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Jenny Mackness does it again: making important distinctions between curriculum led and community led learning within MOOCs; and how the balance may change based on successful formation of learning groups within the MOOC. She also asks about the difference between learning design and planning for learning. 1.14.23 on her blog.

blog post by Jenny Mackness on blog aggregation and tools to aggregate, May 17, 2012. The blog goes beyond the choice of tool to tagging protocols and how to aggregate when some of the writing/reflecting by learners is done behind password protected walls.

Blog post by Jenny Mackness on April 24, 2012 announcing a MOOC on First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, #fslt12, running from 5/21 to 6/22. Raises issues of how to engage with learners who may not be well-grounded in technology yet who might want to participate because of content, finding the right balance. Will offer certificate for "assessed" learners. Excerpt: "This is an exciting but rather daunting process. We have had lots of interest, with people from all over the world expressing interest in different aspects of learning and teaching in Higher Education. I am beginning to realize the amount of work that must go on behind the scenes in the other MOOCs I have attended. We have deliberately chosen to distribute the course across different platforms - WordPress (for the Home site), Moodle (for the course), Blackboard Collaborate (for the live synchronous sessions) and we are still discussing whether or not to have a separate wiki site, or to go with the wiki in Moodle. The reason for this decision (i.e. the different platforms) is that we hope to introduce participants new to teaching in HE to the idea that learning can take place in a variety of online spaces. Access to our WordPress site has been open pretty much from the word go, and now access to the Moodle site has been opened, despite the fact that neither of these is yet ready. For me, this is a new way of working and takes a bit of getting used to (heart in your mouth stuff!). Finally, we are conscious that the course has been designed to attract people for whom this way of working and the technology involved might be completely new -so we have to achieve the right balance between providing enough structure and support and encouraging open academic practice and independent learning - one of the many tensions involved in designing a MOOC."

Interesting blog by Jenny Mackness on attending two keynotes at the Association for Learning Technology Conference in Manchester, UK: Jonathan Worth and Laura Czerniewicz. She attended virtually. She found some common themes in the keynotes about privacy, vulnerability, and trust in open learning environments on the learner level. From Jonathan she says: he talked about the difference between the image and the photograph and how there is a paradigm shift because the image is breaking away from the photograph. Photographs are about evidence, images about experience. Laura's talk was about the inequality on a global scale and is a life or death issue and it is a challenge to address inequality in new online landscapes. Jenny ends the blog with: Jonathan's focus on vulnerability and trying to see the image clearly will inform issues of inequality and Laura's focus on inequality will inform Jonathan's concerns about privacy, trust, and vulnerability.