and do the weeding and gardening later. However, it's hard to imagine "lessons learned", "knowledge retention" or the creation of knowledge products spreading like wildfire." 6. Stealth--"build up your organization's capability to manage and share knowledge without them realising what your master plan actually is." 7. Copycat--" it's often successful to point to examples of successful KM from other organisations (competitors and customers are particular impactful) to create some "me too" or "me better" demand." 8. Pilot--"A pilot enables you to try the aspects of KM most likely to make a difference quickly, to build credibility locally, and to learn from each implementation." 9. Buffet Menu--"this approach works with the demand already present, and provides an array of tools and techniques which the organisation chooses from at will, once their "palate" is sufficiently educated." 10. Phoenix from the Ashes--"For a lot of organisation

Great videos on e-learning with such topics as: How does one get started as Instructional Designer? Does Social Media Selling Works? How to build your digital footprint. What's your learning style? Knowledge Creation Digital Age. Embrace the digital communication age. What we're learning from online education. The educators is as site that has resources and blogs about learning. You can spend days here!

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

Blog post by Jeffrey J. Williams, Chronicle Review, December 2, 2013 This post on stratification of the teaching role in HE reminds me of our conversations from 1-2 years ago. Imagine a diorama in an American Museum of Occupations showing the evolution of the professor. The exhibit starts in the early 1800s with an austere, black-suited man in a minister's collar, perhaps looking over the shoulder of a student at a rustic desk, with a Greek text open in front of him. In the next scene, from around 1900, he morphs into a pince-nez-wearing gentleman in starched collar and cravat, at a podium delivering a lecture. The professor of 1950 adopts the rumpled bearing of a tweed jacket, pointing with his pipe to a poem or a physics equation on a chalkboard. In the next frame, circa 1990, she wears jeans and is sitting in front of a computer screen. How would the diorama represent the professor of 2020? Some observers predict that she won't exist: In the memorable phrase of Frank Donoghue, a professor of English at Ohio State University, we are living in the age of "the last professors." Less apocalyptic commentators say the professor has experienced "deprofessionalization." Both views try to capture the squeeze on professorial jobs, but they misrecognize fundamental aspects of the changes that have occurred. Rather than extinction, we have seen the steady expansion of academic labor over the past century, and rather than "deskilling," we are undergoing more rather than less professionalization. What has been going on is what sociologists call "differentiation" and "stratification." We are in the era of the Great Stratification. We have tended to see the professor as a single figure, but he is now a multiple being, of many types, tasks, and positions. Given that there are more than 1.4 million college faculty members in the United States, it is clear that they are not disappearing. But the all-purpose professor has faded. We have tended to see the professor as a s

Jane Hart's best 12 reads from November 2013.

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?

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. "

Jenny explains her experiences with cMOOCs and xMOOCs, and the difference between them as xMOOCs go beyond the didactic video lecture approach. She basis her blog on her experiences taking two xMOOCs and the several cMOOCs she has taken and designed and led. One of the biggest differences is that cMOOCs were designed to test out a theory, connectivist theory, while xMOOCs are not theory based. As a result, xMOOCs are convened on a designated platform, while cMOOCs are designed as massive networks, or to create them. Going forward, she believes that the route will depend on our fundamental beliefs of what education is for.

Funny and accurate blog post about MOOC oversell and overfailure of same to HE. By Dave LLorens in Fast Company. Excerpt: ..."MOOCs certainly have a point that online education will not boldly improve live learning unless it includes genuine, specific, individual interaction between students and teachers (run on sentence). That's simply a fact and something to keep in mind as online educations evolves, but it is not by any means a reason why online education "doesn't work." Yet we seem to remain focused on shiny polarizing topics of online versus offline education. MOOCs work, they don't work, etc. It sounds like what they tell you to say as extras on a set when they want a "murmur," Watermelon, cantaloupe. Watermelon cantaloupe. Rhubarb Constantinople. SUMMARY: Even today, MOOCs are the main focus of anyone in any kind of online education capacity, and MOOCs are polarizing in a way that is hurtful to the discussion. MOOCs are also (at least today), only the repackaging of and a new delivery mechanism for traditional education. Being disappointed that MOOCs haven't changed the world yet is like switching over from cassette tapes to CDs and then being disappointed when the CDs don't contain untold and unimagined wisdom. "

Blog by the Ed Techie --brings up implicit contract for MOOCs, --praises MOOCs for being an opportunity to explore ideas, test bed for one's own ideas --observes that online learning courses that have nothing to do with technology suffer from a divided focus as new online learners pick up the technology part of it, as technology becomes known, it recedes and main topic is elevated --finally, the learner has to make the connections because the facilitators and presenters don't do that for you

Patti Anklam's blog on networks, September 25, 2011 Four key roles for network weavers Connector Network facilitator Project leaders/coordinator Network guardian

Harold Jarche, learning expert, September 26, 2012

schematic from Jane Hart on the new roles for learning and performance professionals