By Doug Johnson. So I need to carefully consider how much my own transilliteracy impacts my answer to this month's ISTE Leading & Learning Point/Counterpoint question: "Should transliteracy replace language arts?" Is "language arts ... due for an update to encompass literacy in all the media that students must navigate in our mediacentric society" is the wicked question. Not being transliterate myself, I have a difficult time determining if traditional print literacy is a prerequisite to other literacies. Do I need to be able to write well if I am going created a quality video, for example? My approach to creating a video would be to write a script first, so I would consider traditional literacy foundational to transliteracy. But that's me. Read more...

By Joey Fitzpatrick. How the new credo for community-engaged research is making a difference both in communities and at universities. Emergency youth shelters serve a vital purpose, providing sanctuary to young people in crisis. Staff at these shelters are all too familiar with “revolving door syndrome,” in which the same vulnerable young people cycle through the social service network. Ideally, a person stays in a shelter temporarily before finding a suitable housing solution. But in most cases, the supports are not in place for that to happen. It’s a problem with no easy solution. The problem of revolving door syndrome was not specifically on her mind when Naomi Nichols began her doctoral studies at York University’s faculty of education in 2006. But she did have a clear vision of the direction of her research. “I knew I wanted to work in the area of service provision for marginalized youth, and was thinking about a participatory-activist research project with young people.”
Dr. Nichols (she now has her PhD) had just returned to Peterborough, the city where she was raised, and a mutual friend introduced her to Walter Johnstone, executive director of the city’s Youth Emergency Shelter. “We chatted, and saw some real lines of convergence between what he wanted to do at the shelter and what I was proposing.” Read more...

By suifaijohnmak. Is commercialization in conflict with the 4Rs (reuse, revise, redistribute, and remix)? Most commercialized courses (MOOCs inclusive) require certain restrictions to access (may be for a free taster course that would be followed by the “main course” offered with a fee for service). So, what may be defined as open and free is limited under those programs, and that could contradict with the 4Rs, especially with the free to re-use, redistribute or to remix, as these are forbidden. Openness is at the heart of MOOCs, only that it may be semi-open, as a participant could enter the open door (register for free) with a MOOC, and use it personally, without any alteration of the course content. In those MOOCs, there is no remix, re-sending out of part or all of the resources allowed. Read more...

By Robert Meister. An Open Letter to Daphne Koller
Co-Founder and Co-President of Coursera and
Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University
Dear Professor Koller,
Because I share your vision of creating a world in which all have access to an excellent and empowering education, I would like to propose a new online course for you to make freely available through the Coursera platform. Its title is “The Implications of Coursera’s For-Profit Business Model for Global Public Education.”
You and your company’s compelling pitch to consumers suggests that the private sector—that is, venture capitalists and not taxpayers—can deliver a more equal world in which income will be based on the skills and knowledge people actually acquire rather than the unnecessarily-scarce credentials for which they are eligible and can afford to pay. It is natural to hope that in this more equal and  more productive world, incomes could rise for everyone willing to acquire the necessary academic knowledge and take the tests to prove it. This, in fact, was exactly what was promised by the original California Master Plan for Higher Education, using taxpayers’ money, when it was adopted, in 1960. Read more...