Multilitteratus Incognitus

Well, it's the end of the week (or the beginning if you are following Western conventions with the odd behavior of calling "Sunday" the beginning of the week), grading for my course, for this week, is done, and it's time to see what I missed on Rhizo14 while I was tending to other things.  One of the things that we are putting together (in addition to the long autoethnography for #rhizo14) is this other research, which I would call Delphi based in its methodology, on why we take MOOCs, why we participate in them, and why we stick, or not stick, to them. I thought that this would be something interesting to participate in since I am not sure I've recorded why I've been participating in MOOCs (as you will note, the MOOC tag is the biggest one on this blog). The other epithets used online, thus far, for those who keep engaging in MOOCs is MOOCaholic .  I don't know if I like that epithet because it doesn't necessarily describe me right at this momen...

Apple's Clarus the cowdog; and his "moof" 'bark Well, it's the end of 2013 and it's been a MOOC-kinda year, so before I head off for a small break (which is probably going to involve a lot of MOOCing), I thought I should write a summative post for my year's exploits in MOOCs. 2013, other than it being the year of the Anti-MOOC (according to some) was really the year of the xMOOC for me.  I participated in a lot of xMOOCs and got to see how different organizations had different takes on how to approach courses that are online and have, potentially, a large amount of participants.  Most of my MOOC experiences were coursera based (it seems like they are at the top of the hill at the moment), but I did expand my horizons by taking a course on EdX on the Ancient Greek Hero, a Harvard course, and a couple of courses through the Virtual Linguistics Campus which are courses offered through the Philipps-Universität Marburg . The VLC, interestingly enough got ...

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 authenticati...

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...

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...

Custom is an odd name of a badge :) Week 3 of the Mozilla Open Badges MOOC on Coursesites (half way through) and we are continuing our exploration of using badges for the #ESLMOOC. As with previous posts, the prompt of the challenge comes first followed by my thoughts on the subject. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 3: Competency Frameworks for a Badge Ecosystem At the next level of complexity, we consider the ecosystem of five principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Assessors Job Seekers Employers Standards Organizations And an additional component: Badges Competency Definition Employers are governed by regulations, industry standards, and best practices. Employers need employees whose skills and competencies support and advance business objectives in accordance with these requirements. Standards organizations get input from academic research and employers about evolving best practices, and, in turn, provide guidance, even governance, over business pract...

It's week two (of six) in the #OpenBadgeMOOC and the challenge for this week is to think about and define the Currency  of an Ecosystem. As with the first blog post in this series, this thought process relates to the #ESLMOOC that I am thinking of developing as part of a potential dissertation proposal, and the writing instructions for this challenge are posted in the first part of the blog post, followed by my brainstorming. Challenge Instructions: Challenge Assignment 2: Define the Currency of an Ecosystem At the next level of complexity, we consider the ecosystem of four principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Assessors Job Seekers Employers And an additional component: Badges When badges are introduced into the basic ecosystem model, we can see the decoupling of learning providers and competency/skill assessment, and “Assessors” are added to the model as another set of stakeholders. Why? Because badges are tied to assessment; badges are awarded when ...

Who am I? ** Updated on 9/19 with more detailed personas** Well, I will try to stay regular with these Mozilla Badge MOOC challenges (goal is it get them our each Saturday so I don't fall behind and other things get in the way).  I've decided that for the Badge Challenge I will start brainstorming on the topic of my ESL MOOC, that topic that's been floating in my mind as a potential PhD Dissertation topic.  These, of course, may change while I further process the topic, but someone's gotta start somewhere. Prompt for the challenge (scroll down for my contribution): Define a Current Ecosystem At a basic level, we consider the ecosystem of three principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Job Seekers Employers Traditionally, we have viewed these three principal sets of stakeholders as having a fairly simplistic, linear relationship: Traditional higher education institutions and other types of learning providers (e.g., trade schools) impart knowledg...