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Based on the success of Norvig and Thrun’s experiment, the university’s computer science department is planning to broadcast eight additional courses for free in the spring, most focusing on high-level concepts that require participants already to have a pretty good command of math and science.

It raises the question: Whose certification matters, for what purposes?

For one, the professors can only evaluate non-enrolled students via assessments that can be graded automatically.

it can be difficult to assess skills without being able to administer project-based assignments

With a player like Stanford doing something like this, they’re bringing attention to the possibilities of the Web for expanding open education

Novices can best be supported through a series of activities that are structured on connectivist learning principles with a goal to enhance autonomy and the building of personal learning networks.

The bolded items above really represent one version (and certainly not the only one) of the complete package – open content, open learning support, and open badges that help you demonstrate competence to an employer.

• Combine these and other business models to generate enough revenue so that (1) the marking service can be free in addition to all the badge related materials being openly licensed and (2) employers will respect and recognize the badges resulting from the process.

- An initial list of OER (e.g., OLI courses) and Q/A services (e.g., StackOverflow.com or OpenStudy) which will help individuals develop the skills necessary to obtain the badges

If a digital artifact released under a CC BY license is posted on a public website it would qualify as an open educational resource for everyone with internet access. However, if a teacher downloaded a copy of the OER and placed it inside a learning management system it would suddenly cease to be an open educational resource – even though the resource hadn’t changed.

The efficacy ideal is not realizable in practice. Intuitively we would want the ideal OER to support the educational goals of every user, and some definitions limit OER to “high-quality” materials. However quality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. A resource considered very high quality by an English speaking undergraduate might be very low quality for an English speaking primary school student or a Spanish speaking undergraduate.

While everyone wants the OER they use to be high quality for them, it is meaningless to talk about OER being “high quality” without simultaneous reference to the user.

A curator is an expert learner. Instead of dispensing knowledge, he creates spaces in which knowledge can be created, explored, and connected.

Learning is an eliminative process. By determining what doesn’t belong, a learner develops and focuses his understanding of a topic. The teacher assists in the process by providing one stream of filtered information. The student is then faced with making nuanced selections based on the multiple information streams he encounters. The singular filter of the teacher has morphed into numerous information streams, each filtered according to different perspectives and world views.

Course content is similarly fragmented. The textbook is now augmented with YouTube videos, online articles, simulations, Second Life builds, virtual museums, Diigo content trails, StumpleUpon reflections, and so on.

Fragmentation of content and conversation is about to disrupt this well-ordered view of learning. Educators and universities are beginning to realize that they no longer have the control they once (thought they) did.

However, in order for education to work within the larger structure of integrated societal systems, clear outcomes are still needed.

How can we achieve clear outcomes through distributed means? How can we achieve learning targets when the educator is no longer able to control the actions of learners?

Thoughts, ideas, or messages that the teacher amplifies will generally have a greater probability of being seen by course participants.

Each RT amplifies the message much like an electronic amplifier increases the amplitude of audio or video transmitters.

A curatorial teacher acknowledges the autonomy of learners, yet understands the frustration of exploring unknown territories without a map. A curator is an expert learner. Instead of dispensing knowledge, he creates spaces in which knowledge can be created, explored, and connected.

In CCK08/09, Stephen and I produced a daily newsletter where we highlighted discussions, concepts, and resources that we felt were important. As the course progressed, many students stated they found this to be a valuable resource -a centering point of sorts.

Today’s social web is no different – we find our way through active exploration. Designers can aid the wayfinding process through consistency of design and functionality across various tools, but ultimately, it is the responsibility of the individual to click/fail/recoup and continue.

Fortunately, the experience of wayfinding is now augmented by social systems. Social structures are filters. As a learner grows (and prunes) her personal networks, she also develops an effective means to filter abundance. The network becomes a cognitive agent in this instance – helping the learner to make sense of complex subject areas by relying not only on her own reading and resource exploration, but by permitting her social network to filter resources and draw attention to important topics. In order for these networks to work effectively, learners must be conscious of the need for diversity and should include nodes that offer critical or antagonistic perspectives on all topic areas. Sensemaking in complex environments is a social process.

After all, why should we do the heavy cognitive work when technology is uniquely suited to analyzing and generating patterns?

I’d like a learning system that functions along the lines of RescueTime – actively monitoring what I’m doing – but then offers suggestions of what I should (or could) be doing additionally. Or a system that is aware of my email exchanges over the last several years and can provide relevant information based on the development of my thinking and work. With the rise of social media, and with it the attention organizations pay to how their brand is being represented, monitoring services such as Viral Heat are promising. Imagine a course where the fragmented conversations and content are analyzed (monitored) through a similar service. Instead of creating a structure of the course in advance of the students starting (the current model), course structure emerges through numerous fragmented interactions. “Intelligence” is applied after the content and interactions start, not before. This is basically what Google did for the web – instead of fully defined and meta-described resources in a database, organized according to subject areas (i.e. Yahoo at the time), intelligence was applied at the point of search. Aggregation should do the same – reveal the content and conversation structure of the course as it unfolds, rather than defining it in advance.

Filtering resources is an important educator role, but as noted already, effective filtering can be done through a combination of wayfinding, social sensemaking, and aggregation. But expertise still matters. Educators often have years or decades of experience in a field. As such, they are familiar with many of the concepts, pitfalls, confusions, and distractions that learners are likely to encounter. As should be evident by now, the educator is an important agent in networked learning. Instead of being the sole or dominant filter of information, he now shares this task with other methods and individuals.

By determining what doesn’t belong, a learner develops and focuses his understanding of a topic. The teacher assists in the process by providing one stream of filtered information. The student is then faced with making nuanced selections based on the multiple information streams he encounters. The singular filter of the teacher has morphed into numerous information streams, each filtered according to different perspectives and world views.

Given that coherence and lucidity are key to understanding our world, how do educators teach in networks? For educators, control is being replaced with influence. Instead of controlling a classroom, a teacher now influences or shapes a network.

" Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer in the industry classic e-Learning and the Science of Instruction, explain that seductive details are "interesting but irrelevant material added to a multimedia presentation in an effort to spice it up

Seductive details are those elements in a program that draw you in, attract the eye and engage the brain. They seduce your interest, but distract from the main point.

It's interactive! It's intriguing! But it's exhausting, and let's face it"—there's no point. Fatigue sets in and you move on

This is the premise underlying the arousal theory, the idea that entertaining and interesting embedded effects cause learners to become more emotionally aroused and therefore they work harder to learn the material.

. Designers who don't understand the basics of effective instructional design are committing what Clark Quinn of Quinnovation calls "instructional design malpractice.

CCBB design shines and sparkles wildly in the sun

When we force learners to practice without context, they've memorized facts but may not be able to apply them correctly in context.

Too much clicking can lead to learner fatigue, is distracting to the learner, and doesn't promote deeper understanding

We need to provide more contextual opportunities for drill exercises that will help the learner both retain and apply the knowledge they are practicing.

"Well-written, multiple-choice questions teach and assess knowledge within the context of a game. Poor questions simply allow the gamer to play the game without learning.

that the addition of interesting yet unimportant augmentations can divert learners from learning the main points that are being made

. You're best served to spend your time designing the right type of course and spending less time looking for ways to 'jazz it up'"

. Now, take a look at the screen and see where your eye lands first. Is it the flashing Next button in the bottom right corner? Or is it the important content bit at the center of the screen? Ask an objective outsider to take a look, too

Pilot your program with some test learners

heck in with them immediately afterwards, one week, three weeks. See what they remembe

, don't take this to mean that elearning shouldn't look good.

What about your LMS? At Kineo, where I work, we love using Moodle and Totara as an LMS solution for our clients, not only because of the great features and the fact that it's open source, but always because we can make it look like almost anythin

The third effec

In this week, I’d like to explore how this abundance and the ‘connected, open and always on‘ world it has created influences what and how we learn and teach

, then we need to prepare them to leverage that abundance

Really big caveat: of course, all of this abundance talk is only relevant to us who are the privileged few, who do not need to worry about where we will sleep this evening, or how we will feed our children…

Revisit your assessment (remember that? You designed it before anything else). Will this information in any way affect successful performance? If not, can you add a link to the policy and an e-mail introduction with a disclaimer? Can you cut the verbiage (here’s a trick: what if you had to pay $5 per word? I bet you could cut it then.)? Or, if there’s really that much content, should you break it into pieces?

just because it’s online doesn’t mean you can control it. Build it with this in mind.

Zooming and spinning words, irrelevant animations, and neon “next” buttons do not heighten engagement. They confuse and distract learners

“You know, I don’t think that will solve the performance problem. Can we talk about some ways to get you a better solution?” Designing a solution that doesn’t solve the problem, or that makes it worse, doesn’t do anything to help the organization, the field, or your department’s reputation – or your own. “Instructional designer” is a job title. “Performance consultant” is a mindset. 

Instruction does not cause learning.