The March of the MOOCs: Monstrous Open Online Courses | Open Education MOOCs are a red herring. The MOOC didn’t appear last week, out of a void, vacuum-packed. The MOOC has been around for years, biding its time. Still, the recent furor about MOOCs, which some have called “hysteria,” opens important questions about higher education, digital pedagogy, and online learning. MOOCs are like books, good when they’re good and bad when they’re bad. Content and learning are two separate things, often at odds with one another. Too many people are drinking the MOOC Kool-aid (or dumping it out hastily) when what we need to do is look closely at the Kool-aid to see what we can learn from it. “Massive”: What happens if we take the “Massive” out of “Massive Open Online Course”? “Open”: The first “O” in “MOOC” has been dangerously misread. “Online”: The second “O” in “MOOC” is a misnomer. “Course”: Education of this sort can’t be contained tidily inside of a close-walled “course.” Learning, for Emerson, is emergent and copulative not parthenogenetic.
40 Most Awesome iPad Apps for Science Students | Best Colleges Online Posted on Wednesday June 15, 2011 by Staff Writers The iPad has found its way into hospitals, retail stores and homes across the nation, but it’s also making a big splash in the classroom, even with some of the best online colleges. With a great selection of apps focused on everything from word processing to keeping in touch with classmates, the tablet computer can be an invaluable tool for learning — no matter your age. Chemistry Get beautiful photographs of the elements or explore what happens when you design your own molecules using these great iPad apps. The Elements: A Visual Exploration: One of the most celebrated apps on the iPad, this periodic table is much more than a list. Biology The iPad has been a hit with many in the medical profession, so it’s no surprise that there are loads of apps like these that can help students learn more about the biology behind it all. Astronomy Many of the apps that have best showcased the power of the iPad are astronomy apps. Reference Tools
Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility | Daniel Fellow - Korea National Open University Education Master - DeTao Masters Academy, China sirjohn.ca During my time as a Fellow at the Korea National Open University (KNOU) in September 2012 media and web coverage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) was intense. Since one of the requirements of the fellowship was a research paper, exploring the phenomenon of MOOCs seemed an appropriate topic. This essay had to be submitted to KNOU on 25 September 2012 but the MOOCs story is still evolving rapidly. I shall continue to follow it. 'What is new is not true, and what is true is not new'. This paper is published by JIME following its first release as a paper produced as part of a fellowship at the Korea National Open University (KNOU). Abstract: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are the educational buzzword of 2012. Keywords: MOOCs, open, openness, educational technology Introduction MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are the educational buzzword of 2012. Methodological note What is a MOOC?
Learning Analytics: Ascilite 2011 Keynote Learning Analytics: Dream, Nightmare, or Fairydust? From today’s keynote at Ascilite 2011, here’s the podcast plus the slides. I am grateful to Gary, Renee and everyone else at Ascilite for their understanding and flexibility, since after months of planning this trip, unfortunately I could not be there in person after my father passed away last weekend. For those of you who like to download and watch offline: podcast [Hi-Res version: 93.3Mb] + slides [PPTX/PDF] For detailed descriptions of work presented here, see other posts tagged learning analytics and the references below. Abstract Pervasive digital technology is weaving a fabric around our lives which makes it increasingly hard not to leave digital traces. One answer is it’s time to upgrade our computing kit. Then there are those of a more cautious nature. Analytics may in time come to be used to judge you — as a learner, an educator, or your institution. Are you thinking Dream, Nightmare, or Fairydust? Biography Key refs:
The race to platform education Across the full spectrum of education – primary, secondary, and higher – we are witnessing a race to develop platforms for content, learning, teaching, and evaluation. As liberating as the web is, tremendous centralization of control is occurring in numerous spaces: Google in search/advertising/Android, Amazon in books/cloud computing, Facebook in social networks, etc. I use a smaller range of tools today than I did five years ago. This post/rant on life at Amazon and Google, from the perspective of an employee (programmer?) Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product. In education, we don’t yet have that platform that enables/allows “other people to do the work”. When I was at the Strata conference in February, I was surprised at who wasn’t there in any substantial way – Yahoo, Google, Microsoft (they did present on Azure, but their presence was minimal).
Khan Academy Inside a MOOC: Coursera class offers peek into determination of student body By Mike Cassidy, Mercury News With the class still in the early going I was about a week behind on my assignments, nearly flunking my first quiz and seriously contemplating dropping the class. So much for the old college try.But two things made me stick with it (at least up until now, with two more weeks to go) — My Coursera class called “Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies” comes with a promise: If I can finish the course work and score at least 70 percent on my assignments, I’ll receive a statement of accomplishment. I want that statement. But more important than that, were the classmates I’ve encountered.
UK Universities go virtual: Bricks to online learning clicks By Matt Lee, BBC News How university students do their studies has changed significantly in recent years with the growth in online learning. Instead of physically attending lectures or going to the library, they can download lesson plans and lecture notes to their laptop, have a Skype conversation with a lecturer and submit work online. With more universities now offering e-learning and MOOCs (massive open online courses) is there now a need for them to still have classrooms and a campus? Grant helps Idaho schools plug into online learning classes By TODD DVORAK, Associated Press Thousands of Idaho students in public, private and charter schools big and small next fall will be able to log into math, physics and history classes provided by the Khan Academy, a growing content provider focused on making free education available to anyone, anywhere. With $1.5 million in startup money from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation, Khan Academy content will be provided in 47 schools, making Idaho the nation’s first proving ground for a statewide implementation of the academy’s free educational content and teaching model.
Motives for Lifelong Learners to Choose Web-based Courses by Ron Mahieu, et. al.; EURODL Due to societal changes there is a growing need for distant and adult learning. The reason to participate in education and the choices that students make may differ.