Multilitteratus Incognitus

Wow, this MOOC seems to be going by pretty quickly! We are already at the midpoint! This week I feel my participation in the MOOC was a bit more muted. I did want to participate more in the in the discussions but I got side-lined with start-of-the-semester things I needed for my day-job ;-)  I did get through my stated activities (1, 2, 3, 4,  10) and I did do one of my optional ones (5); so I guess participation wasn't all that bad, but it was "solitary participation †" not really engaging a ton with others. Oh well, such is the nature of the beast, I guess ;-) In any case, I did download a number of templates this week, and added them to my design toolbox, but by far my favorite one was the card activity: Pedagogical Features Card Sort . I printed them out, cut them up, and experimented with them.  I have to say that cards, for me anyway, are much more conducive to thinking about the various aspects of the course. Having a list of items that you can pick from is a...

OK, Week 3 of OLDS MOOC is upon us. The topic: Ideate ! I've quickly gone through the overview for the week and it seems like quite interesting stuff! The one thing I see missing this week is a short, and a long path.  I guess I'll be forging my own from scratch ;-). Last week I forged my own, anyway, but the proposed paths were good so that I could see the intentions of the course designers. In any case, in addition to participating in at least 2 discussions in Week 3, I am thinking that I will be able to take part in: Activity 1: Thursday (20 minutes) Activity 2: Thursday, Friday or Saturday (30 minutes) Activity 3: Saturday or Sunday (30 minutes) Activity 4: Saturday or Sunday (15 minutes) Activity 10: Wednesday (15 minutes) For activity descriptions, see the link to the topic above. If I have time, I'd like to tackle: Activity 5: Monday-Tuesday (30 minutes) Activity 8: Monday-Tuesday (15 minutes) I suppose I already tackled part of activity 4 - here ...

Week 2 of OLDS MOOC done, six more to go - escaped this week relatively unscathed ;-) For a more complete overview of my comings and goings during week 2 of the MOOC check out my cloud (and scroll down).  Cloudworks isn't bad, I actually like it! But I haven't completely pinned down my workflow yet. I think Cloudworks would make a great electronic portfolio platform because I can see how clouds (specific objects in a portfolio), can be part of cloudscapes (objectives) which can then be part of your profile (your portfolio). As a collaborative tool it also has potential, but it's very open. I don't necessarily want other people to add to my cloudscape, so how do you prevent this? I also don't want to contribute my stuff to other people's cloudscapes if they aren't relevant, so how do I know where to add things (and more importantly remove) items I've previously added. That said, from my goals posted for Week 2 I've met everything except finishi...

I missed this today when it was live, but this was an interesting discussion around Week 2. For your viewing (or listening) pleasure:

Alright! This week I will make some goals for myself for my participation in OLDS MOOC! This week ( titled "inquire" ) focuses on context.  The introductory video for the week is at the end of this post. For those of you familiar with the Dick & Carey model , we are firmly in the "Analysis" Stages. As far as reading goes, I plan on getting acclimated to the Force Map , and exploring the Ecology of Resources Framework . As far as Personas go (the other big read it seems), I plan on skipping it.  I've worked with personas in my undergraduate work in my UI Design courses, in the MBA, MSIT, and to some extent in the MEd program in Instructional Design. I am keeping the resource handy, but I don't think I will be spending a lot of time on it. I plan on participating in at least two discussions in the google group.  I don't know which ones yet, but as I participate, I plan on posting them on my cloud . The element that I like about OLDS MOOC this ...

So... week 1 of OLDS MOOC is about to be done! When I signed up, I wasnt' sure what my participation level would be (so I didn't set hard objectives for myself). I did want to work on the MOOC as much as I could, given the constrains of every day life.  Week 1 wasn't bad.  I did create a cloud in CloudWorks to consolidate my own learnings and interactions in the MOOC in one easy to find place. Supposedly this will come in handy, as well, when the organizers are deciding whether someone's participation is badge-worthy :-) I must say that CloudWorks was a bit confusing in the beginning, but I think I have gotten the hang of it.  The one issue I still have is how to remove a cloud from a cloudscape after you have added it!  For example, my main cloud (the one where I am keeping track of my own participation) is also in the Dreambazaar. This was done by mistake, but I don't see a way of removing my cloud (and this keeping the dreambazaar clean).  Oh well, live ...

We've had our first reported casualty in #oldsmooc this weekend :-) I have copied and pasted the discussion board posting from our Google Group, without identifying the author, but I do think that it's important to think, and talk, about this/ Here is the posting (commentary follows): Dear All I sincerely hope that you all find what you need.  I don't think that this is the right choice for me - I'm a first time MOOC user.  This MOOC feels more like a Massive Open Online Collaboration space - not a Course.   Whilst I have some time for the constructionist approach, 'authentic enquiry' if you prefer that way of thinking, there is a need for some level of common ground between those who are learning and those who are providing guidance (I hesitate to say 'teaching').  The image below is what I suspect would happen to me........ Not painted into a corner exactly, but certainly guilty of doing something very stupid - something that an experienced ...

Seems to me, that even though I dropped the Logic Course on coursera (loved those two professors by the way!), Logic is back to haunt me ;-) I came across  a blog post the other day through my RSS reader, which stated the following: As massive open online courses (MOOCS) have exploded in popularity educators are coming under increasing pressure to make an effective use of the new technology. To help instructors realize the potential of the new content delivery platforms Georgia Tech is unveiling a MOOC about creating a MOOC. To be honest, the first thing that came to mind was the following question: What does Georgia Tech know about MOOCs and MOOC pedagogy? I didn't recall anyone off the top of my head that was from Georgia Tech that has been involved with MOOCs a lot over the past couple of years.  In any case, I followed the link and the link of this quick news blurb links to the " Fundamentals of Online Education ".  The course isn't about MOOCs but, it seems...

In my most recent blog post I wrote about the lecture and how it's not the most important part of the xMOOC. I have to say, that as far as I am concerned, I failed the Think Again course.  My 2 quiz score average was 65%.  OK, this may not be failing, after all there were 2 more quizzes left, where presumably I could have done better and raised my average to something I liked, and I did have another opportunity to raise my second quiz score for Quiz 2; so I guess, if I were my own professor I would say to myself "not all is lost," but I decided to drop the course anyway.  The next couple of months will be really crazy for me, between work (day job), teaching a course online (my adjunct job), and preparing a couple of papers for publication; so I know I don't have time to spend on this course :-) The other thing I realized was that I was a mildly hungry man at a free all you can eat buffet.  I came to coursera, and xMOOCs in general, with personal...

Up until yesterday I was in the course "Think Again: How to Reason and Argue" on coursera. I decided to drop the course (more on this in a subsequent post), but my decision to drop the course was partly based on my free time to devote to this course, and the assessment factors currently available for math and science (and logic is a Math course for me ;-)  ). I was conversing with one of my colleagues the other day, about this very topic, after a workshop, and it dawned on me that I probably haven't written about it yet :-) One of the things that one hears, often, from the xMOOC crowd (especially from those xMOOCs in elite universities) is about the opportunity to learn from "the best." What they mean is "the best physicist, chemist, programmer..." and so on.  For them, the best would be someone like Albert Einstein for example (at least that's what I get from what they are saying in their presentations".  Don't get me wrong, Albert may ...

Happy New Year to all! 2012 was, as most people might argue, the year of the MOOC.  While the xMOOC (coursera, udaciy, edX, and Canvas Network) enjoyed most of the limelight, some traditional MOOCs (cMOOC) have also gotten some notice with the publication of research articles. One of the things that really took me by surprise was the massive amount of coverage that MOOCs got from everywhere ! It went from me being able to keep track of MOOC comings and goings; through the research literature coming in in drips and drabs, and some blog posts, to me having to save articles for later mulling over! Truly amazing! That said, I have not read all of those articles, and I do want to write a year-end-review position paper on MOOCs and Higher Education based on that primary material.  If someone is interested in co-researching and co-authoring let me know :-) This past year is also when I tried my first few xMOOCs (through coursera).  Before the year ended I also created accou...