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The lessons learned at Vanderbilt are consistent with lessons learned in other MOOCs offered elsewhere. The lessons include, briefly: Teaching online is a team effort. There's more to MOOCs than lecture videos. Open content is our friend The cognitive diversity seen in MOOCs is far greater than in closed courses MOOC students are well-motivated students Cognitive Diversity + Intrinsic Motivations = Crowdsourcing Success MOOC students can be producers as well as consumers of information Accommodating students on different time tables can be challenging Instructor presence is important, even in a MOOC Good stuff; good article.

Sync.in is a web based word processor for people to collaborate in real-time

"At Stanford, we envision the iPhone as having a profound potential to break barriers in the way we provide information and services to students - in how they converse with the institution, their curriculum, the faculty, and each other. With an enduring entrepreneurial, innovative, and technological leadership, those same qualities that helped shape Silicon Valley, Stanford is in a unique position to chart yet another new course, this time using the iPhone. "

"Is education responding fast enough? How many teachers out there are aware of impending change and its impact on the way we do things?"

Instructor Time and Effort in Online and Face-to-Face Teaching: Lessons Learned.

"Picture Australia is an Internet based service that allows you to search many significant online pictorial collections at the same time. When you do a search on Picture Australia, thumbnail images are retrieved from participating institutions on the fly and inserted into the search results."

This paper presents an investigation into how students studying at university engage actively with learning technology in their self-directed study time. The case study surveyed 250 students studying at undergraduate and postgraduate level from a purposive sample of departments within one institution. The study has also conducted focus groups and a number of in-depth follow-up interviews with respondents to the survey. In this article we explore three emerging aspects of the learning experience, namely student expectations of the technology, their lecturers' engagement with technology and how the technology might support processes of transition in higher education. One key implication is that more academic guidance is needed on what and how to use the technology effectively for independent learning, even where ICT skills levels are high. The study also identifies the significant role that the lecturer plays in facilitating students' use of technology. The findings of this study will be of interest to those working to incorporate learning technologies more effectively in higher education, in particular for those who are looking to improve the engagement of students in self-directed learning.

EtherPad - web-based word processor that allows people to work together in really real-time. Create your own URL's to documents. Permanent, undo versions stored. Text based (not RTF yet)

When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone's screen. The result is a new and productive way to collaborate on text documents, useful for meeting notes, drafting sessions, education, team programming, and more.

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience." ― John Dewey These words by John Dewey point to a truth about learning that is often forgotten. Experience alone is not sufficient for true learning to occur; reflection is an essential part of the process and our failure to include time for this is why our learning often does not stick.

Identifying what our children need to learn is one of the most important processes within education. For the teacher this is the question they engage with as they design their teaching and learning units. By no means is this an easy task and the teacher must balance multiple factors to ensure that the programmes they design provide their students with the learning they require. Even the most effective sequence of lessons is of little value if what it sets out to teach has little importance in the lives our learners are likely to lead. 

Being wise is about so much more than knowing the right answer. Indeed, it can be argued that knowing the right answer can be an obstacle to learning and understanding. As we move further into times where knowledge is ubiquitous and yet truth is increasingly hard to find, merely knowing the right answer can be an impediment.