Group items tagged

"In the future, we will provide support for users of the most recent version of Course Builder to import their courses into the Open edX or MOOC.org format. If you aren't running the latest version of Course Builder, we advise that you upgrade in order to align with Google App Engine updates."

Curious lightweight (side project?) Google-branded guidance on how to set up a mooc. Obviously it promotes Course Builder, but it all seems a little under-cooked.

You can sign up here for a Udacity 10 minute "mini-MOOC", which from the fact of its target audience, is likely to have been very carefully implemented by Udacity. The promotional video gives some pointers to why Udacity withdrew (their focus is increasinly firmly on "higher" stuff). The min-MOOC should be seen in the context of Udacity wanting to attract Google-focused programmers onto its just launched $7000 Computer Science Masters, done in partnership with Georgia Tech.

Not the clearest learning experience I have known.

I particularly resent the "happy-clappy" over-enthusiastic tone of the feedback

Here is a recently published table of courses (some Google's, most from others) using Google Course Builder. Includes the previously reported Scratch-based "Creative Computing".

Short article hinting at the broader gameplan behind/beyond Open edX

Interesting commentary which I'm sure can be debated...

"This course is for teachers of math (K-12) or for other helpers of students, such as parents. After the summer I will release a student version of this course. This course provides an opportunity for teachers and parents to preview the ideas for students and think about how they may be useful, as well as learn from new research ideas and share ideas with other teachers and parents who enroll in the course. The course will also include interviews with some of the world's leading thinkers, such as Sebastian Thrun (Udacity/Google) and Carol Dweck (expert on mindset)."

This caught my eye. I think it is probably run in Google CourseBuilder.

A "how to" about embedding Khan Academy exercises in Google Coursebuilder. Over my head, but worth being aware of this kind of capability becoming available.

Case study describing how Indiana University integrated Drupal with Coursebuilder. There is more on this issue in my notes from the Coursebuilder workshop I attended in Zurich with Jim Thompson http://tinyurl.com/qc2u6uu

Just saving this to log the commitment "In the future, we will provide an upgrade path to Open edX and MOOC.org from Course Builder"

Someone sent me a link to a different part of this book by Joseph Malkevitch. I think the 6 points listed by Malkevitch from the bottom of the page and over are worth pondering on.

"Because students come to the course for many different reasons, course designers should make it easier for learners to meet a variety of objectives. Since many participants in online courses may just want to learn a few new things, we can help them by releasing all course content at the outset of the course and enabling them to search for specific topics of interest. as course designers, we should be paying more attention to creating effective, relevant activities than focusing so heavily on course content. We hypothesize that learners also use activities' instant feedback to help them determine whether they should spend time reviewing the associated content  We also believe that we haven't given enough weight to teaching learners how to evaluate their own work. We plan to keep experimenting with self-evaluation in future courses."

"Because students come to the course for many different reasons, course designers should make it easier for learners to meet a variety of objectives. Since many participants in online courses may just want to learn a few new things, we can help them by releasing all course content at the outset of the course and enabling them to search for specific topics of interest. as course designers, we should be paying more attention to creating effective, relevant activities than focusing so heavily on course content. We hypothesize that learners also use activities' instant feedback to help them determine whether they should spend time reviewing the associated content  We also believe that we haven't given enough weight to teaching learners how to evaluate their own work. We plan to keep experimenting with self-evaluation in future courses."