You Own Your Learning

The restaurant metaphor used by Dennis Callahan reminds me of the graphic I made last month to illustrate the difference between formal learning, xMOOCs and cMOOCs. More...

Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers
Robert J Nemiroff, Teresa Wilson, Cornel University Library, January 3, 2014

This is a nice example of netnography (see other link, below) which employs methods that would not exist without the internet, seeking behaviours that require the internet. More...

Signs of Surrender in Public Higher Ed
John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, January 2, 2014
I write today in Half an Hour responding to a story in Inside Higher Ed called Signs of Surrender in Public Higher Ed. John Warner uses as a metaphor the 'surrender' of the press, as follows: "The rationale for Time’s move is that the magazine can now “explore new revenue opportunities,” which is code for the “native advertising” practices utilized at websites like Buzzfeed – which substitutes memes for news - and Politico - which makes no apologies for the fact that its Chief White House Correspondent engages in de facto influence peddling, as amply demonstrated by Erik Wemple at the Washington Post." Fair enough. More...

Can Pearson Solve the Rubric’s Cube?
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, January 2, 2014
Longish (7,000 words) post on Pearson Publishing's Pearson’s "startling publication" The Incomplete Guide to Delivering Learning Outcomes and their new efficacy web site. There's a lot to cover. First, Pearson has a history, and public impressions of Pearson are not good. So people have doubts when Pearson writes about the efficacy of online learning (despite the nice dovetail with Tony Bates's recent work). More...

In 2013, eBook Sales Collapsed... in My Household
Eric Hellman, Go To Hellman, January 2, 2014
Interesting. Eric Hellman observes, "Internationally, ebook sales growth was strong. Print continued its slow decline. Bookstores continued to close. But for some reason, ebook sales in the US stopped increasing. And even started declining!" I have my own suspicions as to the reasons, of course (ranging from pricing to the text-based format). More...

Lessons From the CEO Of The First Ever MOOC
Peter High, Forbes, January 1, 2014
ALISON continues its ongoing campaign to claim credit for inventing the MOOC. What the company offers, of course, are online self-paced courses, and these were available long before ALISON ever came along. But online self-paced courses are not MOOCs, and never were MOOCs. More...