MOOCs: ‘dropout’ a category mistake, look at ‘uptake’?
Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, January 17, 2013
Donald Clark is on point in this reframing of the 'dropout argument' against MOOCs: "We need to look at uptake, not dropout. It’s astonishing that MOOCs exist at all, never mind the millions, and shortly many millions, who have given them a go. Dropout is a highly pejorative term that comes from ‘schooling’. The ‘high school dropout’. More...
What Makes a MOOC Massive?
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, January 17, 2013
I've been asked this a few times recently, so I thought I should expend a few paragraphs describing the difference between online courses that are and are not 'massive'. I argue, first, that it's not the raw count of participants that's important, but how the course is structured. It's not simply a big course. Then given that caveat I go on to explain that a course needs 150 active participants to be thought of as 'massive' - this because 150 people - Dunbar's Number - is more than any one person can attend to, and hence is a course that will resist groupish properties (such as an emphasis on sameness rather than diversity).
[Link] [Comment]. More...
As California Goes?
Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, January 16, 2013
California has taken centre stage in the discussions around online learning and MOOCs in recent weeks, prompted by passage of tax increases (see more and more) to cover rising deficits in the state's higher education system. An organization called 20 Million Minds (20MM) organized a conference to discuss proposals. E-Literate provided very good coverage of the event, which was called Re:Boot California Higher education - a post listing statements made before the conference, some opening thoughts from Michael Feldstein, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's introduction, and bottleneck courses. At WCET, Phil Hill describes the state's increasing rolein the governance of the system. More...
5 Wishes for the Next Stage of Online Learning
Contact North, January 16, 2013
Interesting discussion paper from Contact North that doesn't stay with the usual observaions and recommendations typical of such papers. Surveying what was important in 2012, the author points to the arricval of MOOCs (ofcourse) but also at new approaches to credit recognition and private sector engagement. More...
Yes, You Can Make Money with Open Source
Igor Faletski, Harvard Business Review Blogs, January 16, 2013
I am constantly asked to make this case in my day job, despite overwhelming evidence in the form of Apache, MySQL, Moodle and so much more. The most recent request for 'a case' came in the morning email. Here are the ways listed in this article:
Not that I haven't mentioned all of these (and more) in the past. More...
Graph Search: Facebook and Microsoft team up to take on Google’s search dominance
Brian Jackson, ITBusiness.ca, January 16, 2013
facebook and Microsoft announced today a new 'graph search' service. "Graph Search will be the new empty field next to a magnifying glass icon that appears at the top of every Facebook Page you visit, eventually. The tool is in limited rollout to the market right now and only available to select US English users. More...
Peeragogy
Jay Cross, January 16, 2013
Jay Cross introduces a new handbook and resource guide authored by a group of people including himself and Howard Rheingold called Peeragogy. "This project seeks to empower the worldwide population of self-motivated learners who use digital media to connect with each other, to co-construct knowledge, to co-learn." It's a nice concept, and something that has been at the core of the work we have been doing here on MOOCs. More...
Toward Better Conversations
Anil Dash, A Blog About Making Culture, January 15, 2013.
They're probably getting publicity just because they're from the right circles (ie., Princeton) but the concept is sufficiently sound to pass along - with some caveats. The idea here is to build better conversation - something the web has been short on recently. What we want is a way to create and (just as importantly) manage online conversations. More...
Telling Everyone to Just Uninstall Java was a Terrible Idea
John Fontaine, , January 15, 2013.
Here's the background: Java applications were shown to be vulnerable to malware, so the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recommended that people uninstall Java from their desktop. I agree with the author that the recommendation was overkill, but only just. I generally run my browser with Java (not Javascript, which is different) turned off. More...
Unthinking Technophilia
Jennifer Cost, et. al., Inside Higher Ed, January 15, 2013.
A collection of Six community college faculty members have taken it upon themselves to denounce MOOCs on the grounds that "MOOCs are designed to impose, not improved learning, but a new business model on higher education, which opens the door for wide-scale profiteering." I thought about writing a reply, but I thought instead about this article, also in Inside Higher Ed, which states (to quote the newsletter) "Union College in Kentucky typically loses half its freshman class before the second year begins, so its new president has made students a promise: If they stay, work hard, and get involved, they won't see a bill for their last semester before graduation." And I'm thinking, who exactly are the profiteers here. More...
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