Monthly Archives: October 2013

Digital Research – a double edged sword (infographic)

Allison Morris has shared a very interesting infographic that she worked on about digital research with regard to U.S college students.

She discusses this image in a blog post at Infantium – http://www.infantium.com/blog/2013/05/25/students-and-digital-research/

It clearly illustrates the challenges that both teachers and learners face as our digital literacy and information management skills struggle to keep up with emerging technology.

Image sourced from http://www.onlineeducation.net/2013/03/11/digital-research-a-double-edged-sword

Digital research infographic

Mooc creators criticise courses’ lack of creativity | News | Times Higher Education

http://ht.ly/pWmjI

Stephen Downes pulls few punches as he discusses how the current iteration of the MOOC is far removed from the original ideas behind it.

This has also been a concern of mine – the much touted innovation seems like anything but. While I remain unconvinced of the strengths of the connectivist model – at the very least for my preferred learning style – the original form of the MOOC was very much about embracing a substantially different learning paradigm than we see today.

Among other things, he says “I think they are marvels of marketing and of the naivety of venture capitalists. Looking at the platforms from a technological point of view, I see virtually nothing innovative. These courses [reach] 100,000 or more people, but use video lectures and old-style threaded discussion lists. The idea of Moocs as an experiment in pedagogy and educational organisation has been completely abandoned by the new platforms, to the detriment of Moocs.”

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Technology-enhanced learning – workloads and costs | The Weblog of (a) David Jones

http://davidtjones.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/technology-enhanced-learning-workloads-and-costs/#comment-6535

A sensible overview of long overdue research into the real costs (time and money) for teachers developing and delivering eLearning. The number one issue that our teachers raise with me is that they would like to do more with eLearning but don’t get the time to do it. While this research is incomplete – in that it doesn’t come up with solid figures – the fact that people are on the same page is encouraging.

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MOOC Discussion Forums: barrier to engagement? |e-Literate

http://mfeldstein.com/mooc-discussion-forums-barriers-engagement/

I’ve often felt daunted by the volume of posts and chaotic nature of discussion forums in MOOCs – glad to see that I’m not the only one. Interesting that posters tend to be higher achievers though.

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105 Free Moodle Video Tutorials | Diigo

https://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Felearningindustry.com%2F105-free-moodle-video-tutorials?gname=diigoineducation

This is a comprehensive set of how-to videos about using a wide range of tools in Moodle. The videos vary in quality but for sheer coverage, it is hard to beat.

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