Change MOOQ

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

Article by Scott Gillum at Forbes, 1/6/12. Excerpt: "The next-generation tools, like Curata (a HiveFire company) and Curation Station, are focused on B-to-B marketing with a value proposition focused on their ability to drive awareness by improving organic search, and provide organizations with an opportunity to build thought leadership. The key to this evolution is being the "curator." The curator is an editor who sorts through the content to find the information relevant to a company and/or its audience. Curators are not content creators. And this is where I think the challenge lies in using these tools for thought leadership. Creating a content farm on a "hot" topic will not improve organic search (Google has already figured this out) or establish thought leadership in that space. In the survey, marketers stated that "creating original content" was the number one challenge. Companies have to have a point of view and not just aggregated content on the subject. That said, tools can play an important role in the development of thought leadership content but not on their own. For example, the process I used in the past for developing content involved five steps: Decide on an issues set. Develop a point of view. Conduct research to validate the POV. Summarize the research and draw out insight. Write and publish a content piece."

CRAP Test questions for distinguishing between legitimate and less-than-legitimate information C--Currency R--Reliability A--Authority P--Purpose/Point of view

Preview of Google PLus's value to HE Excerpt: "Facebook does allow some selective sharing, but doing so is difficult to master. As a result, many professors have decided to reserve Facebook for personal communications rather than use it for teaching and research. "I don't friend my students, because the ability to share is so clunky on Facebook," says Jeremy Littau, an assistant professor of journalism at Lehigh University. "This gives us ways to connect with people that we can't do on Facebook." In Google Plus, users can assign each new contact to a "circle" and can create as many circles as they like. Each time they post an update, they can easily select which circles get to see it. B.J. Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab and a consulting faculty member for computer science, says he plans to use Google Plus to collaborate on research projects: "Probably every project in my lab will have its own circle." Mr. Littau is even more enthusiastic. He posted an item to his blog on Thursday titled: "Why Lehigh (and every other) University needs to be on GPlus. Now." "I want to start using this in my class next term," he says, adding that he aims to expose his students to the latest communication technologies in all of his classes. He plans to try the video-chat feature of Google Plus, called "hangouts," to hold office hours online. The new system allows up to 10 people to join in a video chat. Mr. Littau may also hold optional review sessions for exams using the technology. "I can host chats a few nights a week," he says."

"Communities of practice are bridges between the work being done and the diversity of social networks."

Choose, Commit, Crash, Create, Copy, Converse, Collaborate which Quinn calls the 7 C's of natural learning. He urges designers to build systems that encourage learners to engage in this way. Some pushback in the comments on the use of a mnemonic as a stifling controlling device in the hands of a 'learning manager.'

Love this blog on seed, feed, and weed learning organizations. Excerpt: Overall, it taps into our natural learning, where we experiment, reflect, converse, mimic, collaborate, and more. Our approach to formal learning needs to more naturally mimic this approach, having us attempting to do something, and resourcing around it with information and facilitation. Our approach to informal learning similarly needs to reflect our natural learning.

A rubber ducky personal learning network--could this be a model for a personal reflection--knowledge building exercise for IL teachers?

Somewhat pessimistic view of formal educational systems failing to embrace the learning potential supported by new social technologies. Aviram says that culture determines learning boundaries and the use of 2.0 technology. Scandinavia and Holland are open in their learning attitudes; most of the rest of Europe and the United States are not.

"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."

Excellent article on MOOCs and creating pedagogy for human beings to learn

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

Stephen Downdes' home website--has interesting ebooks/pdfs on Free learning, Access::Future, and so on

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

Howard Rheingold interviews George Siemens on MOOCs, May 2011, 21 minutes long video Youtube based, Week 1, September 12, 2011 EXCERPTS that intrigue me: At 2.12 into interview: "We encouraged people to create their own spaces. Our assumption was that educational institutions need to stop providing spaces for learners to interact, and allow learners to bring their spaces with them which means they have an archive. So people were setting up spaces in Second Life. We had the course syllabus translated into 5 languages, we had 2,300 people signed up to join. We let people do basically what they wanted." At 3:22 -"We wrap the social elements around the content. That's how traditional education is done. Here is your text, here is your readings, now talk about it. Our assumption was partly that we wanted the social interactions to actually produce the content which doesn't mean that we wanted to run through open meadows learning randomly. We still started off each week with readings, literature that we wanted them to engage in, videos, we wanted to keep everything open. We did have a closed journal but those were optional." 4:11 "The content isn't what you are supposed to master at the starting point. The content we provide you with at the start is the catalyst to converse, to form connections with other learners in the course, with other academics around the world, to use the content as a conduit for connections. Because once the course ends, the learning experience typically in a university setting typically stops. It's done. And even if you are really passionate about it, the university severs those connections on your behalf. But with the internet, those connections exist well past the course." But if your colleagues are blogging ... or are active on the internet, it's easy to stay connected. 6:05 HR question: In regard to Moodle are you using a Discussion Board or chat board, what parts of Moodle are you using? 6:12 "We are continuing to experime

Introductory video by George Siemens, Change MOOC 2011-2012--Week 1, September 12, 2011

Dave Snowden's website Cognitive Edge; explanation of ritual dissent to increase diversity of views and idea enhancement Justification in explanation: "Overall plans that emerge from the process are more resilient than consensus based techniques."

access to several TribalCafe Slideshare programs that present social learning, social media and agile leadership, social strategy, nonprofits social media, etc.

Weaknesses of Online Learning described on the Illinois Online Network website, 2012. It offers the unsupported view below that 20 is the maximum number of students that could be accommodated in an online class without losing the interactive elements. I disagree. Levels of Synergy Online learning has its most promising potential in the high synergy represented by active dialog among the participants, one of the most important sources of learning in a Virtual Classroom. However, in larger classes (20 or more students), the synergy level starts to shift on the learning continuum until it eventually becomes independent study to accommodate the large class. At this point, dialog is limited as well as interaction among participants and the facilitator. The medium is not being used to its greatest potential."

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.