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Interesting article on free courses vs paid courses, and how charging for specific skill courses and rebroadcasts makes money and is becoming more prevalent.

paid vs free courses: online training business is attracting users and investors

Unbelievable assessments of how internet and web are changing our behaviors for sharing, collaborating, and making us connect with each other

tools for Retooling

GOOD INFO: This web page provides information on common software tools available on personal computers and/or the Internet to facilitate assessment FOR learning in electronic portfolios.

Sheryl Naussbaum-Beech's web site with research, webinars, communities, and twitter ecourses.

Four minute video by Michael Wesch in St. George, KS, an assistant professor of anthropology. His video chronicles the evolution of the technical internet through html, XML phases and how the current use of code enables us to share our ideas at an unprecedented rate because anyone can click to write and publish to the world with the simplicity of an off/on TV control. We are (re)creating something new every second and can build relationships with people we never knew existed before. It's now one degree of separation between internet residents even though people may be miles apart in location, employment, lifestyle, temperament, etc. We can choose to collaborate with anyone who agrees to work with us. In fact, we can learn from afar from anyone without affiliating with them or they with us if they have some presence on the internet. We must figure out how to organize the things that matter to us that we harvest from across the internet. Tagging helps us do this. The web 2.0 transition has already had and will have impacts on copyright laws and practices, self-identity in different contexts, privacy, relationships, etc. Are you ready? Am I ready?

Maria Popova, a curator's code for showing how you obtained your mindblowing ideas. Two unicode symbols and a bookmarklet that you download allows you to show how others have assisted you. "The Curator's Code is an effort to keep this whimsical rabbit hole open by honoring discovery through an actionable code of ethics - first, understanding why attribution matters, and then, implementing it across the web in a codified common standard, doing for attribution of discovery what Creative Commons has done for image attribution. It's a suggested system for honoring the creative and intellectual labor of information discovery by making attribution consistent and codified, celebrating authors and creators, and also respecting those who discover and amplify their work."

Interesting article on the age divide between new guard (Stripe) and old guard companies (Cisco) and why that is so, Yiren Lu, March 12, 2014

Web site for Digital Competence: European-wide validation for all levels of learning "Objective:  Identify the key components of Digital Competence (DC) in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to be digitally competent; Develop a DC framework/guidelines that can be validated at European level, taking into account relevant frameworks currently available; Propose a roadmap for the possible use and revision of a DC framework for all levels of learners. Outcomes: (1) a consolidated draft proposal for a DC framework, applicable at all levels of education, including non-formal settings (2) roadmap on how to realise and revise the DC framework. Rationale: With the 2006 European Recommendation on Key Competences (Official Journal L 394 of 30.12.2006), Digital Competence has been acknowledged as one of the 8 key competences for Lifelong Learning by the European Union. Digital Competence can be broadly defined as the confident, critical and creative use of ICT to achieve goals related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and/or participation in society. DC is a transversal key competence which, as such, enables acquiring other key competences (e.g. language, maths, learning to learn, creativity). It is amongst the so-called 21st Century skills which should be acquired by all citizens, to ensure their active socio-economic participation in society and the economy. Major questions: What are the key components of DC and what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes people should have to be digitally competent, today and in the future? How can and/or should the development of this competence be validated at European level within a lifelong learning context, thus encompassing formal education, non-formal and informal learning and the world of work? "

This is a profound take on website value in today's mobile, social media, apps dominated world.

Edutopia blog on web tools to help students collaborate. Some fun principles for collaboration including: shut up and listen; action beats inaction; there are no mistakes. Worth viewing the old Carol Burnett show YouTube with Tim Conway.

got to this through Stephen Downes's Daily. This blog by Tim Rayner makes a distinction between sharing and gifting on social networks. He considers gifting as sharing with a purpose. Mindful sharing as opposed to sharing for sharing's sake. His argument is that gifting is the real power of social networks.

early look by Susan Herring, Indiana University, (2001) of how women fare online. one interesting paragraph on projected changes of world wide web and impact on women.

Blog post by Jeff Cobb, the author of Ten Ways to be a Better Lifelong Learner and Mission to Learn blog, on EvoLLLution (illuminating the lifelong learning movement), 3.26.2012 See excerpt below for obstacles that keep people from lifelong learning: "AA: What are the major gaps keeping today's adults from effectively continuing their education? JC: There are two ways to come at that question, at least. It's high-level at first, to differentiate between education-which I consider to be primarily a formal, structured activity-and learning, the vast majority of which is informal and not necessarily structured. And learning encompasses education, but learning is just so much broader. When it comes to education, there can be any number of barriers that prevent an adult from continuing her education. Time and money tend to be two of the biggest. Those barriers can be overcome; like anything in life it's just often a matter of priorities and planning, both on the part of the individual and the society, but they do have to be overcome. On the other hand with learning, there's really nothing that can prevent an adult from continuing learning if they are in fact dedicated to doing that. We really can't help doing it; we're pretty much hard-wired to be continually learning. But we all know how overwhelming the flow of information can be around us these days; on the one hand it's this sense of being overwhelmed that can hold people back, I think another factor is that we simply don't look at a lot of the amazing new opportunities that we have, primarily through what the web now enables. … We don't necessarily look at these as learning tools and as things that can really help us to engage with and grow in life. Really, once you recognize that and once you start thinking in terms of effective strategies and effective approaches, the sky's the limit."

Review by Rob Jenkins on the Chronicle, 3.18.13, on why MOOCs are a massively bad idea for wait-listed community college students in California as proposed in new legislation there. Excerpt: "We know that succeeding in online classes requires an extraordinary degree of organization, self-discipline, motivation, and time-management skill. A simple Google search of "how to succeed in online classes" yields a plethora of Web sites-including many college and university sites-offering students such gems as "be organized," "manage your time wisely," and (my favorite) "stay motivated."" Excerpt: So to recap, California's plan (or to be fair, one senator's plan) is basically to dump hundreds of thousands of the state's least-prepared and least-motivated students into a learning environment that requires the greatest amount of preparation and motivation, where they will take courses that may or may not be effective in that format. Here's a prediction: Those students will fail and drop out at astronomical rates. Then the hand-wringing will begin anew, the system will pour millions more dollars into "retention" efforts, and the state will be in an even deeper fix than it is now. (Virtual cheating will probably run rampant, too, followed by expensive anticheating measures, but that's another blog post.) Look, I'm not a politician or an economist. I don't know the answer to California higher education's budget woes. But I'm pretty sure herding community-college students into MOOCs is not it.

Interesting explanation of business model for how nonprofit and forprofit MOOC partners--edX, Coursera, and Udacity--will make money along with the universities. Implications for other, smaller online learning partnerships? Excerpt on two models (large-scale efforts) According to Mr. Agarwal, edX offers its university affiliates a choice of two partnership models. Both models give universities the opportunity to make money from their edX MOOCs-but only after edX gets paid. Related Content What You Need to Know About MOOCs Document: The Revenue-Sharing Models Between edX and University Partners The first, called the "university self-service model," essentially allows a participating university to use edX's platform as a free learning-management system for a course on the condition that part of any revenue generated by the course flow to edX. The courses developed under that model will be created by "individual faculty members without course-production assistance from edX," and will be branded separately in the edX catalog as "edge" courses until they pass a quality-review process, according to a standard agreement provided to The Chronicle by edX. Once a self-service course goes live on the edX Web site, edX will collect the first $50,000 generated by the course, or $10,000 for each recurring course. The organization and the university partner will each get 50 percent of all revenue beyond that threshold. The second model, called the "edX-supported model," casts the organization in the role of consultant and design partner, offering "production assistance" to universities for their MOOCs. The organization charges a base rate of $250,000 for each new course, plus $50,000 for each time a course is offered for an additional term, according to the standard agreement. Although the edX-supported model requires cash upfront, the potential returns for the university are high if a course ends up making money. The university gets 70 percent of any revenue gen

Way to take images with your web cam and put them together into a video.

Susan Greene, a freelance writer and editor of web sites and articles, describes how creating a personal connection with potential customers is crucial on your About Us page. Tell stories, connect with visitors, be creative.

Another About Us page article

an interesting free tool for basic screen capture recording on Windows or Mac. A pro version is also available. Found it through Kathy Schrock's web tips on her blog, 2.20.13

A web design tool that allows you to upload a picture and find what colors will go with it best.