By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The past 50 minutes I have been blown out of my mind with this 74 pages slide deck "Personal learning in a Networked world" symbolizing the synopsis of a keynote Stephen Downes gave at the London School of Economics yesterday. In some cases Stephen rehashes slides from previous talks, but in this case all the slides seemed so new in their relating to one another, so connected in that they visualized an interdisciplinary, holistic picture of new learning opportunities, new data and computer ownership issues, looking at all people (not just students), and contemplating economic impact with autonomous ownership linked with cooperation. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. In the next couple of weeks I want to gather the next #eMOOC2015 group of MOOC colleagues (in the broad sense) that will help me and my fellow chair Nathalie Schiffino in assembling the committee for the eMOOC2015 experience track. Both Nathalie and me are the chairs for the experience track.
When will it take place: 18 - 19 - 20 May 2015. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. As the New Media Consortium report is out looking at the upcoming trends for k12 and online learning, I was pleasantly surprised by the emerging combinations which clearly embrace new educational technologies and student-centered focus.
The almost 50 pages report is a source of interest for any teacher, school, or elearning expert. It provides a nice overview of new options and trends for young students, as well as interesting assumptions. One of the assumptions is: mobile acceptance in schools, teacher proficiency in a variety of digital skills, and even the contemporary classroom (filled with ICT and edtech options). This is the ideal setting and for many schools not (yet) achievable. Nevertheless the points raised in the report are interesting.
For those with little time a quick read through the 9 page preview report will already raise interest, but for those having more time, I do recommend reading the full report as it narrates not only what is to come, but also why the authors of the report think so, and what importance it can have. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The quest to provide research based evidence to upgrade or at least hold on to older employees, and build a rationale to keep them in corporations based on their expertise and knowledge. EU, US, Canadian statistics are clear, we have an aging population and there is a need to keep employees at work, in meaningful work based on their expertise and knowledge.
It is a marginal option that I can chose to work on after my PhD is finalized (yes, still a lot to do, but ... reflection is a nice pastime). It feels like an interesting professional research and knowledge niche. So this subject is just something that sits in the back of my mind as I work on my heutagogy-MOOC-online learning based PhD topic, for I see a future in MOOCs or by that time enhanced, global online learning - for older, lifelong learners, including employees.
While looking for a solid research definition of 'learning episode' I came across a FREE, online book from 1971 by Allen Tough entitled 'The Adult's Learning Projects: a fresh approach to theory and practice in adult learning'. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Finally the inspirational and informative report of Massive Open Online Courses for Development (MOOC4D) is published by the Penn University, and it can be downloaded here (link I got at first was not working, so added a new indirect link. Once I have retrieved the official link I will put that one in). The panel discussions are also available online here. The conference on MOOC4D was held in April 2014 and it focused on the challenges and potentials of MOOCs in developing countries. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. How many MOOCs focus on building peace? It seems not too many, yet we all need it. So… this blog rolled out of my keyboard. With social media, networks and connected communities… this is no longer the case. No matter how hard I try I cannot keep war and conflict out of my mind’s eye. It is there, and it provides me with tons of anxiety for I myself feel helpless while watching the world stage as it is alight with anger and grief across multiple regions. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The Maseltov project on mobile incidental learning services to support language learning and the social inclusion of recent immigrants was presented by Mark Gaved  .
Particularly interested in lower education people, which has an effect on employability and all the other challenges faced by immigrants moving from their original country to other countries.
Maseltov project site: http://www.maseltov.eu/project/
Incidental learning is described as “… unintentional or unplanned learning that results from other activities”. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Thanks to my new contact Vivienne Bozalek from UWC, I got redirected to ROER4D (Open Educational Resources for the Global South or for development). She shared an interesting talk with Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. And as I was listening to this 30 minute talk, another OER movie caught my attention: Using OER for workforce development which was presented by Una Daly from the Open CourseWare Consortium. Which led to the OER use in an open course, which is (among others) done and shared by the Tompkins Courtland Community College through the Kaleidoscope project. This in term reminded my of a talk given by Stephen Downes on the MOOC of one, which in a small (but to me relevant way) links OER to personal learning environments. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. The new Udacity and AT&T initiative rolling out nanodegrees for people who follow specific MOOC or online courses in general has a logical and nice ring to it. The idea is simple: for all learners following a course successfully (= as indicated by the institute/corporation designing the course and its interactions/assignments/tasks), a nanodegree can be earned that illustrate immediate job skills and knowledge. This earning does cost: 200 $ per month (courses on average 6 - 12 months), but it is much cheaper then a college degree. As such Udacity goes for the corporate MOOC creation which (in part) addresses training people for specific jobs through MOOC. Smart move of course from Udacity to corner the more entrepreneurial need job/training market. And although other MOOC providers, such as Coursera do have similar tracks (i.e. specializations), Udacity seems to be a fore runner for this type of MOOCs. Read more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. With all the changes that are happening in education (more online, more access for many students) the concept of the flipped classroom has gained a lot of attention, and it attracted a lot of researchers investigating its benefits and challenges. In the last CALRG conference, I saw a presentation of one of the prolific researchers on flipped classrooms in the UK (Beatriz de-los-arcos) who was mentioning a flipped classroom conference that is happening next week. Read more...