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What I want are master learners, not master teachers, learners who see my kids as their apprentices for learning.

My sense is that we need to rethink the role of those adults once again, and that we’re coming full circle.

social and technological networks subvert the classroom-based role of the teacher.

E-learning designers believe that people learn through "content". They assume that encountering content will lead people to change their behaviour. Games designers believe that people learn through "experience". They assume that having experiences - doing and feeling things - leads to change in behaviour. E-learning designers believe we must be "nice" to our learners in case they go away. They assume that the relationship between the course and the learner is a weak one so that if there's any significant challenge, the learner will give up. Games designers believe that we can challenge people and they'll stick with it. Indeed, it is progressive challenges that form much of the motivation for gamers. E-learning designers believe that we learn step by step (hence linearity, page-turning etc.). Game designers believe we absorb lots of things all at once (hence HUDs, complex information screens etc.). E-learning designers believe that learning experiences are emotionally neutral (in spite of all that's written about the importance of emotion in learning). Games designers always seek an "angle", an attitude.

At core was an alignment between what makes effective learning practice, and what makes engaging experiences.  Looking across educational theories, repeated elements emerge. Similarly with experience design.  It turns that they perfectly align.  If you recognize that, and can execute against it, your learning will be greater than the sum of the parts, and will both seriously engage and truly educate.  Learning can, and should, be hard fun!

Please, wherever you draw inspiration, however you figure it out, make more engaging learning. Align the elements of effective practice and the elements of engaging experiences, and make your learning rock. For your learners’ sake, please!

Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined as “materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone” (Downes, 2011). Open Educational Practices (OEP) are practices which “support the production, use and reuse of high quality OER through institutional policies, which promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path.” (ICDE, 2011). Open Communication is reciprocal and respectful exchange which contributes to social presence in online learning (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997), and the development of intercultural awareness and competence in language learning.

“A culture of sharing resources and practices will help facilitate change and innovation in education” (OER Commons, 2011).

Open access initiatives to make research publications freely available online or the adoption of open source software solutions, such as Moodle or Mahara, are already having a big impact on education.

In thinking about the next evolution of open learning, TRU Open Learning has conceptualized a new model for open education. In keeping with our outcomes based philosophy of higher education we can envision a truly open model for higher education. Judith Murray refers to this new model as "Open Education 2.0". The conceptual framework for "Open Education 2.0" requires us to think not only in terms of the "Traditional Model", but in addition to envision a parallel model where we can have Any learner, using Any material, and being supported (taught, instructed, facilitated, mentored, tutored) by Anyone, to achieve learning which is then subjected to Our assessment, in order to receive Our credit, which can be applied towards Our credential.

Now a study published by the European Commission reveals that learning an additional language such as English may bring benefits that go beyond the ability to use the language itself. This report has implications for why, when and how we teach and learn English as a second or foreign ­language.

One of the significant findings for English language teaching is that changes in the brain’s electrical activity may occur much earlier than previously thought.

this study suggests that changes in the brain may start even in the earlier stages of language learning.

There’s been such a division between formal and informal; the fight for resources, mindspace, and the ability for people to get their mind around making informal concrete.  However, I’ve been preparing a presentation from another way of looking at it, and I want to suggest that, at core, both are being driven from the same point: how humans learn.

Don’t assume self-learning skills, but support both task-oriented behaviors, and the development of self-monitoring, self learning.

The goal is to remove the artificial divide between formal and informal, and recognize the continuum of developing skills from foundational abilities into new areas, developing learners from novices to experts in both domains, and in learning.