Multilitteratus Incognitus

I am back home, and with vacation behind me I guess it's time to get back to work.  I've got the day-job for which I've already created a list of tasks to undertake; the teaching of my newly renumbered course INSDSG 684 (formerly 619) and the updates I want to make to the course materials as well as gearing up for my #altcred experiment, version 2.0; and finally the Great Big MOOC Book which I need to kick into high gear (two big things on the docket: additional reviewers and a publisher). While I was away in Greece I participated in an online Orientation session for my EdD program which starts in August.  The timing was a bit brutal since I needed to be up at 03:00 (Greek time) to participate in an online session that was 18:00 MT. Regardless I did enjoy hearing from my classmates and professors, people who I will get to know more over the next four years.  One of the questions we were prompted to answer as part of our introduction was where do we see ourselves in fi...

Over the last few days I've been thinking about The Great Big MOOC Book , something that's been a project of interest since my first MOOCs (cMOOCs back then) and something I finally got the wheels off th ground, posted a call for chapters, even though I didn't have a publisher, got a number of great proposals that my two great colleagues, Rebecca Hogue and Alan Girelli, helped read, evaluate as well, and provide comments to the authors, and we're off! The call for papers also got the notice of JHU press, which was a nice compliment to my modest effort, and it seemed that we were nicely on track. Of course plans change, things happen, and one of them being that I am starting a doctoral program at Atahabasca Univeristy this fall (EdD in distance education). I am wondering how much of my time The Great Big MOOC Book will take this fall semester. I've got 8/10 chapters in for review by me and my fellow reviewers. I was planning on having a rough draft ready for my...

xkcd comic from xkcd.com Being in my last few days of summer vacation for this summer, I've started thinking about all the things I have to do, and want to do, in my professional and school life. August is drawing nearer, and I have to buy some plane tickets to Edmonton, and also book a hotel room for my stay during the orientation week for my EdD program. I am excited, yet a bit "freaked out"; not the right word, hence it being in quotes, but it is in the ballpark. The unknown is something that makes me uneasy, but at the same time I know that I'll learn a lot, meet new and interesting people, and have fun while at it. The one thing that dawned on me was this thought: can I still MOOC while I am taking part in a degree program? I started MOOCing back in 2011 partly because I was done with formal school (where I could get a degree for doing a course of study) and I wanted to continue learning. Going back to school means at I will most likely have to cut out some acti...

Last week I caught something on inside higher education on the closure of Teaching and Learning Centers (CTL hereafter) in colleges and universities around th country, at a time, where seemingly, there ought to be more demand to keep them open, engage, and train faculty, and be a catalyst for a better college experience for everyone involved. This is what I remember from the article that I read when it came out (currently blogging from a boat crossing the Ionian Sea, no internet to verify, and will be too lazy to go back later to re-read everything). A friend, and colleague, later emailed me about this trend and also included a more snarky (albeit humorous, I think) Chronicle op-Ed which took the form of a memo from a director of one such center to a university big-wig (from memory this is what I recall anyway). In any case, I chuckled a bit with both stories because it's not really about centers for teaching, rather about the value that universities place on continuing profess...

View from Itea, Greece Some people bring a book on vacation (which I have) and others immerse themselves in the local culture (which I am also doing to some extent), but since I find myself lucky enough to be vacationing somewhere with fast wifi access I decided to continue to MOOC while I am on vacation from the day job. I honestly don't know how well the experiment will go, but I decided to follow three MOOCs. One on FutureLearn, focusing on management (making those connections with my MBA), and two MOOCs on MiriadaX, the Spanish MOOC platform: one focusing on social media and marketing, and another focusing on media studies called "the 3rd golden age of television." I didn't really think about my MOOCing until I had a back and forth with a friend and colleague on a Facebook about "completing MOOCs" and whoever completes one gets a unicorn ;). I guess the point he was trying to make is that completion is mission impossible. This made me think of my presen...