EduMOOC

Joel Bloch is curating MOOCs for L2 Writing on Scoop.it

I've been meaning to Scoop this post by Elijah Mayfield (pictures) on busting myths about robo-grading for some time.  Interesting insights here on how it works, statistically or learning analytically speaking

This is an interesting post on the credit given the Canadian contributions to the origin of MOOC vs. the more corporate takeover of the term, with parallels made to the movie Argo, but more happily, evidence gleaned from the revision history in Wikipedia showing contention over the definition of MOOC and it's origins, which Audrey Watters dubs the "wikiality" of the term.  An interesting read!

This is a useful comparison of cMOOC and xMOOC, with observations like: "xMOOCs are much easier compared to cMOOCs.  This is grounded on that in xMOOCs, the instructors would have done most, if not all of the ground work necessary for teaching and learning for the learners.  What the learners are normally expected to do would be to consume the knowledge transmitted or broadcasted to them, and to confirm their understanding of the concepts through repeated quizzes or assignments." This is antithetical to how Siemens characterizes cMOOC here: http://goodbyegutenberg.pbworks.com/w/page/61341664/Getting_Started_2013evo

Latest in the series of #learning2gether events announced here http://learning2gether.pbworks.com/w/page/32206114/volunteersneeded#Nextupcomingevents and archived at http://learning2gether.net 

What impact will MOOCs have on business down the road? Ten experts discussed the topic in freeform conversation. Jay Cross, George Siemens, Dave Cormier, Stephen Downes, Coursera, illustrious others. Of course the session was recorded, including this bootleg mp3: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40757132/Business%20and%20MOOCs-10.mp3

Curt Bonk reflects on MOOCs as we move headlong from an age of scarcity into one of abundance.  This is Part 1 in a series, so stay tuned.

This 'meaty' article on MOOCs comes from Barbara Dieu via the TALO Teaching and Learning Online list. It speaks of 'immeasurable dangers' to venture capital's massive, terrible idea for the future of college.

Citing Udacity's recent contract to provide remdial courses for San Jose State freshmen at 1/3 normal tuition costs, DAVID THEO GOLDBERG January 21, 2013, thinks MOOCs are worth the investment if they can "draw on the most compelling social media practices and on peer-to-peer collaborative learning ... by the premise of anywhere, anytime learning and the motivations of personal interests that are embedded in the premise of MOOCs, by the dramatic reach across place and class, and by the demand for more self-assertive, active/activist sorts of learning practice." This article balances the pros and cons, and concludes that the strength of MOOCs may be in "connected learning: the connection between ideas and the materialization of things, between people collaborating to learn and do and make things together, between mind and machine, curiosity and capacity, anywhere and anytime learning and effecting, between the world as it is and our ideals of edification and equity that we deem crucially important to institutionalize ... Ultimately their success or failure will turn on whether they can help substantially to move us collectively and collaboratively along the road to delivering on these potentialities of connected learning."

This article is about xMOOCs and how the venture capitalists are wanting to get their investment back sooner rather than later and open was the first to go, leaving in some instances just C (a course).  Back to square one? "So what about MOOCs, you know, those free, open courses? Is this the end of them? No, I don't think so, but maybe they can now become what we always wanted them to be, focused on access and experimentation and not hype and commercialism." That would be cMOOC; as Stephen Downes predicted: "for xMOOC to be truly viable, it will inevitably have to move in the direction of cMOOC. In his words, “The connectivism model will become the primary model … [xMOOCs] have to grow to become cMOOCS … They will do that over time.” quoted in http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume16/ej64/ej64int/

Not quite as impressive as Stephen Downes’s definitive archive of knowledge on MOOCs (now over 500 annotated references):http://www.downes.ca/mooc_posts.htm. But if 500++ is too much, Michael Trucano suggests ten things to read to get you started.

Vanessa Vaile is showing us how to curate via Paper.li in this periodically issued paper on MOOCs

Wow, 454 articles (and counting) all on MOOCs annotated here from 2008 through the present 2013. Stephen does it again :-)

Clay Shirky weighs in (again) on MOOCs.  The last one was here: http://www.theawl.com/2013/01/venture-capitals-massive-terrible-idea-for-the-future-of-college

Curt Bonk called my attention to this post about a MOOC that was recently trying to cater to 40,000 but suffered tech problems and was withdrawn / postponed with apologies after numerous complaints.  The post examines what happened.  One example doesn't seem like a tech problem so much as a design one.  Interesting read!

"Several students reported that the forums were designed for small groups, but had no apparent limits on the number who could join, so theoretically small groups quickly became large, unworkable groups, resulting in tons of e-mail notifications and little understanding of what to do."