Multilitteratus Incognitus

Last week I got an email from the MOOC guys running the VLC MOOC, and one of the topics was in the email was all about the certification process. In going through this MOOC (really a self-paced eLearning course, but more on that down below), I would like some sort of proof that I went through it (just in case someone asks), but by and large I really don't care for certification for individual courses. What I care about is the knowledge. Here is what I got from the VLC: Class Certification and Class End The class finishes on 31 May. Participants who have shown activity will be sent a certificate. We distinguish the following activities: - ActivityClass 0: no activity --> no certificate  - Activity Class 1: worksheet average < 60% --> confirmation of participation  - Activity Class 2: worksheet average >= 60% --> qualified certificate The certificates will be sent as E-Mail attachments in electronic form ready for printout. By the way, for the fut...

This week I am starting my 4th coursera course, offered by Duke University called Think Again: How to Reason and Argue . I signed up mostly because I was intersted in the topic, but as a nice side-effect it allows me to continue to be exposed to a variety of MOOC "accreditation" schemes.  This particular MOOC offers statements of accomplishment on two tiers: Statement of Accomplishment Statement of Accomplishment with Distinction. To get the "with distinction mark" you need to score 85% or better in the course. It seems like the only gradeable items in this course are the quizzes, which I assume at this point are multiple choice.  The caveat here is that you can only take a quiz twice (and not the same quiz) to have it count for credit. There are exercises in the course, but they are ungraded, so I am wondering how that works for non-self-motivated autodidacts.   While pondering this, I also came across and readthis article on the Chronicle on the Uneven...

After a tittle like that, I feel like this blog ought to have a theme song ;-) Is this too dorky? Not dorky enough?  Chime in through the comments :-) In any case, it's Week 2 of #cfhe12 and the topic of the week is New Pedagogies: New models for teaching and learning . I find it interesting (and ironic) that Blended Learning and Online Learning are considered "new pedagogies" and "new models."  Even though I am currently undertaking 2 Blended Learning workshops (one MOOC #blendkit and one workshop through Sloan-C), I have known about blended learning for a while.  As far as Online Learning goes...I've known about it, and been active in it for much longer!  How can these models be considered new?  To me MOOCs are new because we are still exploring them.  There is no "one MOOC format", just as there is no one Online Course format. MOOCs are a subset of Online Courses, and MOOCs have many other courses that are a subset of a MOOC. That being said...

It's quite interesting, but the topic of MOOCs and accreditation keeps coming up :-) The post that prompted this blog post came from a post I saw on MobiMOOC today regarding information assessment and recognition of success .  In MobiMOOC 2012 one of the new things that is baked into the course is the awarding of badges , with an eye toward Mozilla's Open Badges. There are currently three types of badges: Wonderful Participant (for signing up in the course) Advanced learner (for participating in at least 2 topics in MobiMOOC) Memorable Collaborator (for being active in 3 topics) and writing a project overview for an mLearning project) I've already achieved #1 by being there, and I think I will most likely get #2.  #3 might be a little more problematic since I don't have much time to think of a new mLearning project, and I don't feel comfortable just picking from my bag of existing mLearning ideas (even though I haven't articulated them before, or implem...

It's day 2 of MOOC MOOC (sounds like something Zoidberg would say) and I was reading the intro for the day when I saw that a blog post of one of my colleagues (Pat Masson) was referenced. Pretty Cool!  I read it pretty quickly, to be responded to late. I must admit I don't subscribe to Pat's blog, but maybe it's time to do so :-) Today's task is a video, but I don't have a ton of time to invest in it, so I will make due with text.  The questions at hand for today are: Where does learning happen?  Learning happens everywhere! Sure, it does happen in the classroom, but it happens when you're out in the market; when you're stuck in your car in traffic while commuting and you're listening to the radio (or some audiobook); when you go to the gym; when speaking to your friends; and of course in the classroom.  Human are learning machines, there is always something new, no matter how minute it may be, that we learn every day. We may not retain it ...

Rhizomatic Week Achievement in Change11 An interesting brainstorm item on gaming, motivation and achievement came up while reading and commenting on Jaap's blog. This particular blog is about badges (or achievements) in MOOCs . Interestingly enough I also saw Dave Cormier's tweet about having a badge on his blog (seemed like a tongue in cheek post). Serious, or not, I've included the image in this post. In any case, if you scroll down Jaap commented: In my opinion badges are not fit for MOOCs. Mobimooc did give a certificate for students that finished the MOOC and published, etc. (Ignatia, if you read this, thanks) Maybe, a badge would destroy the fun of paricipating. which was followed by Jenny's comment: Sometimes formal recognition stifles growth. Sounds counter intuitive but how often does fame smother new talent? Can a badge become an end in itself and diminish the creativity within the person? For that matter, does an artist seek a badge when moved to...

Over the holiday, at some point I came across this blog post asking how much longer will (college) degrees mean something . It was a short, but interesting post, and something that I've thought about in the past; not in reference to how much longer will college degrees have a monopoly on accreditation of individuals, but rather I've been pondering  what  does a college degree mean. The impetus for this post seem's to be Stanford's AI MOOC , which apparently will give out certificates of completion to those who participate and do the work.  Jeff, the author of the other blog posses the following questions which I wanted to tackle a bit: When do we start hiring for the knowledge you have rather than the degree you hold? We used to do that, and we ought  to be doing that now. One of my concentrations while an MBA student was Human Resources Management, and as a student one of the key things is that the piece of paper doesn't matter, but rather it's ...