QuickWire: Pearson Offers a Badge Platform
Lawrence Biemiller, The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog, February 14, 2014
Pearson is offering a commercial version of a badge platform that support's Mozilla's backpack standard. Dows anyone care to lay odds on how long it will be before Pearson adds proprietary commercial-only elements to its badge platform, in an effort to squeeze open source badges out of the picture? Ah, but maybe I'm being too cynical. More...
U.S. Government's 'bone-headed' decision can be fixed with paperwork, official says
Donald Gilliland, Penn Live, February 14, 2014
I'm wrestling internally with myself about how much I should care about Coursera being blocked in countries like Iran, Syria and Cuba. On the one hand, it's just internal US politics, and it doesn't matter to me whether some US company is blocked by its own government from sending free videos to the rest of the world. On the other hand, it's a law that I'm told wouldn't even apply if Coursera removed the login reqauirement from its service. More...
Google Glass: Recording at Schools
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, Langwitches Blog, February 14, 2014
Eventually we'll be referring to these in generic terminology, 'wired glasses', say, but for now the technology is still called 'Google Glass' and shows no sign of a new name. More...
MOOC community?
Matthias Melcher, x28's new Blog, February 14, 2014
"Which is the 'community' of a MOOC?" asks Matthias Melcher. It's a good question. I'm pretty hesitant to use the term 'community' too loosely - it represents a lot of good things, like diversity and interaction and all that, but community also can represent bad things, like conformity, in-groups and cliques, exclusion and a narrow vision. More...
No More Snow Days?! Part 1
Amy Murin, Keeping Pace, February 14, 2014
The internet has been full of "snow days become e-learning days" over the last few days, not surprisingly. It's common for writers to try to seize on current events to draw readers to their posts. More...
Five myths about Moocs
Diana Laurillard, Times Higher Education, February 14, 2014
This came out about a month ago but according to my logs I haven't mentioned here yet, so here goes. First, let me quote Laurillard's five myths:
The essence of her criticism is that "a course format that copes with large numbers by relying on peer support and assessment is not an undergraduate education... it requires personalised guidance, which is simply not scalable in the same way."
I think we both agree that MOOCs - even cMOOCs - are not an undergraduate education. More...
The survival of Higher Education
Steve Wheeler, Learning with 'e's, February 14, 2014
Here are the links to Steve Wheeler's series on the survival of higher education:
(1): Changing Roles
(2): Changing Times
(3): The Social Web
(4): 5 Key Objectives
(5): Recommendations
The conclusion to this series is, sad to say, weepy. More...
The Other 21st Century Skills: Why Teach Them
Jackie Gerstein, User Generated Education, February 10, 2014
I've seen versions of this list previously and they bother me a little. The items are purportedly 'other' 21st century skills and include among them 'grit', 'resilience', 'self-regulation' and similar character traits. They read to me like a list of the traits poor people don't have (and which of course therefore explain why they are poor). I'm not doubting the value of such traits, but question their application in a list of "21st century skills". More...
Producing ‘innovative’ graduates and how online learning can help
Tony Bates, online learning & distance education resources, February 10, 2014
Tony Bates lists two papers on innovation and summarizes one of them (and I can't even read the other, as it's locked behind an OECD paywall - 'co-operation and development' my eye). And as he says, we should read the first one with caution, as it has a European focus and is based on the assessments of graduates rather than employers. Still. More...
Nye v. Ham: What Is ‘Science’?
Harry Keller, educational technology & change, February 10, 2014
You can probably guess where I stand on the question of creation versus evolution, so I won't go there with this post. Rather, I have one observation based on an exchange that happens a bit later on in the debate. It's this: if you have a belief in anything that nothing could or would cause you to change, then your belief is based on faith, not science. More...
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