Been reading about constructivist MOOCs lately (like the T561 virtual community), and ran across this essay from October on the nature of the social contract in a network-connected, physically-disconnected community.

Results of a 2012 survey on salaries in the corporate training field.

Today's reading about the OLPC project reminded me of Innovations in Poverty Action, a research organization dedicated to finding new, research-based methods for improving outcomes and equity. A very interesting approach.

A study in NZ found that supportive text messages doubled the chance of quitting smoking within six months. Just-in-time learning, indeed.

Justin Reich (of the Berkman Center) hosts an iPad summit, then invokes a Zen koan to say what it's really about - "unlocking student talent, compassion, and humanity".

GTA = free PD for primary and secondary teachers on Google's tools.

Google's move into education continues apace. Lots of content here, but as often happens, no enforcement of a specific pedagogy standard, so caveat emptor.

A school principal blogs about the powerful role that Twitter has played in his professional development. Great quote about Twitter and other social media: "The smartest person in the room, is the room."

Last year, Iceland began updating the national constitution. Rather than start writing the document immediately, they solicited comments and text from citizens via Facebook and Twitter. They received over 3500 comments - from a country of 230,000 voters. Yesterday, a national referendum approved the final draft, which now goes to Parliament for final approval. Now THAT'S affecting change with social media.

Western Governors University (WGU) is a hybrid inputs/outcomes model on online education. Each student has an adviser; competency is assessed initially; students can exit classes when ready; you pay one price ($5K/half year), and may consume as many classes in that period as desired.

Courtesy of the Innovation by Design class, a thoughtful review of the importance of failure in how people and organizations learn and improve, particularly when working on the cutting edge.

A 2007 article predicting the use of tech in education in 2012. I don't know what's more interesting: what they got right or what they missed!

MakerBot Replicators are 3-D publishers - feed it a 3-D drawing, and it will build it. Could these tools help re-imagine arts classes (fine and industrial) with a renewed focus on design?

Great overview on current efforts to improve assessment, particularly the idea of "stealth assessment". Strongly emphasizes the role of technology in building assessments that track the entire problem solving process - and how these tools can evaluate both hard and soft skills. Last sentence nails it: "That's the promise of a better test: By drawing a map that more accurately reflects our world, we may discover far more promising paths to get where we want to go." Chris Dede gets a big shout out!

This is a link to a paper that Chris mentioned earlier today. It proposes six types of involvement with digital games: tactical, affective, narrative, shared, performative, and spatial.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 questions to guide the development of a MOOC program. How does EdX rate?