OKMOOC

In 1990, after seven years of teaching at Harvard, Eric Mazur, now Balkanski professor of physics and applied physics, was delivering clear, polished lectures and demonstrations and getting high student evaluations for his introductory Physics 11 course, populated mainly by premed and engineering students who were successfully solving complicated problems. Then he discovered that his success as a teacher "was a complete illusion, a house of cards."

The thing that I liked most about this article (and I really liked it!) was the mention of numerous research studies that have looked into the effects of active learning. Also how Mazur himself collects data on his students' results. The fact that interactive learning can be backed by empirical research only adds to its strength as an effective pedagogical method.

A book with ideas along the line of participatory culture, "panarchy"... The information revolution - which is as much an organizational as a technological revolution - is transforming the nature of conflict across the spectrum: from open warfare, to terrorism, crime, and even radical social activism.

An interesting view from a Chinese Blogger - Chinese social Media servers are in Beijing....

Participatory Culture in the Age of. Social Media ... approaches and theory. There is a need for ... future directions in participatory culture research

An occasional paper on digital media and learning. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the. 21 st. Century. Henry Jenkins

Old article worth a read considering the large release of 'Destiny' this week, another massive open world game to help connect users globally Online multiplayer communities are social networks built around multiplayer online computer games. Members of these communities typically share an interest in online gaming and a great deal of the interaction between them is technologically mediated. It is a playground which can give us clues about the future of social and technological developments, according to the researcher.

I`m reading this http://bit.ly/1qbGmKK but I haven`t formed an opinion, not being a gamer myself.

"Emergency and conflict in countries such as Syria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have made us more aware of the long-term serial disruption and psychosocial damage faced by people caught up in emergency and conflict areas. Open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) has sometimes been employed in these regions to maintain a degree of continuity in education. For the most part, however, this role has been ad hoc, short-term and often bearing limited relation to the psychosocial and educational needs of the displaced or traumatised populations it serves."

Interesting article that combines the idea of citizen journalism with a video game While we've been living in the "citizen journalist" era for a while now, the recent events and controversies in Ferguson, Missouri, have reminded us yet again how everyday people with smartphones have redefined the way we take in breaking news - particularly with the images they use those phones to make and distribute across social media.

A short guide for using Twitter for academic purposes, aimed at beginners.

thanks Kevin. Very useful. I'm new to twitter but i strongly believe in it as a "right" tool in research and teaching context

Thanks for sharing it! I'll tweet the post

Similar to Twitter, a good way to reach "a common intellectual enagagement with material" can be achieved by bonding and sharing personal aspects of life with students without intimacy. There is an art to maintaining this balance.

This video shows, that learning can be fun starting from early school. Therefore it is important go hand in hand with technological changes and new challenges.

New Visions in Citizen Science by Anne Bowser and Lea Shanley: * different models that support public contribution, potential challenges, and positive impacts that projects can have on scientific literacy, research, management, and public policy. * Illustrate how citizen science functions at its best demonstrating how open innovation can address agency-specific challenges in new and compelling ways.

Social media is now becoming an important platform to enhance political engagement. It is also a place where people can connect to each other, expressing political concerns. This Happy Kiev video is an outcome of today's participatory culture. A very good remix of the song "Happy" doesn't only show people in Ukraine call for peace, but it also reflects civic engagement is growing on SNS.

The principle of the Panopticon still works in today's "big data" society. As we get more and more assesses to information on the Internet, our personal information is also being exposed to others. However, as an user commented, "there is a place for surveillance -- but not when its scope and power has the ability to undermine our networks and connections that are essential for fostering healthy human development and communities -- which is the best protection against harm". The invisibility of the power, to some extent, builds up the self-suiveillance.

Interesting video with ideas about Education.

Education is due for a change, beginning with training teachers to teach in new ways. Learning needs also vary, making it important for a teacher to be able to teach in a variety of ways to get knowledge across, e.g., math solutions may be achieved in several ways - one student may get it the first time while another may need a different explanation. Young people need to be encouraged to learn and know that learning will get them somewhere. Finding a teaching model that works for the majority is definitely a challenge - perhaps more than one or a combination of models?

Great idea and a bold vision. And there is a way to participate for individuals and groups.

Un artículo para entender qué es el periodismo ciudadano. Describe como los usuarios de la red se convierten en agentes productores de contenido, y hace una reflexión entre periodismo profesional y 'periodismo ciudadano'

Un artículo muy interesante en relación al debate de la calidad de la información proporcionada por profesionales y amateurs desde el enfoque del sector profesional. Interesante para sostener un debate desde ambos enfoques.

Los periodistas ciudadanos cumplen algunas funciones de los periodistas profesionales como buscar, recabar y compartir noticias, pero les falta la profesionalización, en muchos casos mejorar su redacción, corroborar las notas que comparten y publican. Los medios como blogger, facebook y twitter están plagados de noticias falsas, sin fuentes de investigación. Los periodistas ciudadanos no tienen la ayuda de un editor que revise sus publicaciones, corrija su redacción, opine y ordene las notas. Sin embargo, están haciendo uso de su libertad de expresión. Si alguien no esta de acuerdo con alguna acción, por ejemplo, una ley que discrimina a las personas por su codición económica, escribirá su opinión en un foro opinando sobre dicha ley, en otros casos escribirá una nota en su blog personal y compartiendola a través de sus redes sociales. Aunque esto también puede traer problemas, no existe el derecho de réplica,una corroboración de los hechos como lo puede haber en una investigación periodística profesional.

"UNA ÉTICA AUTORREGULADA PARA EL PERIODISMO CIUDADANO" http://redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=68712863002

"They challenge the way we think about intellectual property. But proclaiming these potential benefits among a community of believers is not enough: much more evidence is needed about the ways OER are used and on how they are impacting on teaching and learning."