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Major Players in the MOOC Universe - The Digital Campus 2013

Major Players in the MOOC Universe - The Digital Campus 2013

About OCW Sites qui recensent les entreprises sociales en Reviewing Christensen’s Disruptive Technologies (Harvard Business Review, 1995) in MOOC Terms One of the common citations in xMOOC artifacts and discussion is the idea of xMOOC as a disruptive technology. The concept, developed by Harvard Business professor Clayton Christensen, is tossed into discussion as if it’s vital reading I should already know…none of the authors do more than give a cursory definition to the concept in abstract fashion rather than concrete, and in all of the articles I have read, I don’t see consensus on the definition. This makes me think several possibilities: 1) this is a concept so integral to this field that I should know all about it and am an idiot for not having a foundational knowledge, or 2) this is a concept not fully understood but thrown out there in a way that sounds erudite but lacks foundation. I think it’s a mix of both. I realize my first introduction to this topic was in a Leadership course during my doctoral work. Like this: Like Loading...

Très chers MOOCs... 15, 50, 100 000 dollars ? Combien coûte un MOOC académique, exactement ? "Exactement" est peut-être un bien grand mot. Mais peut-on avoir une idée du prix des cours en ligne offerts gratuitement à des dizaines de milliers d'étudiants par les universités ? Après un premier temps d'enthousiasme et de discours messianiques affirmant que la terre promise de l'accès universel et gratuit à l'enseignement supérieur était à portée de main, les universités commencent à faire leurs comptes, et les plus connues des plateformes de MOOC aussi. Des centaines d'heures de travail qu'il faudra bien rémunérer Intéressons-nous d'abord aux universités : combien leur coûte la réalisation d'un MOOC ? Bien sûr, que le coût de ce temps doit être pris en compte ! Une centaine d'heures de préparation : les différentes estimations se rejoignent sur cette stimation du temps à consacrer par l'enseignant à la préparation d'un MOOC académique. Après le temps de la conception, vient le temps de l'animation. Références :

I’m Thinking. Please. Be Quiet. His argument against noise was simple: A great mind can have great thoughts only if all its powers of concentration are brought to bear on one subject, in the same way that a concave mirror focuses light on one point. Just as a mighty army becomes useless if its soldiers are scattered helter-skelter, a great mind becomes ordinary the moment its energies are dispersed. And nothing disrupts thought the way noise does, Schopenhauer declared, adding that even people who are not philosophers lose whatever ideas their brains can carry in consequence of brutish jolts of sound. From the vantage point of our own auditory world, with its jets, jackhammers, HVAC systems, truck traffic, cellphones, horns, decibel-bloated restaurants and gyms on acoustical steroids, Schopenhauer’s mid-19th century complaints sound almost quaint. Schopenhauer made a kind of plea for mono-tasking. Mammalian hearing developed primarily as an animal-detector system — and it was crucial to hear every rustle from afar.

Equal Opportunity Schools MOOCs: The cutting announcement of the wrong revolution | betrokken wetenschap A litany of recent complaints shows that something is wrong with higher education: Cost are rising with 10% every year (US), content has lost track with the explosive development of new knowledge, alumni’s competences do not match with the requirements of the labour market, teachers deliver lectures in the same way as their predecessors did for centuries, revenues for society are unclear. 40% of all students are leaving without a grade. Universities are inside looking, fixed at ratings, complacent and self-confident and consequently do not consider any reason for change. According to Christensen[1], universities are on the eve of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation is the fast acceptance by the public of affordable new products and services, which were disregarded by established companies and are mostly offered by new entrants. Less than one year ago, the first MOOCs (massive online open course) were launched. However, this is the wrong revolution. Learning processes

"Travailler en français", le premier MOOC de FLE Récemment, nous posions la question suivante : pourquoi y a t-il si peu de MOOCs pour apprendre les langues ? Les réponses apportées dans l'article restent pertinentes, mais pour combien de temps ? Car voilà qu'apparaissent les premières initiatives dûment annoncées comme "MOOCs pour apprendre une langue étrangère". L'une d'elles nous concerne directement : le premier MOOC de FLE (français langue étrangère) commencera le 15 janvier 2014. "Travailler en français" se présente comme un MOOC qui "a pour objectif de vous aider à acquérir des connaissances et des savoir-faire en français pour rechercher un emploi en France ou dans un pays francophone". Il est accessible aux apprenants de niveau B1 selon le cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues, soit la majorité des personnes ayant étudié le français comme langue étrangère lors de leurs études secondaires. Le MOOC se déroulera sur 5 semaines, jusqu'au 26 février 2014. Vous avez envie de participer à cette aventure ?

Google crunches data on munching in office So in what could be called Project M&M, a special ops force of behavioral science PhDs conducted surveys of snacking patterns, collected data on the proximity of M&M bins to any given employee, consulted academic papers on food psychology, and launched an experiment. What if the company kept the chocolates hidden in opaque containers but prominently displayed dried figs, pistachios and other healthful snacks in glass jars? The results: In the New York office alone, employees consumed 3.1 million fewer calories from M&Ms over seven weeks. That’s a decrease of nine vending machine-size packages of M&Ms for each of the office’s 2,000 employees. The titan of Internet data is taking its own medicine, using the data analysis that has helped the company produce $55 billion in revenue each year to improve the morale and productivity of its 40,000 employees. But the Mountain View, Calif., firm often ranks high on best places to work surveys by Fortune magazine and other business publications.

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