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Open education is about sharing, reducing barriers and increasing access in education. It includes free and open access to platforms, tools and resources in education (such as learning materials, course materials, videos of lectures, assessment tools, research, study groups, textbooks, etc.). Open education seeks to create a world in which the desire to learn is fully met by the opportunity to do so, where everyone, everywhere is able to access affordable, educationally and culturally appropriate opportunities to gain whatever knowledge or training they desire.

I remain astounded that anyone with a fully functioning neocortex talking seriously about MOOCs being some model of saving educational costs when the word is each course rings up a tab of $250k (edx) or even more. What does an institution get for dropping a quarter of a million per course? I can tell you what you do not get- an ongoing open sharing of the processes, of what worked, what did not work. Not a Udellian narrating of the process. It's more like another loaf of pre-packaged Wonderbread off the racks.

"Twitter announced on Monday that its long-awaited Vine app for Android smartphones will soon be available. Vine requires Android 4.0 or higher, and though many features from the iOS app are currently missing, Twitter says that the Android version will soon have all of the features currently available on iOS. Things such as front-facing camera support, search, mentions and hashtags, and even Facebook sharing are planned to arrive in the coming weeks. But Android users are getting one unique feature that's not available for iOS: zoom. Twitter also alluded to future features that "can only exist on the Android platform.""

Badges represent a way of acknowledging achievements or skill acquisition more granular than a college degree. The resources below provide an overview of the uses of badges and their implications for how individual accomplishments can be awarded, recognized, and shared.

For teens, the phone is the social device. One teen shared, "I use my phone for all of my social networking. I don't use a computer or an iPad for that." Since the go-to spot for mobile social is the phone, not the tablet, this might be encouraging news for schools incorporating tablets into the learning environment.

In its first big policy shift since Facebook bought the photo-sharing site, Instagram claims the right to sell users' photos without payment or notification. Oh, and there's no way to opt out.

"Share and discuss your ideas, documents and concepts visually in one place rather than exchanging endless e-mail attachments."

"In the moments following the twin explosions at the Boston Marathon, many of the initial reports disseminated through social media proved to be false. Jeremy Stahl, social media editor for Slate.com, shares his rules for social media responsibly in the midst of tragic, breaking news."

Google Docs makes it much easier for me to spot and track down plagiariam. First my students share their work with me when they begin a new assignment and I can watch their progress daily. The new preview feature makes this very easy and I often find myself flipping through student papers to check on progress and see who I need to work with soon. Students know I do this and they know I expect to see progress.

"Like many, I found myself gripped by the real-time reports that poured in on the evening of April 19th. Boston Police were in close pursuit of the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect. Up to this point, I mostly followed the story via @CNN and CNNLive. I noticed however, that some of the most interesting updates were shared via Twitter directly by the Boston Police (@Boston_Police). As police surrounded the second suspect while he hid in a recreational boat in the backyard of a home in Watertown, I shifted from online to TV. Yes…my  phone was nearby and it was in fact my second screen. I tuned in to Anderson Cooper on CNN to witness the apprehension as it happened."

"I'm not a radical, or anti-establishment - I've loved and respected working at every university I've joined. I just happen to have moved into a different learning delivery model because I knew it would give me greater flexibility to continue with my academic interests and spend more time with my family. It's a model that fits around my life. That's something I share in common with my students. They aren't unusual either. They just choose to study online because the flexibility suits them. Online higher education means students can combine education with employment - often fast-tracking their careers as a result - or fit study around family commitments."

While the participants in each conversation deserve the most credit for jumping into play as a pathway for transforming professional practice, the aforementioned facilitators helped scaffold dynamic settings for learning during our time together which felt both entirely awesome and all too short. In response to both on-site and online feedback, I wanted to share some notes on practice before too much time goes by.

"A company you've probably heard of before called Always Innovating is working on a pretty awesome little project for smartphones. It's called the MeCam and is essentially a mini helicopter they're calling a Nano-Copter complete with video recording and streaming capabilities. The MeCam is designed to follow you around and record every moment. You can stream that video right to your Android phone and even share it to your social site of preference or YouTube."

"During the webinar, one of the participants shared a link for a report from Duke University on their first MOOC, Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach, delivered through Coursera in fall 2012. And what a find that was - this is the most thorough description I have yet seen from a university about their experience selecting, development, delivering and analyzing a MOOC. Kudos to Yvonne Belanger and Jessica Thornton, the authors."

"The law driving this is called the Family Education Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA states that schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information about a student. "

""[I]t's presumptive to assume that we should share other people's work w/o asking," wrote @eetempleton, an assistant professor of English. "I would disagree," rejoined @alothian, another English assistant professor. "when I speak & others tweet, I learn a LOT about my own ideas." Some worried that having someone tweet their insights before they publish might increase the likelihood that they will be scooped by a colleague - although others regarded that notion as slightly paranoid.  "

""The first thing an employer is going to do is Google you," Alexandra Levit, generational speaker and author of Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can't Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success tells Mashable. "The worst thing is to have something negative pop up. In the absence of anything negative, having nothing come up really doesn't say much about your level of seriousness in terms of being out there and being professional."" In the digital era, sharing your story is easier than ever. Your job is to consistently build your credibility and visibility online. Being active in crafting your personal brand ensures you're getting the right ideas across to the companies and brands you want to work for.

"All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don't participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background. In contrast, a tiny minority of users usually accounts for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity. This phenomenon of participation inequality was first studied in depth by Will Hill in the early '90s, when he worked down the hall from me at Bell Communications Research"

The search to find a new job must include networking and social networking. The idea is to get yourself in front of a decision maker, the person who can hire you. Rich Kenny, Senior Operations Manager with Kelly Services comes into the Fox 2 Job Shop to share his thoughts on how to use social media to your advantage in hunt for a new job. Do you have a Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In account? If the answer is no to any one of three, your limiting your resources and the potential network to finding a new job.

Today's web users are prolific creators of content, and they upload photographs, audio, and video to Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and many others by the billions. While the initial emphasis of social media was placed on producing and uploading media to these popular sharing sites, as the notion of social media has evolved, it has ultimately become more about the conversations started and relationships formed surrounding this media. In this mini-course, educators will gain a better understanding of how social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, can be leveraged for teaching and learning. Participants will specifically learn how to integrate social media into STEM curriculum to: (1) engage students in insightful discussions, (2) build thriving STEM-focused online communities, and (3) help students discover new areas for informal STEM learning.