What is the theory that underpins <em>our</em> moocs?

Jump Off the Coursera Bandwagon - Commentary By Doug Guthrie Like lemmings, too many American colleges are mindlessly rushing out to find a way to deliver online education, and more and more often they are choosing Coursera. The company, founded this year by two Stanford University computer scientists, has already enrolled more than two million students, has engaged 33 academic institutions as partners, and is offering more than 200 free massive open online courses, or MOOC's. A college's decision to jump on the Coursera bandwagon is aided—and eased—by knowing that academic heavyweights like Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are already on board. As one college president described it to The New York Times, "You're known by your partners, and this is the College of Cardinals." In our haste to join the academic alphas, many of us are forgoing the reflection necessary to enter this new medium. Coursera and its devotees simply have it wrong. The recent history of the newspaper industry is instructive.

Thoughts from a MOOC Pioneer — Academic Technology A screen capture from Scott E. Page’s MOOC. Recently Scott E. Page did a presentation at the University of Wisconsin Center for Educational Innovation where he reviewed his experience teaching his Model Thinking course twice through online course provider Coursera. (He’s had 150,000 people sign up for the course and over 3,000,000 YouTube video downloads.) The presentation runs a little more than an hour, including one embarrassing technology glitch. One of the things that makes Professor Page such an engaging commentator is that he obviously believes the world would be a much better place if more people knew how to use models to make decisions. Seven Different Methods for Sharing Knowledge In his talk, Page identifies seven different methods that he’s used to share his knowledge with a wider audience. On stage at the University of Michigan, where he teaches undergraduate courses in modeling and game theory.As an author, writing scholarly and popular books and articles. Modularity

Catalogue SUDOC George Siemens George Siemens at UNESCO conference, 2009 George Siemens is a writer, theorist, speaker, and researcher on learning, networks, technology, analytics and visualization, openness, and organizational effectiveness in digital environments.[1] He is the originator of Connectivism theory and author of the article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age and the book Knowing Knowledge - an exploration of the impact of the changed context and characteristics of knowledge. Academic activity[edit] Siemens joined the faculty and staff of The University of Texas at Arlington in December 2013 as the executive director of the Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge Research Lab or LINK Lab. The LINK Lab is scheduled to open spring 2014. Prior to Athabasca University, Siemens held a post as the Associate Director, Research and Development with the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)[edit] Notes[edit] External links[edit]

Rethinking Higher Ed Open Online Learning - US News & World Report Karen Symms Gallagher is dean of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. With the rush of pronouncements, you'd think Higher Ed 2.0 is here, all online, all the time. Brick-and-mortar and ivy are passé. Not so fast. It's worth decoding what's out there and what isn't. Professors at MIT, Stanford, and Harvard and many fine academic minds have put thousands of top-notch college courses online. [Read the U.S. Logging on to these lectures is often like watching through a one-way mirror—albeit for free and, say, with 15,000 classmates. I can't help thinking that the massive open online course explosion so far is a bigger, better delivery system of The Great Courses, which my husband and I have enjoyed for years. Some open online courses award students a certificate of participation, an academic currency without much heft in today's job market. [See the U.S. But that's not what worries me about open online courses. [Read the U.S.

Stop Polarising the MOOCs Debate Originally posted on University World News. Re-posted with permission of author. The academic conversation on MOOCs (massive open online courses) is starting to polarise in exactly the talking-past-one-another way that so many complex conversations evolve: with very smart points on either side, but not a lot of recognition that the validity of certain key points on one side does not undermine the validity of certain key points on the other. I regret this flattening of online learning into a simple binary of ‘politically and financially motivated greed’ on the one hand and ‘an opportunity to find out more about learning’ on the other. Some of both in different situations can be true. It's always hard to be able to hold two complex and even contradictory ideas in one's mind at once but, well, that's life. The rhetoric of so many articles seemed to be "is higher education really worth it?" Enter MOOCs Enter massive open online courses: MOOCs. That process began long before MOOCs existed.

HEP VAUD | DAS Accompagnement individuel et collectif: coaching et analyse de pratiques professionnelles - DAS: Diploma of advanced studies - Offre de formations postgrades - Formations postgrades - Offre de formation de la HEP Vaud - Formation La formation vise à développer les compétences en accompagnement et en animation de groupe d’analyse de pratiques professionnelles chez des professionnels, internes ou externes à une organisation, assurant une fonction d’aide, de soutien, d’encadrement, de gestion de projet à destination d’individus, de groupes ou de l’organisation. Elle conduit les participantes et participants à: concevoir et réguler leur pratique d’accompagnement individuel ou de collectif animer un dispositif de groupe d’analyse de pratiques professionnelles (APP) prendre en compte les aspects du contexte organisationnel dans lequel s’inscrit l’accompagnement mettre en œuvre des compétences relationnelles d’accompagnement réfléchir et évaluer leur pratique et développer leurs compétences Public cible et conditions d'admission Pour accéder à la formation, les candidats ou candidates doivent répondre aux conditions suivantes: Renseignements auprès du conseiller aux études:

Size Isn't Everything - The Chronicle Review By Cathy N. Davidson James Yang for The Chronicle Review My reading material to and from London recently for the annual open-source programming event known as Mozfest, or the Mozilla Festival, included two glossy magazines focusing on the future of education: the November 19 cover story in Forbes and the entire November issue of Wired UK, an offshoot of the American magazine. Should educators be delighted by this unexpected attention—or very, very worried? A little of both. Let's look at Wired UK first. Featured are both Negroponte 1.0, the editorial that launched Wired in 1993, and the new Negroponte 2.0. Given that such 20/20 foresight is rare, it is worth paying attention to Negroponte 2.0. He also still maintains a position he stated long ago: "Computers are not about computing, but everyday life." If you are a traditional educator, you should be scared. So what's different in 2.0? "Educational reform" is also on the lips of many college presidents and policy makers these days.

Through the Open Door: Open Courses as Research, Learning, and Engagement (EDUCAUSE Review © 2010 Dave Cormier and George Siemens. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License ( EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 4 (July/August 2010): 30-39 Dave Cormier (dave@edactive.ca) is a web projects lead at the University of Prince Edward Island, cofounder of Edtechtalk, and president of Edactive Technologies, a social software consulting firm. Comments on this article can be posted to the web via the link at the bottom of this page. Let attention be paid not to the matter, but to the shape I give it. — Montaigne Over the last decade, as educators have increasingly experimented with social technologies and interactive pedagogies, the concept of a "course" has been significantly challenged. The numerous high-profile open courseware initiatives from elite universities suggest that content itself is not a sufficient value point on which to build the future of higher education. Openness as Transparent Practice MOOCs