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With advancing online tools innovative educators are examining new ways to break out of this one-to-many model of education, through a concept called massively open online courses. The idea is to use open-source learning tools to make courses transparent and open to all, harnessing the knowledge of anyone who is interested in a topic.

The course management system (CMS) reinforces the status quo and hinders substantial teaching and learning innovation in higher education. It does so by imposing artificial time limits on learner access to course content and other learners, privileging the role of the instructor at the expense of the learner, and limiting the power of the network effect in the learning process. The open learning network (OLN)-a hybrid of 1 the CMS and the personal learning environment (PLE)-is proposed as an alternative learning technology environment with the potential to leverage the affordances of the Web to dramatically improve learning.

Open Educational Resources abbreviated as OER, are openly formatted and licensed documents and media accessed on the Web that are useful for teaching, learning, education, assessment and research that anyone can openly use and reuse, without charge.

A slideshow about open educational resources and what that means.

Massive Open Online Course -- still intend to do something of this nature for the final year of our QEP program 2012-2013.

Siemens' thoughts about the impact of open courses on learning and the Academy.

Open source textbooks for K12.

At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.

Although there has been a long history of distance education, the creation of online education occurred just over a decade and a half ago-a relatively short time in academic terms. Early course delivery via the web had started by 1994, soon followed by a more structured approach using the new category of course management systems.1 Since that time, online education has slowly but steadily grown in popularity, to the point that in the fall of 2010, almost one-third of U.S. postsecondary students were taking at least one course online.2 Fast forward to 2012: a new concept called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is generating widespread interest in higher education circles. Most significantly, it has opened up strategic discussions in higher education cabinets and boardrooms about online education. Stanford, MIT, Harvard, the University of California-Berkeley, and others have thrown their support-in terms of investment, resources, and presidential backing-behind the transformative power of MOOCs and online education. National media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and The Atlantic are touting what David Brooks has called "the campus tsunami" of online education.

E-learning has been around for ten years or so. During that time, it has emerged from being a radical idea-the effectiveness of which was yet to be proven-to something that is widely regarded as mainstream. And now, e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it's changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0.

Clearly, the platforms and devices becoming available are more flexible, more powerful, more portable, and more user-friendly. 24x7 access to content makes mLearning more convenient and valuable. New communication channels open up new opportunities to connect with coworkers and experts, anytime and anywhere. And the use of cloud computing makes virtually limitless amounts of content instantly available to virtually limitless numbers of users.

Please note this post and its comments (Downes' is a good blog to follow, too, btw). This is a "line" with which we are familiar--private vs. public student writing. Are we prepared to argue in support of "the wild, wide open"? Should we be appeasers and give our faculty the choice? *Let's discuss as a workshop topic.*

I'm delighted to report that our efforts to grow Writing Commons like an academic journal have worked out really well.  We've reviewed over 75 new webtexts, and we are in the process of publishing some excellent free resources for college students.  Perhaps the most exciting result is that traffic is really blowing up!  Since February of this year, 105,532 unique visitors have accessed Writing Commons.

Colleges and professors have rushed to try a new form of online teaching known as MOOCs-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 MOOCs.

In what could be a major step toward bridging the gap between massive open online courses and the credentialing system that they are supposed to "disrupt," the American Council on Education on Thursday endorsed five MOOCs for credit.

Shimon Schocken and Noam Nisan developed a curriculum for their students to build a computer, piece by piece. When they put the course online -- giving away the tools, simulators, chip specifications and other building blocks -- they were surprised that thousands jumped at the opportunity to learn, working independently as well as organizing their own classes in the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). A call to forget about grades and tap into the self-motivation to learn.

Sounds like MOOCs have a bright future and are here to stay!!

Three weeks ago I added another layer to our digital writing workshop:  I introduced students to Google Docs, and with it learned the power and potential of yet another space that again is changing writing instruction as I know it.

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education.

An introduction to massive, open, online courses (MOOC) by EDUCAUSE.