Multilitteratus Incognitus

Quite a few topics have been twirling in my mind these days but nothing was really solidifying until I read the following three blog posts in my pocket account in at the same time: It’s Time to Redirect the Conversation about MOOCs - by David Cillay MOOCs make waves in higher education worldwide - by Karen MacGregor MOOCs and Online Learning #wweopen13 - by Rebecca Hogue They are all interesting reads, so I highly recommend that you read them and think about them as a collection. One of the things that was discussed in this collection is the (mistaken) grouping of MOOC and online courses of the "traditional" sort. This is something I've discussed in the past both on this blog and in person. Hogue sees a silver lining: the MOOC craze is raising awareness of traditional online courses and there are more players interested in looking into offerings in the traditional online space. However, as she writes, the other side of this is : An unfortunate side effect of e

With three MOOCs done (only undertaking one now), I have a little more time to go through and read what has been piling up in my Pocket account.  Now, over the past couple of years there have been a number of articles on building your own MOOC, from a variety of people.  Some in publications like Learning Solutions Magazine , some in eBook form, some in in Blog form. One of the blog-form posts comes by way the blog "Managing eLearning" and the title is How to make your own MOOC . I was quite curious to see what the author had to write about the topic, but I was seriously disappointed when I read it.  My main issue with the article is that it ascribes to  a very centralized xMOOC, offered by an "elite" University.  I don't think that the "elites" have it right.  I applaud the exploratory spirit of some "elite" Universities, but they get many things wrong. So, building on this xMOOC model seems just wrong to me.  In this article there are

Online Games & Narrative Course Logo Last summer, when I signed up for these things, I really didn't  keep proper timing of the courses I signed up for, because I was signed up for three concurrent MOOCs, while working a full time job, and messing around with other interesting things (MOOC related).  In any case, after several PACKED weeks, three MOOCs are done, and I have some thoughts about MOOC design and MOOC Process to go along with them from my own personal experiences. MOOC 1 The first MOOC was on Coursera, and it was  Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative with Jay Clayton  of Vanderbilt University. The thing that attracted me to this course was the aspect of online gaming and how it tied into other media. The theme was Lord of the Rings , which I am sort of lukewarm about. It's fine, but it's not the type of literature, or game for that matter, that I would spend a ton of time on.  The nice thing about the course was that the people talking a

Trust Network Badge Well, this is it!  We are in the final week of  the #OpenBadgesMOOC, and this is the last post (for badge purposes anyway) from Mozilla's #OpenBadgesMOOC. As with previous blog posts in this series I am brainstorming about including badges in an #ESLMOOC that I am thinking of designing, developing, implementing and them studying for a potential PhD.  With this week's materials we are tackling the Badge System.  Since this brainstorming is all theoretical and planning, I will most likely have some assumptions that underlie this brainstorming session.  As with previous weeks, we have the prompt (from the MOOC site) followed by my brainstorming on the topic. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 6: Building a Successful Badge System Verification Authentication In order for Open Badges to gain full acceptance, extra precautions must be in place to ensure transparency in and confidence about the badging process.  This involves authenticating that the badge hol

The real badge? Alright!  The penultimate week in #OpenBadgesMOOC, brought to us by Mozilla and Coursesites.  Continuing this week is the exploration of how badges can be incorporated into this #ESLMOOC that I've been thinking about designing, implementing, and hopefully collecting some data for some interesting analysis.  Dissertation-wise it seems like a good topic, but considering the University I was considering applying to has suspended operations due to Austerity Measures in Greece...well, I guess I'll keep looking at other programs while Greece sorts its issues out :-) So, as with previous Badge Challenges, the Prompt comes before my brainstorming. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 5: Authentic Assessment and Evidence for a Badge Ecosystem Badge system design acknowledges that not all learners are the same, not all learning situations are alike, and not all ways of ascertaining learning accomplishments and skills attainment are the same. Badges offer learners cum

Value Map Badge It's Saturday, so it must be #OpenBadgesMOOC time :)  The thing that I just noticed about these badges on the #OpenBadgesMOOC is that if you look closely enough they look stitched.  Maybe there is an easter egg hidden somewhere, whereby if you earn all #OpenBadgeMOOC badges they send you a sash with all of them stitched on - LOL :) In any case, it's the end of Week 4 on the MOOC (2 more weeks to go) and this week we are talking about validation.  It's interesting.  One of the things that comes to mind as I progress through these is that the initial "levels" were a little easier to articulate, at least for my #ESLMOOC project, but as the weeks progress it's getting harder since I don't have all of the information. This also draws a parallel to Kirkpatrick's Level's of Evaluation where Levels 1 and 2 are easier to measure, at least in the short term, but Levels 3 and 4 (and if you look at Philip's 5th level ) it gets harder