Applied Maths for Ordinary Citizens

Interesting set of exchanges between Dan Myer and others on the relative merits of direct instructions, worked examples, inquiry learning, and some blend of the three. Towards the end there is an discussion about adaptive software.

Karen MacGregor has written a useful internationally focused summary drawing on parts of the recently published BIS "Maturing of the MOOC".

50 minute presentation on use of Scratch to teach some maths concepts 10-year-old and 16-year-old kids. Interestingly even the 16-year-olds thought the cat made it look like "kids stuff". There's a recording of the full presentation at https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/table/dropin?sid=2008350&suid=D.9FA226957D30A14AB25F33DEBBF5D3 (note worth using the Blackboard recording rather than the video, even though it's more of a faff, as the former includes a shot of the speaker where he demonstrates things physically, whereas the latter just shows the presentation)

According to Duolingo, which is the brainchild of the inventor of reCaptcha Luis von Ahn "Since its launch 15 months ago, Duolingo has reached 10 million students and become the most popular way to learn languages online. No ad campaign, no gimmicks; just your support and a mission of free language education for the world." See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo

Georgia Tech Computer Science teacher Mark Guzdial is a thoughtful (and in this instance somewhat geeful) opponent of MOOCs. His comment on an introductory physics MOOC that Georgia Tech ran with Gates Foundation funding are interesting. The completion rate was exceptionally low (less than 1%). The completers: "fell into three categories: those who came in with a lot of physics knowledge and who ended with relatively little gain, those who came in with very little knowledge and made almost no progress, and a group of students who really did learn a lot". According to Guzdial, they don't know why nor the relative percentages yet.

This looks (at least superficially) to be a company with an interesting, apparently platform-free approach to adaptive learning. Not that a web site is usually a good way to make judgements, on such matters other than instinctively.

108 page US-oriented report by SRI International funded by the Gates Foundation. Describes the different design approaches taken by six providers, with a profile for each provider. Has some interesting concluding comments about instructional approaches, media design, and approaches to assessment/feedback, with a strong push for better (rather than non) use of analytics and adaptive learning approaches.

[123 p PDF] - This is the BIS literature review of MOOCs and other forms of online distance learning. Published today.

An example of using Mozilla open badges for accrediting - but, probably more importantly, motivating - achievement in a mooc.

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".

Up to date monograph from highly regarded US researchers focusing on the learning effectiveness of several fairly widespread and standard learning techniques. The person who sent it to me said: "Nor is the evidence against some common 'instructionist' practices such as formative MCQ quizzes - in fact the effect size for those and for distributed practice is consistently higher than for more creative teaching and learning practices".

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

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"

Credible and very well written piece by maths teacher Ben Orlin.

Mike Schatz from Georgia Tech spoke at the Trieste MOOC workshop I and Donald Clark also contributed to. Mike's running introductory Physics MOOCs on Coursera, with Gates Foundation support. He spoke very highly of Piazza as a forum platform. This PDF describes its features.

Interesting 1/10/2013 post from Keith Devlin about the production of technology based maths education.

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

I was reminded of this today. Worth having it in mind. Just about.

Six page PDF from the Open University of Catalonia with some sensible perspectives on two broad classes of MOOC and on issues relating to their design.

This free, hour-long webinar, "The Legal Side of MOOCs," will discuss important legal considerations that come into play with MOOCs. How does copyright apply to the delivery of course materials in the MOOC context? What about laws governing accessibility for persons with disabilities? Are there important privacy issues to address? In this webinar, Madelyn Wessel, associate general counsel for the University of Virginia, will discuss the legal landscape pertaining to MOOCS, including course production, data creation, copyright, privacy, and conduct issues.

Seb, are you going to this? It's slap bang in middle of bath time, so difficult for me.