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In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans - one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world - Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities. News, data and conversation about education in New York. Join us on Facebook » Follow us on Twitter » Harvard's involvement follows M.I.T.'s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project to be known as MITx. Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, some 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. Those who complete the course will get a certificate of mastery and a grade, but no official credit. Similarly, edX courses will offer a certificate but will carry no credit

"After offering its own online course, Power Searching with Google, the search giant is releasing the technology it used to support the class as an open source online learning project. The Course Builder software lets anyone with basic technical expertise to create an online class."

Around the world, massive open online courses-MOOCs-are drawing thousands of participants eager to learn sophisticated skills and maybe even pick up some sort of credential or credit. MOOCs are not only becoming a "tool for democratizing higher education," as Tamar Lewin writes in The New York Times, they are also changing educators' atttitudes about teaching.

Earlier today, Harvard and MIT announced edX, an open-source technology platform designed to deliver online courses. Now, anyone from around the world with an Internet connection can have access to, what MIT President Susan Hockfield called, "one of the best kept secrets of Cambridge and the entire higher education community" - the "richness of collaborations" between Harvard and MIT.

MIT and Harvard, two neighboring universities which often compete for top students, are now collaborating on free online courseware technology. Starting next fall, both schools will offer free courses using a platform based on MIT's previously announced MITx technology.  MITx enables the creation of online classes that knit together video segments, embedded quizzes, interactive feedback, online labs and student-ranked Q&A.

"A new report by Moody's Investors Service suggests that while MOOCs' exploitation of expanded collaborative networks and technological innovation will benefit higher education in the United States as a whole, their long-term effect on the for-profit sector and smaller not-for-profit institutions could be damaging. MOOCs - massive open online courses - have garnered considerable attention since Stanford University's artificial intelligence course in the autumn 2011 semester attracted nearly 160,000 students. While the course's completion rate was low (15.6%), the scale of the response excited many in the higher education community - from institutions to venture capital companies. Indeed, the report notes that MOOCs represent a "pivotal development" in the evolution of higher education and have the potential to revolutionise the way a centuries-old industry has operated."

"Call it the year of the mega-class. Colleges and professors have rushed to try a new form of online teaching known as MOOC's-short for "massive open online courses." The courses raise questions about the future of teaching, the value of a degree, and the effect technology will have on how colleges operate. Struggling to make sense of it all? On this page you'll find highlights from The Chronicle's coverage of MOOC's."

"mong the tens of thousands of people signed up for the University of Toronto's online computer science course Learn to Program: The Fundamentals, there are a lot of unconventional students. There are 30-somethings who never went to university and never earned a degree, and are searching for skills that might lead to a job. There is an octogenarian with a curious streak and a stable of retirees looking for a chance to buck the stereotypes of a generation that grew up without computers. And there is a student from Malaysia."

I have always been intrigued by the promise of online education. It is easy to see how geographic and economic boundaries can be overcome through technology. Educational institutions can compete for students well beyond their traditional local boundaries, growing nationally and internationally while bringing down their per-seat costs. Schools no longer need expensive classrooms and dormitories to grow. Small, innovative institutions can grow globally and as rapidly as they dare to dream. High-quality teaching faculty can be recruited from anywhere on the planet -- to teach thousands of students simultaneously. Students can study anytime and attend classes from anywhere. In addition, growth of free, high-quality education sites such as Khan Academy and open-source courses such as Opencourseware at MIT, along with global satellite and broadband communications networks, have removed economic, social, and geographic barriers to high-quality education.

As part of a seismic shift in online learning that is reshaping higher education, Coursera, a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, will announce on Tuesday that a dozen major research universities are joining the venture. In the fall, Coursera will offer 100 or more free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that are expected to draw millions of students and adult learners globally.

Le format MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) tend à prendre de l'importance dans l'offre de cours en ligne. Du moins, un nombre grandissant de cours ouverts, gratuits et en ligne sont-ils qualifiés de MOOC. Les récentes initiatives du MIT et de Stanford, que nous avons présentées dans un récent article, sont ainsi assimilées à des MOOC par Christine Cupaiuolo dans un billet publié sur le blog Spotlight

"A complete list of free online courses offered by Stanford, Coursera, MIT and Harvard led edX (MITx + Harvardx + BerkeleyX), and Udacity"

In a major development on Tuesday, a dozen highly ranked universities said they had signed on with Coursera, a new venture offering free classes online. They still must overcome some skepticism about the quality of online education and the prospects for having the courses cover the costs of producing them, but their enthusiasm is undimmed.

"If you're interested in human development, the opportunity set has never been more interesting. Search in the browser marked the beginning of anywhere/anytime learning opportunities, but the official beginning of the new era was a decade ago with the Wikipedia launch. As noted in the Lessons from SkillShare blog, anywhere, anytime learning sites have been popping up at an increasing rate. You can learn about rate of change and differential calculus on Khan Academy. Academic Earth was an early source of college knowledge. Udemy let anyone teach anything. Saylor.org and P2PU.org made it all free. Anya Kamenetz outlined the expanded post-sec landscape in DIY U last year. This year, massively open online courses (MOOC) from Coursera, Udacity, and Edx are all the rage. The aggregate impact is a dramatic increase in access to great content and great teachers."

Google has opened its Knowledge Graph to the English-speaking world and has made intelligent voice search possible on mobile phones. Underneath it all, of course, are ever more-complex methods of analyzing data to make search smarter and easier than it has any business being.

On connaît les jeux massivement multijoueurs, qui voient  des milliers de joueurs interagir autour de tâches complexes, se lier en guildes, se combattre et tenter de réaliser les quêtes qui les feront progresser en puissance et en connaissance. On connaît moins en revanche les cours en ligne massivement multi-apprenants, qui voient se retrouver des centaines d'apprenants sur les réseaux sociaux, sur une plateforme de conférence où se déroulent les webinaires et sur le site du cours, pour échanger et laisser croître la connaissance sur un sujet donné, qu'ils apprennent à maîtriser par le biais de l'expérience. Ces cours s'appellent MOOC (Massive open online course) en anglais, c'est à dire dans la langue de leurs créateurs.

Le mouvement des REL (Ressources éducatives libres ou OER en anglais, Open Educative Resources) se porte relativement bien, surtout dans le monde anglo-saxon. Non seulement les OER sont mieux répertoriées que leurs homologues francophones, mais elles sont également produites par des institutions de grand renom qui, au-delà de la stratégie marketing et de visibilité que décèlent les esprits chagrins dans ces initiatives, assument leur responsabilité de leaders mondiaux en matière d'excellence éducative.

"Voici quatre étudiants pris au hasard : On Chi Tang libraire à Kuala Lumpur, Dimitri Popoulas fonctionnaire à Athenes, Shagun Gupta femme au foyer à New Delhi et Michelle étudiante à Sheffield. Des hommes et femmes ordinaires, citoyens du monde, que rien ne devait à priori réunir. Depuis le 27 aout, ils sont pourtant assis sur les mêmes bancs virtuels du cours "Gamification" dispensé par Kevin Warbach, professeur à l'Université de Virginia (USA). Pendant les 6 semaines que compte ce module et comme les 65 000 inscrits de par le monde, ils suivront à l'heure et dans le lieu qui leur conviennent 2 cours hebdomadaires d'une heure en video. Ils pourront s'exercer avec des quizz. A la fin du module, si tout s'est bien passé, ils recevront une certification de Coursera MOOC, émanation de l'université de Standford. Fait étonnant, pour suivre ce module de cours et obtenir la certification, aucun n'aura déboursé un centime !"

« 65% des écoliers d'aujourd'hui pratiqueront, une fois diplômés, des métiers qui n'ont même pas encore été inventés », estime le Département d'Etat américain du Travail. D'où la nécessité d'essayer d'anticiper la manière dont les technologies peuvent évoluer, et comment nous pourrons les intégrer dans nos écoles. A quelles innovations peut-on s'attendre en matière de technologie de l'éducation pour les prochaines décennies ? Cette visualisation est le fruit d'une collaboration entre les experts de l'éducation de TFE Research et du planneur stratégique Michell Zappa. L'éducation est à un carrefour particulier dans la société, expliquent-ils : d'un côté, elle a la responsabilité d'anticiper les compétences dont nous aurons besoin pour le futur. D'un autre côté, elle doit nous préparer à un monde de plus en plus complexe - et donc, imprévisible. Pourtant, les méthodologies de l'éducation ne peuvent être formalisées qu'après que les pratiques aient été définies... Le paradoxe est plus frappant encore en matière de technologie, où le rythme rapide du changement est la seule constante.