Change MOOQ

myths about MOOCs by Diana Laurillard

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.

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?

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?

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

Reactions to badges for the hyperlinked library MOOC by Brian Kelly. He found all the badges he was awarded for various tasks: join a tribe; send a friendship request, accept a friendship request, update his MOOC avatar, plus, another badge just for receiving 5 badges. He found all this badge awarding for these simple tasks "cheesy" and that the system was patronizing him. However, he does acknowledge that it may motivate others. He also brought up the issue of cultural diversity. This MOOC has participants from all over the world. How will they find badges?

Reactions to badges for the hyperlinked library MOOC by Brian Kelly. He found all the badges he was awarded for various tasks: join a tribe; send a friendship request, accept a friendship request, update his MOOC avatar, plus, another badge just for receiving 5 badges. He found all this badge awarding for these simple tasks "cheesy" and that the system was patronizing him. However, he does acknowledge that it may motivate others. He also brought up the issue of cultural diversity. This MOOC has participants from all over the world. How will they find badges?

article by Cathy N. Davidson, The Chronicle Review, December 10, 2012 Excerpt: "The lab means to remake education from preschool onward, adding in such fabulous open-source learning experiences as Scratch, a free online resource that has enticed more than a million kids to create and share animations, and mix and remix narratives and games while learning basic programming skills. In the words of Joi Ito, the dynamic new head of the lab, himself a famous college dropout, the key to 21st-century learning is "antidisciplinary," not just "interdisciplinary." Ito's goal is "a world of seven billion teachers," where everyone on the planet has something important to teach to someone else, and everyone does." Excerpt: "Read against Wired UK's story, the opportunity Forbes describes seems revolutionary but, in its DNA, is the opposite. The MOOC model depicted here ossifies the already outdated mission of 19th-century education. Far too many of the MOOC's championed in the article use talking heads and multiple-choice quizzes in fairly standard subject areas in conventional disciplines taught by famous teachers at elite universities. There is little that prepares students for learning in the fuzzy, merged world that Negroponte sees as necessary for thriving in the 21st century. Making courseware "massive" may dangle the eventual possibility of trillion-dollar profits (even if they have yet to materialize). But it does not "fix" what is broken in our system of education. It massively scales what's broken."

Jenny Mackness does it again: making important distinctions between curriculum led and community led learning within MOOCs; and how the balance may change based on successful formation of learning groups within the MOOC. She also asks about the difference between learning design and planning for learning. 1.14.23 on her blog.

Very interesting blog post in Wired Campus by Karen Head with Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Media, and Communication, 2.21.13. Raises interesting curricular and technological design issues for upcoming MOOC underwritten in part by Gates.

Interesting blog by Cathy Davidson, HASTAC, 2.7.13 on what MOOCs are really saying about the desirability of college degrees. This excerpt speaks to who chooses MOOCs for learning. "If anything, MOOCs illuminate the terrible economic disparities of higher education (worldwide) by offering a cheap, massive alternative, not to those sitting in the classrooms of tenured professors, but for those who have no opportunity to be in those classes. MOOCs work for those, for example, seeking to retool their learning to prepare for new professions when their own no longer exists, who are seeking a second career, or who want to simply enjoy the benefits of learning but are not able to participate in actual face-to-face classroom learning. To have the time and be in a location where you can actually attend college physically is pretty rare in a world of two-career families, for example. And community colleges (where tenured professors are rare indeed) do a great job but they too require f2f engagement and cannot begin to serve all the students who want to take courses. "

Very interesting assessment of participation and learning in Change 11 MOOC on Learning in the workplace blog by Caledonian Academy researcher Colin Milligan, December 2012 For me, the recurring theme from this research was that massive courses do need management (of learners, and their expectations), or at least a recognition of the diversity of learner backgrounds, preferences, expectations and motivations that come together in a MOOC, that is then reflected in the design of the learning space which is constructed. I suppose the prevalent (c) MOOC philosophy is that learners should be left to their own devices and they will find their place in the emerging learning networks(anywhere on the spectrum from lurking to leading). We certainly saw interesting evidence of self-organisation, especially among those who engaged with the course through the facebook group, and the twitter chats. But our findings indicate that some users either didn't find these emerging networks (or at least didn't identify a network that suited them), or didn't recognise the central role that these networks play in leveraging the value of the course. While I don't advocate creating rigid structures, I do think there are some simple things that could be done to make sure MOOCs such as Change11 are accessible by the full range of prospective participants.

white paper by the Brainyard on "The State of Community Management" for physical businesses

Great blog post by Jane Hart at Learning in the Social Workplace on Enterprise Community Management for managing and supporting learning within the workplace. It takes the comments by Donna LaCoy in 2012 discussion about how learning is not always a recognized component of work to show that in fact, someone has to manage and support such learning in ECM. Excerpt: his emerging practice is known as Enterprise Community Management (ECM), and is much wider than just supporting one small team or community of practice within an organisation, but is about having responsibility for building and sustaining a community across the whole of the organisation. In fact as ECM can include a significant range of responsibilities, in a large organisation it undoubtedly needs to be undertaken by a number of people. Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 08.14.02ECM activities are likely to include integrating all social and collaborative initiatives into a common platform planning the new community's strategic approach promoting and supporting its use within training (both online and face-to-face, but particularly within induction/onboarding) helping to support its use for team knowledge- and resource-sharing supporting individuals as they build and maintain communities of practice and other interest groups developing an ongoing programme of both face-to-face and online activities and events - to encourage employee engagement on an ongoing basis helping to model social and collaborative working and learning behaviours as a major part of helping workers use the technology building the new personal and social skills required for productive collaboration in the organisation measuring the success of community in terms of business performance (not just in terms of social activity) Whoever takes on these ECM responsibilities is going to have a significant influence and impact on the business. But more than this, as face-to-face training goes out of fashion an

The Connectivist Phenomenon, pre-course activities for the EDC MOOC on Slide Rocket. Great presentation and spirit depicted here.

Stephen Downes' blog Excerpt: "The process perspective asks whether the MOOC satisfied the criteria for successful networks. Of these, the most important are contained in what I call the Semantic Condition, which ensures that the MOOC remains a living system. The semantic condition contains four parts: autonomy, diversity, openness, and interactivity. The MOOC is assessed against each of these and a degree of compliance may be found."

Review by Rob Jenkins on the Chronicle, 3.18.13, on why MOOCs are a massively bad idea for wait-listed community college students in California as proposed in new legislation there. Excerpt: "We know that succeeding in online classes requires an extraordinary degree of organization, self-discipline, motivation, and time-management skill. A simple Google search of "how to succeed in online classes" yields a plethora of Web sites-including many college and university sites-offering students such gems as "be organized," "manage your time wisely," and (my favorite) "stay motivated."" Excerpt: So to recap, California's plan (or to be fair, one senator's plan) is basically to dump hundreds of thousands of the state's least-prepared and least-motivated students into a learning environment that requires the greatest amount of preparation and motivation, where they will take courses that may or may not be effective in that format. Here's a prediction: Those students will fail and drop out at astronomical rates. Then the hand-wringing will begin anew, the system will pour millions more dollars into "retention" efforts, and the state will be in an even deeper fix than it is now. (Virtual cheating will probably run rampant, too, followed by expensive anticheating measures, but that's another blog post.) Look, I'm not a politician or an economist. I don't know the answer to California higher education's budget woes. But I'm pretty sure herding community-college students into MOOCs is not it.

Article in The Chronicle of HE, December 17, 2012 "Coursera and its devotees simply have it wrong. The Coursera model doesn't create a learning community; it creates a crowd. In most cases, the crowd lacks the loyalty, initiative, and interest to advance a learning relationship beyond an informal, intermittent connection." Excerpt: Interactivity and customization are the fundamental advantages of online education. By using technology, we can bridge geographic divides while creating a continuing learning relationship between faculty and students, students and students, and students and the greater society. "Our goal should be to design a customized program that matches technology with a student's day-to-day objectives, not just course objectives or weekly learning objectives. We need to operate on a small scale where the online course or program is calibrated to meet the need of the individual student." Excerpt: "The MOOC model is fine for the informal student or academic dabbler, but it is not the same as attaining an education. Whether face to face or online, learning occurs when there is a thoughtful interaction between the student and the instructor. If the goal is attaining knowledge for a purpose beyond mere curiosity, then the model for online learning has to be a more complex, interactive experience. For that reason, we should be happy to cede the territory of the massification to Coursera. The business school at my institution is developing an online M.B.A. program that emphasizes the critical nature of interactivity in learning. Our next step is to design a dynamic and agile customization component that emphasizes student preferences while advancing the objectives of our institution. We are looking for partners who want to build a platform that allows for profound customization. We want to bring together institutions interested in thinking deeply about the promise of online education for delivering a remarkable learning experience, one that equals-

Very interesting qualitative analysis framework offered by Patrick J. Tierney, Brock University, Canada, in December 2012 issues of IRRODL. I did not get through the entire article to say that I fully comprehend it but the coding method described seemed to resemble the three stages we have gone through as qualitative analysts of dialogue in CPSquare.

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