Group: http://groups.google.com/group/edumooc/topics
- Harvard fellow hacked millions of papers [1 Update]
- Welcome to Online Learning Today... and Tomorrow [2 Updates]
- MMS or Dashboard? [4 Updates]
- Google+ circles [4 Updates]
- Shirley Gossack, Manager Student Engagement/ LA&PS is out of the Office. [1 Update]
- Week Four; Online Learning Apps and Mobile Learning [1 Update]
"Apostolos K." <a.koutr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 03:35PM -0700 ^
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ACADEMIC_PAPERS_HACKED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATEÞFAULT&CTIME
Starting text: BOSTON (AP) -- A Harvard University fellow who was
studying ethics was charged with hacking into the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's computer network to steal nearly 5 million
academic articles.
Wow... is all I have to say! I think that this guy did it just to be
an activist, but I would like to see how this trial proceeds.
Personally I think that all journals should be open access - period.
People who write the articles are either dead (as in the case of 17th
century articles) or get paid no royalties for writing them. Journal
editors get no money (or little money) for editing journals, and peer
reviewers get nothing. I could go on a rant about this, but I
won't ;-) Let's just all agree to publish in open access journals
lol :-)
"b.d.boardman" <bdboa...@gmail.com> Jul 19 10:31AM -0700 ^
Here is a quick article that I got from Inside Higher Ed.
Basically, the article comments that drop out rates are higher for
online than for "traditional" studnets:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/07/19/study_finds_higher_dropout_rates_for_community_college_students_who_take_online_courses
What do you all think?
b.d.boardman
"Apostolos K." <a.koutr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 03:04PM -0700 ^
Thanks for the article! :-)
I used to read Inside Higher Ed daily but in the recent months I have
not had the time :-) I am subscribed to their RSS feed but the
annoying this is that they don't provide you with any content for some
of their articles in their RSS feed... quite annoying and it defeats
the purpose of RSS. In any case - not specific to the article:
Those that do not work in education think that online is the panacea
to their political issues. More education, for more people, cheaper.
Of course this is as mythical as the unicorn ;-) Online classes
aren't cheaper. Perhaps if you only hire adjuncts who cobble together
5, 6 or 7 online teaching gigs to earn a living, but then again if
you're teaching 5,6, or 7 online classes per semester how much effort
are you putting into it? Online teaching also involves not only a lot
of prep time, but also a lot of monitoring time and response time,
whereas face to face requires your 3hrs per week and some office hours
(which students don't seem to utilize).
From the student's side, online learning requires knowledge and access
to technology that people in lower socioeconomic ladders may not
have. To expect to educate people online, who don't have the skills
to succeed online cheats them from an education and adversely impacts
their self-esteem because they think that just because they can't
perform in the online environment they just can't perform - that's
just ludicrous! People who want to take online courses SHOULD be
required to take both a technology course and an academic prep-course
to ensure that they are able to thrive in the online environment. If
not, they should be face to face with a mentor.
Sadly, it seems like politicians are thinking more like the McDonald's
model - one more credit earned, with a few more you've got a degree.
They don't actually think of education - just the sheep skin...
Topic: MMS or Dashboard?Rebecca <rjh...@gmail.com> Jul 18 10:09PM -0700 ^
Hi all,
I was thinking about an MMS (MOOC Management System) and that thread,
but what occurs to me that we really need is a crowd-sourced MOOC
dashboard. That is a place where participants could register their
learning activities (like blog posts, links, discussions, or
projects). The Dashboard would give a real-time picture of how many
"conversations" and learning actions are occurring and allow
participants to easily find the conversations and easily participate.
The dashboard is functions as a curator of MOOC participant generated
content.
Maybe the dashboard would have a button to "add your activity", where
participants fill in a form that captures a link to content plus key
words or something - really simple so that people will both to use it.
The dashboard itself might have:
* One section for each "type" of media or conversation with links
* A visually linked tag cloud
* Maybe different views of the content - like a physical location view
You might also use it to capture statistics about the MOOC. Once a
conversation thread is registered, it could track how active that
thread becomes (useful for those who are researching MOOCs), but it
would also provide a knowledge object that is a capture of the MOOC
itself.
One of the challenges I'm finding with this MOOC (edumooc) is that the
conversations have either gone underground or they are so distributed
that they are difficult to find. I shouldn't need to spend more time
looking than participating! A MOOC dashboard that is truly crowd-
sourced would certainly help solve that problem.
Anyone with the technical savvy care to build one? I'll happily test
and document it.
cheers,
Rebecca
Osvaldo Rodriguez <cor...@yahoo.com> Jul 19 12:00PM -0700 ^
Hi Rebecca and all
I have also been interested in how could one improve the "understanding of what is going on " on a MOOC.
Even if one does not arrive at the course right there should be some coherent resume.
In other MOOCs the facilitators through "the daily" for example or as you mentioned the early weekly live sessions (MobiMOC) established a glue and gave a weekly sense of structure (without actually imposing it).
For me in EduMOOC the websphere by Jeff LeBow blogspot has sometimes helped
since it gave an overall picture of all places where "things" were going on.
http://edumooc2011.blogspot.com/p/edumoocosphere.html
The idea of a sphere kept in my mind: central issues/activities that radially build through layers. But a 3D sphere (like google earth) would be far too complex.
Then the other day I came across a web page (on the Kennedy's miniseries) that I think might serve as a basic idea on how to indicate what is going on in a MOOC.
Of course it would need the facilitator to produce it and keep it to date. But as you can see if you step on any area of interest and move radially more and more info starts appearing on that particular area.
http://ar.aeweb.tv/thekennedys/arbol.html
Of course this complements the dashboard-idea.
Osvaldo
C. Osvaldo RODRIGUEZ
cor...@yahoo.com
________________________________
From: Rebecca <rjh...@gmail.com>
To: eduMOOC <edu...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 2:09 AM
Subject: [eduMOOC] MMS or Dashboard?
Hi all,
I was thinking about an MMS (MOOC Management System) and that thread,
but what occurs to me that we really need is a crowd-sourced MOOC
dashboard. That is a place where participants could register their
learning activities (like blog posts, links, discussions,
or
projects). The Dashboard would give a real-time picture of how many
"conversations" and learning actions are occurring and allow
participants to easily find the conversations and easily participate.
The dashboard is functions as a curator of MOOC participant generated
content.
Maybe the dashboard would have a button to "add your activity", where
participants fill in a form that captures a link to content plus key
words or something - really simple so that people will both to use it.
The dashboard itself might have:
* One section for each "type" of media or conversation with links
* A visually linked tag cloud
* Maybe different views of the content - like a physical location view
You might also use it to capture statistics about the MOOC. Once a
conversation thread is registered, it could track how active that
thread becomes (useful for those who are researching MOOCs), but it
would also
provide a knowledge object that is a capture of the MOOC
itself.
One of the challenges I'm finding with this MOOC (edumooc) is that the
conversations have either gone underground or they are so distributed
that they are difficult to find. I shouldn't need to spend more time
looking than participating! A MOOC dashboard that is truly crowd-
sourced would certainly help solve that problem.
Anyone with the technical savvy care to build one? I'll happily test
and document it.
cheers,
Rebecca
"Apostolos K." <a.koutr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 02:50PM -0700 ^
Rebecca, what you are describing sounds like a real-time version of
gRSShopper (a tool used in CCK11 and I really really loved it! - daily
overviews of all blogs, comments to blogs, twitter posts and delicious
contributes - it was awesome!)
I agree with what you write bellow. I feel like discussion of eduMOOC
have either gone underground, or they just aren't happening. I like
the MOOC idea, but I (like many other professionals out there) am
busy, and I don't want to go hunting for course discussions everywhich
corner :-) The real-time dashboard is an awersome idea! I wonder if
gRSShopper can be modified to do this :-)
quote >>>> One of the challenges I'm finding with this MOOC (edumooc)
is that the
conversations have either gone underground or they are so distributed
that they are difficult to find. I shouldn't need to spend more time
looking than participating! A MOOC dashboard that is truly crowd-
sourced would certainly help solve that problem. <<<<< end quote
As a side note, I think that MOOC organizers should take a leading
role in collecting and aggregating major MOOC resources. In your
dashboard example the organizers could pick the formats they want to
support (blog, twitter and delicious for example) and people can
submit their blog's rss feed to the dashboard. If there are additional
resources (let's say a Fb group or a LinkedIn group, or a wiki) that
the community REALLY wants to have on the dashboard, it would be easy
for the coordinators of the MOOC to add an additional category.
I see this being parallel to f2f class practices. Students always
create external groups and resources to deal with coursework, but in
the course of doing the work, the resource becomes of use to the
entire class and everyone participates. At this juncture the
instructor can endorse it for class use and put it on your LMS's
"resources" list for more students to find.
"Apostolos K." <a.koutr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 02:51PM -0700 ^
Thanks for the resource Osvaldo! :-)
I feel like this sort of information should be incorporated to the
MOOC's main site because it's so useful!
Topic: Google+ circlesJthornburgh <james.th...@mccd.edu> Jul 19 12:52PM -0700 ^
I would like a google+ invite also
Kristine Buchanan <solicr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 03:53PM -0500 ^
I would as well! solicr...@gmail.com Thanks! Kris
Melissa Rizzuto <melri...@gmail.com> Jul 19 04:58PM -0400 ^
Just sent you an invite, Kristine.
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Kristine Buchanan
Kristine Buchanan <solicr...@gmail.com> Jul 19 04:19PM -0500 ^
:D Thank you!
Shirley Gossack <sgos...@yorku.ca> Jul 19 12:13PM -0400 ^
I will be out of the office starting 07/19/2011 and will not return until
07/20/2011.
If you require immediate assistance please contact:
Telephone: 416 736 2100 Ext 33668
Email: myce...@yorku.ca
Website: www.yorku.ca/laps
Tim <tim.k...@gmail.com> Jul 18 10:13PM -0700 ^
I'm enjoying this discussion very much. The definition is becoming
quite an elusive thing because as Rebecca eludes being mobile defines
the device, the learner and the location. For what it's worth I'd like
to throw my weight behind "ubiquitous learning".
Mobile technology facilitates a shift from the idea of eLearning and
“anywhere, anytime” to a more ubiquitous way of learning that is
“everywhere, all the time”. The change is subtle but the results and
impact of mobile technology are vast. Mobile technology shifts where
learning takes place from the confines of the physical to where space
is instead defined by the device and follows the learner wherever they
are. The technology also shifts the concept of time from predefined
units to a model that is learner centric and ever-present. What this
means is that the learning environment and the persona of the learner
are always accessible and beneath the surface, always on. Through the
mobile device the learner can carry the classroom, the texts, the
lectures and the assessments in their pocket and access those wherever
and whenever they choose. From their daily commute on the bus to
waiting in line at the supermarket, the learning environment and the
learning materials are there with them and accessible with the touch
of a button or the swipe of a finger.
I don't know if its the right term, but it really offers the best
description. Could we camel-case it and become uLearning seeing as
we've done i,e, and m?