Formation Continue du Supérieur

The project Ed2.0Work (European network for the integration of Web2.0 in education and work) is inviting stakeholders to join its recently created Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Stakeholders include education administrators, teachers and university staff. From the world of work, the project welcomes the participation of companies, chambers of commerce, trainers, associations and government staff.
Three SIGs have already been opened, in order to encourage debate around:

By Jenny Mackness. With the rise of MOOCs there has been much speculation about the meaning of ‘open’, particularly with respect to the Higher Education business model.  It is clear that ‘open’ can be interpreted in a number of different ways.
In relation to MOOCs the term ‘open’ relates principally to open access, i.e. anyone can attend – there are no entry requirements. This could apply to face-to-face courses, as when University lecturers welcome members of the public to attend their lectures, and to online courses, where anyone with an internet connection and the appropriate technology can attend the course.
‘Open’ is also often associated with ‘free’, as in open resources on the web which can be freely downloaded and according to the creative commons license can be ‘customised’ to suit the user’s purposes. Read more...

On April 18, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals the nuts and bolts behind Apple's Virtual University known as iTunes U. Apple's invention is about systems, methods, and computer program products for accessing e-learning courses from an online resource. Particular implementations of the e-learning application disclosed, provide one or more of the following advantages: The e-learning application provides simple and intuitive GUIs that allow students to browse, select, enroll and interact with online courses, including facilitating data input by the student, giving the student better manual control to navigate the course and providing the student with better visual feedback for interacting with the course.
Apple's Patent Background
Web-based instruction (WBI) is a network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge using computer applications and processes. Online education courses delivered through a network (e.g., the Internet, intranet/extranet) can be self-paced or led by an instructor, and include various types of media, such as text, images, animation, streaming video and audio. Content for WBI can be developed by instructors using content authoring applications and delivered to students over the network. Apple's patent application is all about iTunes U. Interestingly this patent is dated October 2011 even though the program has been out longer. Read more...

By Matthew Johnson. To teach students to be media literate, they -- and their teachers -- need to be able to critically engage with media. That may seem obvious, but until last year teachers' ability to use media texts in the classroom was extremely limited by the Copyright Act. Thanks to the expansion of the Fair Dealing exemption, fortunately, teachers and students are now able to use media in much more meaningful ways.
Fair Dealing is the legal right that Canadians have to use copyrighted material without getting permission from the copyright holder. Under the old Copyright Act, only a very narrow range of uses were considered Fair Dealing, and teachers were only able to use media in very limited ways. In particular, many activities key to media education -- selecting and compiling clips, creating annotated texts, assembling clips or images to build an argument -- were not allowed. Read more...

By Ellis Booker. Pearson, the world's largest educational publisher, recognized older students as online learning harbinger. Schools aren't the only ones grappling with big questions about online learning, flipped classrooms, assessment analytics and open-source alternatives to commercial products. Traditional publishers are making changes, too.
Pearson, the world's largest education publisher, was early to embrace the digital future, according to observers. The company says more than half of its revenues last year came from digital products and service.
Pearson is composed of its global education group of Pearson International, Pearson North America, and Professional; the Financial Times Group, publisher of the Financial Times newspaper and other specialty editorial and research products; and the Penguin Group, an international consumer publisher. Penguin is being merged with Bertelsmann's Random House to create the world's biggest trade book publisher, Penguin Random House, under a joint venture. Read more...

By Alicia Mitchell. More than meets the eye: In conversation with Mark Kaigwa. Mark Kaigwa is a digital strategist, consultant, speaker, writer and self-proclaimed ”power networker.” Nairobi-based Mark makes it his business to keep absolutely up to date with the developments of the technology and communications sectors and uses his expert knowledge to help businesses, start-ups and non-profits to launch into the thrilling environment of African entrepreneurialism. Ahead of his keynote speech at eLearning Africa 2013, we interrupted his busy schedule to get some insider tips from the very heart of Kenya’s thriving technology scene. Read more...

By Donald Clark. What are MOOCs?
“The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed” said William Gibson, that is certainly true of MOOCs. We have MOOC mania but ‘all MOOCs are not created equal’ and there’s lots of species of MOOC. This is good and we must learn from these experiments to move forward and not get bogged down in old traditionalist v modernist arguments. MOOCs will inform and shape what we do within and without institutions. What is important is to focus on the real needs of real learners.
miniMOOCSs. Read more...

By Darren E. Draper. Stephen discusses a "great rebranding" that is apparently taking place with regard to the concept of MOOCs:
MOOCs were not designed to serve the missions of the elite colleges and universities. They were designed to undermine them, and make those missions obsolete. Yes there has been a great rebranding and co-option of the concept of the MOOC over the last couple of years. The near-instant response from the elites, almost unprecedented in my experience, is a recognition of the deeply subversive intent and design of the original MOOCs (which they would like very much to erase from history).
David responds:
Don’t mistake lust for fame with forethought. The current mania around MOOCs has nothing to do with strategic neutralization of a potential threat to higher education’s business model and everything to do with needing to be in the New York Times. Assuming the prior gives way too much credit where it isn’t due – twice. First, to the leadership of schools who have jumped speedily on the MOOC bandwagon. And second, to the creators of the MOOC approach who by implication have supposedly devised a method so brilliant as to be capable of destroying formal higher education (which, apparently, is to be lauded).
My take:
When David organized what was once called the first "proto-MOOC" at USU back in 2007, I remember thinking how cool it would be to participate in a course with fellow students from around the world.* I did not enroll, but chose instead to follow David's lead. Therefore, because I too wanted to test the boundaries of what might be accomplished using modern networking technologies, Robin Ellis and I offered to provide an after-school professional development course on Social Software in the Classroom to every interested person on the planet. Read more...