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"Suggestions for improvement To be fair, the cons that I have listed above are not unique to the EDCMOOC, nor to online learning in general. I remember similar problems from my uni days on campus. Nonetheless, they inform my following suggestions for improvement… Week 1 should be set aside as a social week to allow the happy greeters to get their social proclivities out of their systems. It may be tempting to set aside a pre-week for this purpose, but the truth is it will bleed into Week 1 anyway. The instructors need to be much more active in the discussions. I recommend they seed each week with a pinned discussion thread, which marks the official line of enquiry and discourages multiple (and confusing) threads emerging about the same concepts. More importantly, the instructors should actively prompt, prod, guide and challenge the participants to engage in critical analysis. Explication of the implications for e-learning must be the outcome. A moderator should delete the spam and ban the spammers. A support page and discussion thread should be dedicated to helping the lost souls, so that they don't pollute the rest of the course with their problems. All in all, I am glad to report my first mooc experience was a positive one. I won't rush out to do another one in a hurry, but that's simply because I know how demanding they are. But one thing's for sure, I will do another one at some stage. I look forward to it!"

Anchored discussion is a form of collaborative literature processing. It "starts from the notion of collaborative discussion that is contextualized or anchored within a specific content" (van der Pol, Admiraal & Simons, 2006). In this course, the discussions we participate in are based on prompts that address ideas included in each of the required resources for each module. However, an anchored discussion is a discussion that is focused on one piece of literature. As students read and digest the material, discussions about the meaning of that material occur within a window where the material is present. It is like having an asynchronous chat window open next to a research article. (van der Pol et al., 2006) As I started learning about anchored discussions, I saw many connections to shared annotation such as what we use Diigo for. Van der Pol et al. (2006) state that "shared annotation might leave more room for individual processes, but is shown to have some limitations in supporting interactivity". Anchored discussions take shared annotation a step further in that it requires conversation (as opposed to individual notes) regarding a resource. The collaborative piece of anchored discussions really got my attention in that it provides greater opportunity for the development of teaching presence by both students and the instructor. The opportunity to facilitate a discussion within the context of a required reading is an exciting idea for me. The use of anchored discussion allows for all three facets of teaching presence: instructional design and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction (Shea, Pickett, & Pelz, 2003). I am wondering if there is a way to use Diigo in creating anchored discussions.

Graphmatica is an equation plotter which supports five types of planar graphs (including polar, parametric, logarithmic, inequalites and limited implicit plots), plots planar vector fields and solutions of the corresponding differential equations, unlimited graphs on screen at once, saving setup information and lists of equations, flexible grid labeling, lock-on coordinate cursor and several ways to resize the grid. Its calculus options include symbolic differentiation, drawing of tangent lines, and numerical integration (you use a mouse to select points and areas). Offers on-line help and demonstration files. grmat36d.zip is the DOS version (3.60), grmat16w.zip is the Microsoft Windows 3.1 version (1.60), and grmat16n.zip is the 32 bit or win32 version (1.60). This is a fully functional shareware package.

complete solution for creating and distributing surveys and collecting, analyzing and reporting results. Common survey applications include customer and employee satisfaction surveys, course evaluations and opinion polls. Other common applications include lead-generation forms, technical-support inquiry forms, web-feedback questionnaires and product-order forms. SurveySolutions also includes the ability to produce instant "live" survey results, making it ideal for publishing entertaining and informative polls on your web site.

"School Maestro III is a comprehensive teacher productivity tool. The included grading program is the most advanced program available and supports a wide variety of different grading methods. It also tracks attendance and discipline, does seating charts, allows subjective grades, creates reusable lesson plans, report cards, honor rolls, GPAs, and transcripts. Reports are available via the Internet and form letters with optional report attachments may be emailed. "

Student Reflections @wattspoi on "Heutagogy & its Implications for Evaluative Feedback" http://t.co/xiuWsCsD #lrnchat #edchat

3 ways to support faculty who are using #studentsuccess innovations http://t.co/gya9kJXJKC #edtech #highered #faculty @Blendkit @AlexPickett - NextGenLC (NextGenLC) http://twitter.com/NextGenLC/status/523161304610390016