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Blog post from Inside Higher Ed which lists some concerns ... the follow-up comments express varied and alternate views.

"http://youtu.be/Smt8lsPU_Mo"

Program for Online Teaching POT, semi-open MOOC discussion about teaching online classes. Learn with others.

George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and Dave Cormier - have had over 10,000 participants in the various courses we've run since 2008. The learning experience has been terrific. We've refined our pedagogical approaches, improved the software (well, actually, just Stephen did that), and developed a research agenda around learning in networks in open online courses... If you are interested in joining, please register for the course. We will be posting more information over the next few months.

"There is a myth, perpetuated for little more reason than it's sellable-fallacy, that kids are gravitating to Twitter and Facebook. From this point, numerous arguments have been made in the sub-culture Alan Lavine brilliantly described as "Edlandia" - a sharp and humurous hat-tip to Portlandia the TV show (relates to MOOCS). There is pervasive notion that the issues today are the same as those even three years ago. They might continue to sell this obsolete rhetoric to Edlandians, but kids are using very different networks - and here's why."

"The new wave of educational tools include fresh ways of deploying phone and tablet apps, online games and videos, and social networking. The goal is to create effective learning tools, new methods of grading, and virtual classrooms of unprecedented sizes-even numbering in the tens of thousands online. While these goals have certainly been attempted before, the latest crop of mass-market, interactive learning tools are also intended for mass-market, global consumption. And enjoyment. "We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester," Schocken said in a recent interview."

"Deconstructing The Ed Tech Alphabet Soup, Acronyms & Jargon." Infographic on 'Wired'

"With the rise of the blended learning model of education, video is becoming an increasingly important medium for instruction. The essential components of blended learning - such as flipped classrooms, MOOCs and "Bring Your Own Device" programs - are facilitated by video instruction to ensure the personalization and flexibility of a digitized education system"

"In this age of social media, edtech, smartphones, tablets and MOOCs, software applications play a larger role than ever in the learning environment. In fact, apps have reached such a level of ubiquity and everyday integration that a number of software companies are turning out apps that can help students create apps of their own. Here's a list of 10 software tools that can jumpstart a student's knowledge and skill in computer programming:"

"Google is working on an online course solution. Same story with Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, and … you? If you run a website that uses WordPress, you can now easily (relatively) build your very own online school. The new WordPress plugin from WooThemes (a popular WordPress premium theme provider) lets you start up your own online school with ease. It's as simple as installing a WordPress plugin. The actual content and other school-y stuff is, of course, up to you. But the technical stuff is taken care of by this new plugin."

Instreamia will offer a 12 week 3-credit course for students with no background in Spanish to communicate through listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This open course will create and provide resources reusable under creative commons standards. Registration for the course is available immediately, and the course will begin January 21 and run through April 8. Students will be expected to dedicate 6 hours per week, for a total of 72 hours. Although the course cannot provide college credit from an accredited university, capable students will learn the material of a first-year college class, and will receive a letter grade.

"At one session here at Davos, the presidents of Harvard, Stanford and MIT all readily acknowledged that the experiments in new models of online learning will soon radically disrupt higher learning. One expert suggested many universities are facing the early days of bankruptcy. Another predicted there may only be 10 universities that survive this transition."

"I've been getting a lot of questions from high school kids asking whether or not they should go to college. The answer is yes. College is where you find out about yourself. It's where you learn how to learn. It's where you get exposure to new ideas. For those of us who are into business you learn the languages of business, accounting, finance, marketing and sales in college. The question is not whether or not you should go to school; the question for the class of 2014 is what is your college plan and what is the likelihood that your college or university you attend will still be in business by the time you want to graduate? Still in business? Yep. When I look at the university and college systems around the country I see the newspaper industry."