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This report shows the importance of college education. With the rise in cost of higher education, it is all the more important to have alternatives to the traditional route for college. For those who question the value of college in this era of soaring student debt and high unemployment, the attitudes and experiences of today's young adults-members of the so-called Millennial generation-provide a compelling answer. On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment-from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time-young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education.

There are also costs to society - countries with fewer educated citizens cannot be as competitive in the global environment. It behooves countries to try to figure out how to keep education economical for its citizens.

Well said. Thanks for bringing up this topic and adding it to the conversation. I don't doubt that those who keep learning and gain skills will be more valuable economically and probably then more economically rewarded. But I have serious doubts that the current program of institutionalized degrees is the best route for citizens.

Dr Jane McGonigal (a professional game developer) talks about the time spent playing video games (which approximates to the span of human evolution), and that this time has to increase to make any major changes to the world. I have selected this resource partially in relation to week 3's Clarke's lecture (and others), which talks about using our idle time to do something meaningful - participate in citizen science games, for example. Dr McGonigal's talk very much illustrates this point - except that it talks about solving global issues through indirect games, e.g. a World Without Oil online game simulates a world in which you have to survive oil shortage. Creator's research shows, that people maintain the skills and habits they have taken up after playing this intense game, which include making better choices for our changing environment. The only difference here from actual citizen science games is that Dr McGonigal's games are fictional (rather than providing direct data / input for actual scientific research), however, they empower people to influence global change, which is the topic of the other lectures this week, especially Morozov's thoughts about the power of internet and connectiveness to create "revolutions". Although Morozov has taken up a rather critical view, suggesting only those who want it, take the best from the Internet, Dr McGonigal's ideas might be what bridges the two - taking games, which are integral part of many people's lives, especially in the younger generation, and turning them into real "life schools" may help more people get the idea and the essential skills to "fix" their environments. In all honesty, this is a video I would watch again and again, and recommend it to anyone who would listen (and that doesn't happen often for me).

Gamification for learning - using game elements - sounds very promising. Prior to the internet, technology, there were board games or hands on projects - all with the intent to engage and interact with each other. So it is no surprise to me given the appropriate design/project that students can learn and solve real world problems. Letting students choose their persona and role also allows them to make their own future and take ownership for how they want to participate. Just like the original promise of multimedia training that was purported to replace the traditional classroom events and enable getting the "best" teacher recorded for all to have the same experience...I believe it was then thought that the learning experience needs o be "blended". Different techniques - online, face to face, etc.. This is not my field of expertise so these are just personal opinions. If the online game approach can be combined with face to face and tactile/outdoor activities, aka a blended approach - I think that might be very useful. I do also believe that design solutions should be encouraging win win situations to reinforce collaboration and the feeling that all can succeed. One question I might have is how do you measure success in learning?

Gaming promoters unfortunately for me have a commercial agenda and its always difficult to make that balance of pure learning and commercialization aspect

There is one point in student and publishing en general, it will go on with non stop from now on. Digital publishing is low cost and a great help to student and any person as well.

how do you avoid information overload with your corporate knowledge base ?

Concentrix Management (CM) is a model for distributing and managing information with the intent to cross pollinate ideas and concepts across sub-groups so that each part of the system knows about the 'whole' (of which all working groups within it reside) without overloading any one person.

Identity development is a role that partakes every person's life. Whether their identity falls under race, gender, sexual orientation, or culture each person can connect with one of these classifications to differentiate themselves from the next. Of course there will be those who share the same classifications of identity, but will find a different aspect of themselves to further identify themselves. This article introduces the the "borderlines" of how race, culture, sexual orientation, even physiques connects and is influenced by the digital/cyber world.

An alternative perspective on "openness".

The argument will be with us for a very long time. I think this is based on the side of the fence that one is sitting on. It is just like a case of what came first a chicken or an egg. The fact is Open has place to occupy in our learning space. The jury is still out there.

Thanks for sharing this well presented write up. Big question put forth is are we really getting the outcomes expected from the open society. Open vs. quality is a big issue. At times restricting access helps a great deal.

Very interesting site exploring the intersection of indigeneity & information and communication technologies.

Among other things you can find there a talk by dr. Shawn Wilson, author of the book "Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods". It was great to see how his field of research influenced academic etiquette; during the lecture there was time for the elders, some personal remarks, even a prayer. You can find it here: http://resources.ethnosproject.org/research-ceremony-indigenous-research-methods/

Interesting! Thank you! The content is very important because it takes understanding and knowledges about how groups all around the world communicate from their backgrounds etc. To be collaborative online takes skills about this.

TED talks is a fantastic place for inspiration.

I use TED talks both personally and professionally. This play list is a bit of both. I especially enjoy Andrew Stantons "The clues to a great story".

This article highlights the battle of convenience vs security when it comes to personal data sharing. The Cloud's security has been called into question after nude photos of a number of celebrities leaked on the web a few days ago. With the allure of taking data and information with you everywhere, on any device, comes the sacrifice of security and often privacy, as cloud systems make data more vulnerable to the outside world. But the author of this article argues that, interestingly enough, it is not the Cloud that is too open, but hardware and devices themselves, as Cloud operators have imposed "two-factor authentication" to provide better security for their users.

Interesting how the article closed with this statement: "The rethink of Moocs has given rise to a new buzzword in the education industry: Spocs, which replace "massive" and "open" with "small" and "private". Should we change the "massive" and "open" words to ease fear of losing privacy, especially after viewing the video on online privacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCmKJyVx9AY Your thoughts?

The site won't allow me to read the article without a subscription. The heading of the article touched on my initial concerns for this course. In saying that, my experience at University showed that the student's who wanted to really get something out of their studies were the least reliant on the guidance of their lecturers and found their own ways to improve making it easier for the lecturer to guide. I read this https://landing.athabascau.ca/blog/view/617323/what-is-connectivism article on connectivism which https://twitter.com/@stranack posted earlier. It makes sense that personal success within this education format relies on the pro activity of the student to engage in the described culture of connecting, forming groups, targeting desired information, and making sure that when they share it the reason it is important to others is made obvious.

Acerca del marco jurídico en torno a la protección de datos personales en México.

I´m interested in sharing in this article given the impotance that they have taken social networks; social networks in Internet and expansion can not leave out the risks that these may contein by the lack of real awareness by users of uses that can be made with your personal data, as these may be used illegally, profiles can publish false information or unauthorized or assigned full and unlimited rights all contenst.

Why it "works" Network Effect Wikipedia benefits tremendously from the network effect. The network effect is when a user of a product benefits more from a product if other people also use the product. Telephones are a textbook example. If only a few dozen consumers have telephones, then the telephones aren't very useful. But if millions of consumers have telephones, they become more useful since each telephone owner can contact many people. The large number of Wikipedia users benefits Wikipedia. First, the more editors there are, the the higher the accuracy and quality of the articles. Secondly, it gives an incentive to users to edit. Since editors know the each article will be read by thousands of users, the sheer influence of each article is a strong enough incentive to edit, even though Wikipedia is free. Openness Wikipedia is free and open for any user to edit, even anonymously. This means there is a very large number of editors. This helps Wikipedia ensure accuracy since each mistake and inaccuracy will have to get by hundreds of editors. With so many writers, the scope of Wikipedia articles is very large, minimizing the amount of missing information. Although the openness of Wikipedia provides a powerful self-correcting method, it also makes Wikipedia vulnerable to vandalism. In addition, editors are anonymous and may have a conflict of interest, or might have inadequate knowledge of the article's subject. Yet, because Wikipedia is open to any edits, it is also likely to be corrected. It operates by a system of checks and balances from many editors. However, it has some guidelines to protect it against misinformation and bias: 1. Verifiability principle. To prevent bias and to protect the encyclopedic quality of its articles, all edits on Wikipedia must in theory be a verifiable fact. Moreover, it must have a reliable source to verify each fact. 2. No Original Research. As an encyclopedia, it is mean to be a secondary source of infor

Short interesting article given this week's videos/readings on social economics as well as sharing information through technology. Mark Zuckerberg certainly has a vision for giving every single person on the planet the ability to communicate with each other and make commerce a more available item for anyone

Transcript attached. Snowden unable to attend in person.

"It is an irony of the digital age that at a time when we are used to having easy access to seemingly endless information and knowledge, so much of it is disappearing into a digital black hole. For 450 years the concept of legal deposit has helped to preserve the nation's intellectual record.| There is this aspect of disappearing data as well.

See my bookmark post 'Academic citation practices ...' for some geeky stuff on the reference / citation issues.

Jacynthe, you are welcome, and Phillip, many thanks!