MOOCs and beyond
A special issue of the online journal eLearning Papers has been released entitled MOOCs and beyond. Editors Yishay Mor and Tapio Koshkinen say the issue brings together in-depth research and examples from the field to generate debate within this emerging research area.
They continue: “Many of us seem to believe that MOOCs are finally delivering some of the technology-enabled change in education that we have been waiting nearly two decades for.
This issue aims to shed light on the way MOOCs affect education institutions and learners. Which teaching and learning strategies can be used to improve the MOOC learning experience? How do MOOCs fit into today’s pedagogical landscape; and could they provide a viable model for developing countries?
We must also look closely at their potential impact on education structures. With the expansion of xMOOC platforms connected to different university networks—like Coursera, Udacity, edX, or the newly launched European Futurelearn—a central question is: what is their role in the education system and especially in higher education?”
The cost of austerity and privatisation
There is growing concern over the consequences of the English (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different policies) government’s cutbacks and privatisation of careers guidance for young people. The International Centre for Guidance Studies reports on a discussion paper called ‘Cost to the Economy of Government Policy on Career Guidance: A Business Case for Funding and Strengthening Career Guidance in Schools‘ from Lizzie Taylor who is an Careers England Affiliate Member. “The report claims that the economic consequence of current government policy on career education is an escalating annual cost to young people in reduced and lost earnings, reaching £676m p.a. in 2018 before dropping back slightly to £665 m p.a.2022. The total cost in reduced and lost earnings to young people in the period 2013 to 2022 is estimated as £3.2bn.”
Open Education 2030
The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) –part of the Joint Research Center of the European commission – is calling upon experts and practitioners to come up with visionary papers and imaginative scenarios on how Open Education in 2030 in Europe might look with a major focus on Open Educational Resources and Practices, in different education sectors.
The foresight scenarios submitted can be normative or descriptive, idealistic or provocative, critical or imaginary, reflective or polemic, imaginative or concrete, comprehensive or selective, general or specific. They should be both inspiring and scientifically sound.
Submissions are free to choose any angle, subject, approach, but they say the future vision and/or scenario should address the key question of how Open Education in 2030 in Europe might look, and include the role of OER.
More details from the EU Europa website.
PLE Conference Update
I wasn’t overoptimistic about the Personal Learning Environments Conference this year. Discussions about PLEs have been subsumed in the hype over MOOCs. And most conferences are struggling with the ongoing recession. But I am delighted that we have received 59 submissions including a number of great proposals for interactive workshops.
The PLE Conference takes place on 10 and 12 July in Berlin.
Steven says: “The way I make a Slidecast is to fire up Camtasia and then go through my slides, narrating as I present them.”
I have treid making screencasts like this before. It is certainly efficient in terms of time – but I stopped doing it because I found myself thinking about the recording whilst making the presentation. at the end of the day I think live presentations and slidecasts are – as the great AKA Specials said ‘equal but different’. Each requires different forms of presenting. And that is why I do them seperately.
Sounds great!
That is really a nice idea. It does adds great value to presentations.
And I did like the definition of learning and he fact that the most used system for learning is google. It is indeed part of my universe. I google everything these days and just get amazed with wealth of info I get – relevant and irrelevant info too!
Indeed Lurking is not that. I lurk till I get comfortable to take part in it. It takes time to get involved. But active participation is much more Fun!
Thanks for sharing!
Great post, Graham, and very timely for me. What is the online tool you use please, ie the one to sync slides and audio?
Cheers
Terry
Just letting you know that I enjoyed your presentation Graham and have blogged about it. I think you are so right about the role of communities of practice in how we learn. Kerrie
Hi Graham,
Those workflows sound pretty painful – have you thought about exporting from Keynote to Garageband – see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Keynote/4.0/en/c9kn36.html if you don’t have iWork this ounds like it would make the price worth it.
Phil
Phil – thanks for that workflow suggestion. I have previous version of iWork. This might tempt me to upgrade.
Terry – online tool is slidecast option in Slideshare. Not too obvious as to where it is. Select edit button on your slideshow page and then click on slidecast tab. To my mind, the software for timings is the easiest I have used – although t is not microsecond accurate. The only other issue is that slideshare does not host the audio. You have to upload audio somewhere and then provide an http address. However the audio streaming is very fast – none of teh long run buffering you get on some services.
I think ProfCast (http://www.profcast.com/) does what you are looking for.