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"The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday morning in a key copyright-infringement case, with justices asking pointed questions about the resale and reuse of protected works. Many of the questions homed in on possible consequences for individual buyers as well as libraries and other institutions, but did not suggest which way the court was leaning."

"The rock-star meme implies that teaching is all about performance. What happens on stage is still what matters, even if techno-hip educators supplant traditional sages. Talk of rock-star faculty members reinforces the static lecture model that MOOCs were, ironically, developed in part to destroy. The audience at a rock concert is listening, not interacting. Decades of research and a modicum of common sense confirm that students engage and learn more through active participation in the classroom. For all the talk of personalized analytics and adaptive learning, MOOCs built around faculty rock stars will just transfer the lean-back experience of the lecture hall to a screen."

"The GNU Manifesto is characteristic of its author-deceptively simple, lucid, explicitly left-leaning, and entirely uncompromising. He explains the point of the project in short, declarative sentences: "[A] user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company which owns the sources and is in [the] sole position to make changes."

"Narrative podcasts are story-driven audio recordings. As opposed to more traditional interview-style podcasts, where a single person or group is interviewed, narrative podcasts splice together a number of interviews, recordings, and sounds to present a more complete listening experience. They tend to lean more heavily on production effects, such as the use of music and sound effects, as well as narrative storytelling techniques such as multiple characters, scene setting, backstory, hooks, framing devices, and cliffhangers. Narrative podcasts can be either fictional or non-fictional, but at their core both teach learners by presenting concepts as an immersive experience, allowing listeners to become a part of what they are learning."

"students using the openly licensed material were able to more efficiently internalize and remember the information conveyed. Students also rated the quality of the print version of the OER higher than the commercial equivalent, although the digital version received a lower ranking. The authors acknowledge that "the open textbook (in its first edition) and the commercial textbook (in its tenth) are written by different authors with differences in the breadth and depth of content coverage, organization, and writing style" and that a text's quality leans on several other factors besides the nature of its copyright."

"What do you want for your graduates (whether they leave you in 5th, 8th or 12th grade)?"

"The report, Innovating Pedagogy 2014, is the third annual report concerning technological trends that could revolutionize education.  It suggests that the next step in the world of MOOCs is to introduce massive open social learning."