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Education, and in particular higher education, has seen rapid change as learning institutions have had to adapt to the opportunities provided by the Internet to move more of their teaching online1 and to become more flexible in how they operate. It might be tempting to think that such a period of change would lead to a time of consolidation and agreement about approaches and models of operation that suit the 21st century. New technologies continue to appear,2 however, and the changes in attitude indicated by the integration of online activities and social approaches within our lives are accelerating rather than slowing down. How should institutions react to these changes? One part of the answer seems to be to embrace some of the philosophy of the Internet3 and reevaluate how to approach the relationship between those providing education and those seeking to learn. Routes to self-improvement that have no financial links between those providing resources and those using them are becoming more common,4 and the motivation for engaging with formal education as a way to gain recognition of learning is starting to seem less clear.5 What is becoming clear across all business sectors is that maintaining a closed approach leads to missing out on ways to connect with people and locks organizations into less innovative approaches.6 Higher education needs to prepare itself to exist in a more open future, either by accepting that current modes of operation will increasingly provide only one version of education or by embracing openness and the implications for change entailed. In this article we look at what happens when a more open approach to learning is adopted at an institutional level. There has been a gradual increase in universities opening up the content that they provide to their learners. Drawing on the model of open-source software, where explicit permission to freely use and modify code has developed a software industry that rivals commercial approaches, a proposed

"Connexions is a dynamic digital educational ecosystem consisting of an educational content repository and a content management system optimized for the delivery of educational content. Connexions is one of the most popular open education sites in the world. Its more than 17,000 learning objects or modules in its repository and over 1000 collections (textbooks, journal articles, etc.) are used by over 2 million people per month. Its content services the educational needs of learners of all ages, in nearly every discipline, from math and science to history and English to psychology and sociology. Connexions delivers content for free over the Internet for schools, educators, students, and parents to access 24/7/365. Materials are easily downloadable to almost any mobile device for use anywhere, anytime. Schools can also order low cost hard copy sets of the materials (textbooks)."

"ClearBits provides hosting and distribution for open licensed media. We distribute high quality, open-licensed (Creative Commons) digital media, datasets, and artwork for Content Creators. We host creative content in its entirety, ensure fast, reliable downloads, and enable users to directly sponsor Content Creators and their work."

"Taking first steps in the Twitterverse can be a nerve-wrecking experience with new users unsure what thoughts to tweet to the world. Here, Paul André, Michael Bernstein and Kurt Luther attempt to fill the void and give some insights into what makes interesting and valuable microblog content." Actually doesn't give any real insights about 'academic' content - the first comment makes that point well. Perhaps the full paper is better.

Can we start to connect this with Moodle? Is it possible? "Now, all of your Google Sites content can be accessed using the Google Data protocol. That means porting over an old webpage or backing up an existing site got much easier! In fact, check out our open-source Google Sites import/export tool that does just that. So what can you do with the Google Sites API? Glad you asked! The API supports most of the functionality found in Google Sites, which includes the ability to: * Retrieve, create, modify, and delete pages and content. * Upload/download attachments. * Review the revision history across a site. * Display recent user activity."

"Now, all of your Google Sites content can be accessed using the Google Data protocol. That means porting over an old webpage or backing up an existing site got much easier! In fact, check out our open-source Google Sites import/export tool that does just that. So what can you do with the Google Sites API? Glad you asked! The API supports most of the functionality found in Google Sites, which includes the ability to: * Retrieve, create, modify, and delete pages and content. * Upload/download attachments. * Review the revision history across a site. * Display recent user activity."

Excellent piece on the changing digital landscape and what it means for content. "Look around the next time you're sat on a crowded city bus during commuting hours. Most people's headphones are now plugged into their phones. If by some chance they're not listening to music then they're reading the paper, a book, checking twitter, posing on facebook, writing an email, updating their diary or taking a photo and sticking a vintage filter on it while on their phone, or tablet, or e-reader. And they probably are listening to music while doing all the above."

Contents 1 Context 2 Improving data and research to create an evidence base 3 21st century school buildings and learning hubs 4 Training and professional development 5 Improving access to New Zealand content online 6 Development of 21st century skills 7 Equity issues 8 Improving device access 9 Ultra-Fast Broadband and the School Network Upgrade Programme 10 Network for Learning 11 Institutional arrangements for ICT and 21st century learning 12 Changes to legislation, regulation, and government agency operations 13 Minority views

"The educational thought experiment I wish to undertake concerns curriculum. Not the specific content of curriculum, but the idea of curriculum, what any curriculum is, regardless of subject. Like Copernicus, I propose that for the sake of better results we need to turn conventional wisdom on it is head:  let's see what results if we think of action, not knowledge, as the essence of an education; let's see what results from thinking of future ability, not knowledge of the past, as the core; let's see what follows, therefore, from thinking of content knowledge as neither the aim of curriculum nor the key building blocks of it but as the offshoot of learning to do things now and for the future."

A few months ago, I discovered MentorMob (MM), which allows any user to create "learning playlists" to share or open up to other fellow learners who might want to add or edit the content in the playlist. The end product is the ultimate learning tool for students, especially when the playlist is populated with high-quality content, including visual, audio and interactive elements. MM playlists make sense because they "scaffold" learning in a very visual and intuitive way. The lists are simple to make, follow, edit, co-author and collaborate. "

good 'compare and contrast' between what is just collection of digital content resources and what the 'added value' of curation of digital resources means

"This blog post provides background information on digital literacy and argues that digital literacy needs to go beyond student teaching and ensure that staff and researchers, who may wish to continue their professional activities when they leave their current institution, are able to migrate content and services to the Cloud, so that content and tools can be reused once access to institutional services is no longer available."

"OLCOS, the Open eLearning Content Observatory Services project (1/2006-12/2007) is co-funded under the European Union's eLearning Programme and aims at building an (online) information and observation centre for promoting the concept, production and usage of open educational resources, in particular, open digital educational content (ODEC) in Europe."

integrated content environment - Tool bar for word and open office that supports direct publishing to web and print - supports templates

integrated content environment - Tool bar for word and open office that supports direct publishing to web and print - supports templates - can be used in conjunction with DSpace for example.

"Here's a look at over 30 content curation tools (mostly free, but some paid/professional tools as well) that will help you cut through the clutter of your information stream to find the gems."

A Ministry of Education resource described as "Digistore is a storehouse of digital content to support learning across the curriculum, from early childhood through to senior secondary." Unfortunately it seems that you have to create an account to log-in and then resources are only available to NZ educators. Doesn't seem to sit well with the Open Govt, Open Content being espoused elsewhere in the NZ govt.

Short post with 20 ways to put content online.

YouTube doesn't have to be a place where viewers passively watch video. Free annotation tools allow content creators to provide interactive opportunities to engage content. The resulting video can be used as part of a flipped classroom model or to time-shift any kind of instruction.This video tutorial shows you exactly how to create buttons that can be placed on your video to jump forwards and backwards within the timeline.

"This paper defines and examines three generations of distance education pedagogy. Unlike earlier classifications of distance education based on the technology used..."

This paper defines and examines three generations of distance education pedagogy. Unlike earlier classifications of distance education based on the technology used, this analysis focuses on the pedagogy that defines the learning experiences encapsulated in the learning design. The three generations of cognitive-behaviourist, social constructivist, and connectivist pedagogy are examined, using the familiar community of inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) with its focus on social, cognitive, and teaching presences. Although this typology of pedagogies could also be usefully applied to campus-based education, the need for and practice of openness and explicitness in distance education content and process makes the work especially relevant to distance education designers, teachers, and developers. The article concludes that high-quality distance education exploits all three generations as determined by the learning content, context, and learning expectations.

Don't focus on content delivery, focus on quality interaction, AKA solve the correct problem.