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A terrific checklist for anyone looking to "build" a course: 1. Plan for 30 minutes 2. Develop content without technology (clarify goals, assumptions about students, objectives, assessments, learning outcome artifacts, sequencing, validation) 3. Implement your content using technology (inc prep to evaluate the efficacy of your course) 4. Pilot with your target audience

The CSU's Affordable Learning Solutions Campaign is designed to enable faculty to choose and provide quality educational content that is more affordable for their students. CSU students typically pay over $800 per year for their books. By reducing their expenses, we believe we can provide better access to a quality CSU learning experience. We are launching this campaign in 2010 and will be continuously improving the services to CSU faculty and students each semester. The Affordable Learning Solutions website is designed to: - Make it easy for faculty, staff, and students to find no/low cost course content that can substitute for more costly textbooks Enable faculty to be recognized for their efforts in reducing costs for students - Share practices for using no/low cost digital content in CSU courses - Support campuses in customizing their strategies to enable affordable learning solutions For example: As part of a three-year partnership with Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publisher of the world's leading scientific journal Nature, CSU faculty guided and advised the development of NPG's Principles of Biology - the first in a series of interactive "born digital" textbooks. The text will be incorporated into courses for students at the Los Angeles, Northridge and Chico campuses starting in the 2011/2012 academic year.

Ashton Anderson and Jure Leskovec (Stanford) Daniel Huttenlocher and Jon Kleinberg (Cornell) re Coursera students' activities/user rates: "engagement taxonomy" 5 different categories based on student interactions with the platform (http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/news/mooc-study-creates-new-taxonomy-engagement): Bystanders are registered for the course, but their total activity is below a very low threshold. Collectors primarily download lectures, but don't participate much. Viewers watch lectures, handing in few if any assignments Solvers hand in assignments for a grade, viewing few if any lectures All-Rounders balance the watching of lectures with the handing in of assignments QUESTION: what about the way-finders - those who help create signposts for others to follow as learners navigate the course? or the web-makers - assisters/facilitators who help craft communities among learners?

Tony Hirst describing his thoughts on building a course for the British Open University and relying on Wordpress (due to its ability to handle RSS feeds so robustly) blogs to build a cacophony of blog entries by his students to craft pathways for the creation of new knowledge.

Randy Bass, Assistant Provost and English prof, Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Georgetown University worked with Malcoml Brown (Director of ELI) on Evidence of Impact project - "what are the conditions for the most meaningful learning inside and outside the formal curriculum?" and "How do emerging digital tools make it possible to see and capture evidence of meaningful learning in new ways?" Post-Course Era = end of self-contained course at center of curric

The purpose of this document is two-fold: - to offer an online history of the development of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - to use that history to describe major elements of a MOOC Each chapter of this guide looks at one of the first MOOCs and some early influences. It contains these parts: - a description of the MOOC, what it did, and what was learned - a description of the element of MOOC theory learned in the offering of the course - practical tools that can be used to develop that aspect of a MOOC - practical tips on how to be successful Contribute to this Book You are invited to contribute. If you participated in a MOOC, add a paragraph describing your experience (you can sign your name to it, so we know it's a personal story). If you know of resources or can add information about an element of MOOC theory, add to or edit the text that already exists. If you know of tools, provide a link to the tool, a short description, and your assessment of the tool. If you have a tip, add the tip. In order to participate, please email or message your contact details, and we'll you to the list of people who can edit pages. Send your request to stephen@downes.ca

Open field notes for a book to be written for Johns Hopkins Univ Press on trends in education, inc. MOOCs. One post is entitled: "the real disruption isn't online courses, it's their business model" George Siemens, Bonnie Stewart, and Dave Cormier have been contracted to write for Johns Hopkins University Press, and they expect the book to be published in mid-2013. They started the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs), together with Stephen Downes, in 2008.

The MOOC Business Plan- With millions of students taking high-quality MOOCs for free, schools and course providers are searching for a viable business model. Editorial: MOOC Shake- MOOCs will change higher education radically, but not in the way we expect right now. Assessment Tools for MOOCs- As MOOCs are made available for credit, scalable assessment options are essential. Building a Sense of Community in MOOCs- Massive class sizes can breed feelings of isolation, but they also enable more student interaction. Blended MOOCs: The Best of Both Worlds?- Combining in-class instruction with high-quality MOOCs may resolve some of the hurdles facing xMOOCs, but questions about cost and the impact on faculty remain unanswered. Watch video: Catheryn Cheal, AVP and senior academic technology officer at San Jose State, discusses how the school adapted a course for use in a blended MOOC. The Rise of MOOCs… What does it mean for higher education? Watch video: Cathy Sandeen, VP of education attainment and innovation at ACE, talks about the potential of MOOCs to increase the number of Americans gaining a post-secondary degree. cMOOCs: Putting Collaboration First- Alternative MOOC models are fostering creativity and collaboration with peers. How to Convert a Class Into a MOOC- The sheer size and diversity of the student body in a MOOC require a new approach to teaching. C-Level- The role of MOOCs in learner-initiated learning. MOOC News & Analysis- Georgia Tech's MOOC Degree

Open access to video or audio multimedia versions of lectures at UC Berkeley.

Courses and online degrees compiled from a wide variety of universities where videotaped lectures are freely available.

Links to free course collections (e.g., Annenberg Media) in the following disciplines: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Health Education, Physical Education, Computers

Free, open course on "Personal Learning Environments for Inquiry in K12" - topics include orientation to open learning environments, processes and obstacles, and how to evaluate learning in PLEs and networks

9 week free, open and online course designed for higher ed community but may also be of interest to secondary educators or home schoolers. Expecting people to dedicate 3-10 hrs a week starting January 10 and running through March 13, 2013.

Read the full text - download available. Issue is MOOC as a "tool" for educators and learners, not as an end in itself - so assessment strategies must be above and beyond test scores, satisfaction and completion rates.

Don't get seduced by retention/persistence rates - it's about the design principles, stupid!

interesting points re video of prof working out the problem as demo (vs. slide presented with problem already worked out) and issue of SlideSpeech vs. video transcriptions for cost

Sean Michael Morris sez "Coursera is silly" - same-old, same-old beast not far away from the correspondence course of the early 20th century or the educational TV of the 1960s

Co-founded by open education visionary Dr. David Wiley and education technology strategist Kim Thanos; finding quality content and mapping it to course learning outcomes; incorporating OER into academic strategy and curriculum decisions via consulting services; faculty training services; analytics and other outcomes to maximize student success

Open courses for direct use by independent learners or for re-mix/use by instructors - HP-sponsored Measuring Learning Consortium will use it also to research on students' understanding of STEM coursework (France, Hong Kong, Russia, South Africa and USA)

Social networking to prioritize curriculum development from open content and chosen by community (student generated content such as notes and internet-based resources while instructor-based content can be course notes), and new groups of students/faculty can build on the work oand experiences of previous students ("start where others left off") - instructors can use learner analytics to encourage deeper learning - currently being used for English composition by Stanford, CA Polytech, USC, Babson, Sacramento State and San Luis Obispo