Helping MOOC students navigate open educational resources — from ecampusnews.com by Jake New

Excerpt:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has partnered with Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc., to begin addressing the problem with a new platform they call Guided Learning Pathways. The project’s team is currently exploring ways to introduce the platform into the MOOC systems of edX.

Announced June 17 at the Sixth Conference of MIT’s Learning International Networks Consortium but in the works since 2010, the platform allows students to access and organize free, high quality learning materials from all over the internet based on the student’s interest and level of understanding.

MOOC Monitor: European Union unveils its own MOOC Consortium…OpenUpEd — from wiredacademic.com

Excerpt:

As we reported a year ago, the European Union wants to get in to the MOOC game and is doing so now with a dozen partners at colleges throughout Europe in its new OpenUpEd MOOC platform. Partners in 11 different countries (France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey and Israel) joined forces to launch the first pan-European MOOCs initiative with the European Commission backing it. This is a great development for MOOCs globally.

The EU is busy at work, creating transferability and standardization at universities throughout the 27 member countries as part of the Bologna Process. It’s a smart move for the EU to include universities in Turkey and Israel in this consortium as it shows a broader reach to bring European neighbors, friends and NATO members to the table.

Open learning pioneer heads west  — from insidehighered.com by Doug Lederman

Excerpt:

Since long before the advent of massive open online courses, Candace Thille’s project to fuse learning science with open educational delivery, developed at Carnegie Mellon University, has been heralded as one of higher education’s most significant and promising developments.

Friday, Thille essentially launched stage two of her research-based effort to expand the reach and improve the quality of technology-enabled education, with word that she (and at least part of her Open Learning Initiative) would move to Stanford University.

Thille and Stanford officials alike believe that by merging her experience in building high-quality, data-driven, open online courses with Stanford’s expertise in research on teaching and learning – notably its focus on how different types of students learn in differing environments – the university can become a center of research and practice in the efficacy of digital education.

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Scientific articles accepted (personal checks, too) — from the nytimes.com by Gina Kolata

Excerpt:

The scientists who were recruited to appear at a conference called Entomology-2013 thought they had been selected to make a presentation to the leading professional association of scientists who study insects.

But they found out the hard way that they were wrong. The prestigious, academically sanctioned conference they had in mind has a slightly different name: Entomology 2013 (without the hyphen). The one they had signed up for featured speakers who were recruited by e-mail, not vetted by leading academics. Those who agreed to appear were later charged a hefty fee for the privilege, and pretty much anyone who paid got a spot on the podium that could be used to pad a résumé.

 

Excerpt of some recommendations/suggestions from Mr. Steve McMullen, Assistant Professor of Economics, Calvin College:

  1. Only publish in journals that you know are legitimate and long standing.
  2. Only go to conferences hosted by an institution or association that you respect.

These two rules immediately rule out all the suspect journals and conferences, but they do so by granting power to the traditional gatekeepers. I recognize that if everyone behaves this way, it might be difficult for the open-access movement, which is sometimes laudable, to take off in our field.

Another observation:  It is probably important for departments to have some statement written into their scholarship statements/guidelines that indicate the sort of journals that count and those that don’t, and a process for evaluating publication outlets.

From DSC:
A solid infographic is out at Knewton.com — of which I want to highlight 2 portions of it (below).

This first excerpt is not to dog teachers but rather it’s meant to support them and to say that we need to change a losing game (at least a part of the solution in ed reform is to get out of the business of focusing so much on standardized tests and another part of the solution resides in the second graphic below):

 

EducationCrisis-Jan2013

 

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EducationCrisis2-Jan2013

 

 

Also relevant see:

ECAR2012

 

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Example slides from today’s presentation:


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 ECAR2-2012

 

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ECAR3-2012

 

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 ECAR4-2012

 

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ECAR5-2012

 

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ECAR6-2012

 

 

From DSC:
I also support one of the questions which, paraphrasing, asked, “Do you pulse check students’ expectations?

 

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Online Learning: A Manifesto — from hybridpedagogy.com by Jesse Stommel

What we need is to ignore the hype and misrepresentations (on both sides of the debate) and gather together more people willing to carefully reflect on how, where, and why we learn online. There is no productive place in this conversation for exclusivity or anti-intellectualism. Those of us talking about digital pedagogy and digital humanities need to be engaging thoughtfully in discussions about online learning and open education. Those of us in higher ed. need to be engaging thoughtfully with K-12 teachers and administrators. And it’s especially important that we open our discussions of the future of education to students, who should both participate in and help to build their own learning spaces. Pedagogy needs to be at the center of all these discussions.

I have no interest in debating the whether of online learning. That bird has most assuredly flown. What I’d like to do here is outline a pedagogy of online learning — not best practices, but points of departure to encourage a diversity of pedagogies.

 

 

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Excerpt:

As part of the ongoing Babson Survey Research Group’s online learning reports, we have asked institutional academic leaders questions on their knowledge, use and opinion of OER as part of the 2009 – 2011 surveys.  In addition, we have conducted surveys asking faculty in higher education and academic technology administrators their opinions of these resources.  Finally, our survey of faculty on their use of social media also asked for faculty opinions on OER.  This report contains the results from all these data collection efforts.

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Book description:

Wired magazine editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop.  In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing.  A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent — creating “the long tail of things”.

Also see:

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3d Printing by Freedom of Creation Monarch Stools in situ How 3D Printing is Disrupting Mainstream Manufacturing Processes

 

http://degreed.com/about/what_is_degreed

 

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Addendums/also see:

  • mooctalk.org from Dr. Keith Devlin, mathematician at Stanford — added 7/17/12
    Excerpt from his blog:
    I’m Dr. Keith Devlin, a mathematician at Stanford University. In fall 2012, I’ll be launching my first free online math course. This blog will chronicle my experiences as they happen, and hopefully garner some feedback and discussion for what can be approached only as a huge, but exciting experiment.
  • One course, 150,000 students — from the New York Times by Tamar Lewin — added 7/19/12
    Excerpt re: “How does this all work with a global enrollment?
    It’s been amazing. You’d see someone post in Brazil looking for other students in Brazil so they could meet and have a study group at a coffee shop. Facebook sites for the course popped up, not all in English. There are people in Tunisia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Latin America. And a professor in Mongolia has a group of students taking the course. He got them all a little laboratory kit, so they’re doing the experiments live along with the course.
  • Democratizing Education: Peter Norvig on Reaching a Global Audience — from techapex.com by Brent Hannify
    Excerpt:
    Norvig delivered a TED Talk titled “The 100,000-student classroom” in which he shared what he and Thrun learned about reaching a global audience through online teaching. He and Thrun worked together to create an online class that would be equal or better than the flagship artificial intelligence class at Stanford … and to also bring it free to anyone who was interested in signing up. Norvig and Thrun watched in amazement as 50,000 people signed up during the first two weeks after the class’s announcement, and grew “a bit terrified” when it reached a total of approximately 160,000 students.

The 40 best sources of free music education online — from onlineuniversities.com

Excerpt:

When considering music education, most people don’t immediately think of studying online. Music is something that lends itself to being learned and experienced in person, but the fact is that excellent online music education is available as well. Many will be amazed by the amount of high quality resources that exist. Full courses, lessons, sheet music, and artistic exhibits are all available to study online for absolutely free, and we’ve found the best of them. Read on and discover 40 incredible sources of free music education.

 

41 open ed resources kids love — from OEDb.org

Excerpt:

Whether you’re a teacher looking to incorporate new media into a classroom setting, a homeschooling family, or a parent hoping to supplement the day’s formal coursework, the following resources offer some particularly great examples of using digital technology to get kids exploring the universe. They’re fun. They’re free. And they feature a diverse selection of topics and strategies, meaning almost every user will find something of interest.

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Addendum on 7/9/12:

8 online platforms to help you further your education for free — from BostInno.com by Lauren Landry

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Open Goldberg Variations: free, open source recording and modern score of classical masterpiece — from boingboing.net/ by Rob Beschizza

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Excerpt:

Performed by Kimiko Ishizaka on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial in Berlin’s Teldex Studio, there’s already plenty to love about a new cut of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. But this one is also the first fan-funded, open source, and completely free recording of it.

“Every part of it is free for you to use, share, and copy,” said Robert Douglass, who launched the successful Kickstarter project behind Werner Schweer’s new version of the classic score and its production.

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