A Manifesto for Community Colleges, Lifelong Learning, and Autodidacts
May 15, 2013 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris
As some are raised a Catholic or an atheist or a vegetarian, I was raised an academic. The university always had about it a mystique, a cloud of mystery and veneration. Lauded in my household were the values of objectivity, critical thinking, close reading. As early as the fourth grade, my mother took me to her college Shakespeare classes, introduced me to her professors, and indulged me with lunch at the student union. I attended classes with her throughout her undergraduate study; and for years after, I’d walk through campus simply to absorb the essence of the place. Today, I am as much in love with the endeavor of higher education as I am disappointed by its outcomes.
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As some are raised a Catholic or an atheist or a vegetarian, I was raised an academic. The university always had about it a mystique, a cloud of mystery and veneration. Lauded in my household were the values of objectivity, critical thinking, close reading. As early as the fourth grade, my mother took me to her college Shakespeare classes, introduced me to her professors, and indulged me with lunch at the student union. I attended classes with her throughout her undergraduate study; and for years after, I’d walk through campus simply to absorb the essence of the place. Today, I am as much in love with the endeavor of higher education as I am disappointed by its outcomes.
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Of Machine Guns and MOOCs: 21st Century Engineering Disasters
April 24, 2013 | Filed in: Open Education
by Pat Lockley
Victorian hubris opined, “All that can be invented has been invented,” and so we entered the 20th century emboldened with a Titanic which was unsinkable, and a hydrogen-packed Hindenburg. The invention eureka moment is chance, perseverance, sweat -- but also danger. Gone is the slow iteration of change; upon us, the sudden rupture-rapture of the new. No one expects thousands will die in the North Atlantic; no one expects academics to throw themselves on gangways as luddite voices of restraint. If teaching is what we do, do we not owe those seeking to learn a reassurance they are at least on a seaworthy ship? How much of the good ship MOOC is built on the same blueprints as many noble vessels whose buoyancy has long since proved questionable? Somewhere Leonardo di Caprio stands on the bow of Google Reader.
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Victorian hubris opined, “All that can be invented has been invented,” and so we entered the 20th century emboldened with a Titanic which was unsinkable, and a hydrogen-packed Hindenburg. The invention eureka moment is chance, perseverance, sweat -- but also danger. Gone is the slow iteration of change; upon us, the sudden rupture-rapture of the new. No one expects thousands will die in the North Atlantic; no one expects academics to throw themselves on gangways as luddite voices of restraint. If teaching is what we do, do we not owe those seeking to learn a reassurance they are at least on a seaworthy ship? How much of the good ship MOOC is built on the same blueprints as many noble vessels whose buoyancy has long since proved questionable? Somewhere Leonardo di Caprio stands on the bow of Google Reader.
Read More...#digped Storify: Questioning Writing MOOCs
April 07, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
The idea of teaching a subject as highly individualized as composition strikes many dedicated instructors as problematic at least. While technologists support the idea of "robo-grading", most writing instructors understand intuitively how technology will always fail to mimic the nuance present in human reading and evaluation. Our conversation developed primarily around three important matters: the role of students in their own assessment (peer-review), the role of the instructor in collective learning environments, and the matter of how we go forward as pedagogues upon whose innovation and knowledge the effectiveness of massive learning will depend.
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The idea of teaching a subject as highly individualized as composition strikes many dedicated instructors as problematic at least. While technologists support the idea of "robo-grading", most writing instructors understand intuitively how technology will always fail to mimic the nuance present in human reading and evaluation. Our conversation developed primarily around three important matters: the role of students in their own assessment (peer-review), the role of the instructor in collective learning environments, and the matter of how we go forward as pedagogues upon whose innovation and knowledge the effectiveness of massive learning will depend.
Read More...Making Composition Massive: a #digped Discussion
April 02, 2013 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
Always when we talk about massively-scaled learning, we must first face the gargoyle of our resistance. Despite their inexorable march, and subsequently proliferating PR, MOOCs have not been embraced by the majority of educators. In fact, MOOCs are seen as an experiment rife with poorly executed pedagogies, troubling colonial overtures, and corporate origins that threaten to prey upon traditional higher education. And yet, MOOCs are upon us and resistance may well prove futile. Perhaps instead of erecting an ed-tech Berlin Wall, with MOOC adopters on one side and holdouts against this massive technology on the other, we should consider ways of making these MOOCs work for us, not against us.
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Always when we talk about massively-scaled learning, we must first face the gargoyle of our resistance. Despite their inexorable march, and subsequently proliferating PR, MOOCs have not been embraced by the majority of educators. In fact, MOOCs are seen as an experiment rife with poorly executed pedagogies, troubling colonial overtures, and corporate origins that threaten to prey upon traditional higher education. And yet, MOOCs are upon us and resistance may well prove futile. Perhaps instead of erecting an ed-tech Berlin Wall, with MOOC adopters on one side and holdouts against this massive technology on the other, we should consider ways of making these MOOCs work for us, not against us.
Read More...Will MOOCs Work for Writing?
March 27, 2013 | Filed in: Literacies
by Chris Friend
When faced with a complex, fluid, and potentially uncontrollable situation, I’ve often heard people say, “It’s like herding cats.” I can think of no more complex, variable, and fluid task than writing. Its nuances and complexities seem to defy consistency; what works as “good writing” in one circumstance can be disastrous in another. Indeed, the push toward multimodality in student writing means even the products can vary: essays one minute, blogs the next, videos after that. We also strive to develop stylistic variation: the strongest students develop a personal voice that makes their work distinctive. Everything about writing activities makes them seem like one-offs: what works in each instance is different than the next solution. The complex challenges of teaching students to work within that degree of variability makes me despair.
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When faced with a complex, fluid, and potentially uncontrollable situation, I’ve often heard people say, “It’s like herding cats.” I can think of no more complex, variable, and fluid task than writing. Its nuances and complexities seem to defy consistency; what works as “good writing” in one circumstance can be disastrous in another. Indeed, the push toward multimodality in student writing means even the products can vary: essays one minute, blogs the next, videos after that. We also strive to develop stylistic variation: the strongest students develop a personal voice that makes their work distinctive. Everything about writing activities makes them seem like one-offs: what works in each instance is different than the next solution. The complex challenges of teaching students to work within that degree of variability makes me despair.
Read More...Failure, Part of the Creative Process: Anya Kamenetz Twinterview
March 18, 2013 | Filed in: Open Education
by Pete Rorabaugh
On Friday, March 8, I interviewed Anya Kamenetz, author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Change in Higher Education (2010). Kamenetz's writing investigates systemic problems associated with funding, institutional inflexibility, and explores homegrown alternatives. DIY U was one of the first books published in the U.S. to discuss the incipient cMOOC community and also touches on the work of Jim Groom at the University of Mary Washington. In the wake of a year's worth of media-MOOC-craziness, I asked about Kamenetz's reflections since the publication of DIY U, specifically related to innovations within and alternatives to the structure of higher education.
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On Friday, March 8, I interviewed Anya Kamenetz, author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Change in Higher Education (2010). Kamenetz's writing investigates systemic problems associated with funding, institutional inflexibility, and explores homegrown alternatives. DIY U was one of the first books published in the U.S. to discuss the incipient cMOOC community and also touches on the work of Jim Groom at the University of Mary Washington. In the wake of a year's worth of media-MOOC-craziness, I asked about Kamenetz's reflections since the publication of DIY U, specifically related to innovations within and alternatives to the structure of higher education.
Read More...Learn Like an Arachnid: Why I’m MOOCifying
January 15, 2013 | Filed in: Open Education
by Janine DeBaise
Every fall when I ask my first year students, “Why did you choose the College of Environmental Science and Forestry?” at least one will answer, “I want to save the world.” By the time they are sophomores, my students have taken rigorous science courses that focus on environmental issues. When they do group projects in the research/composition course I teach, I’m impressed with their topics, the depth of their knowledge, and their passion. What seems wrong is that their presentations are only to each other. Sure, they invite their friends, but at a small college where everyone takes a whole bunch of the same courses, that’s not a very satisfying audience. The students teach me and have changed me -- dramatically -- but I shouldn’t be the only person to benefit from their knowledge and fresh ideas.
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Every fall when I ask my first year students, “Why did you choose the College of Environmental Science and Forestry?” at least one will answer, “I want to save the world.” By the time they are sophomores, my students have taken rigorous science courses that focus on environmental issues. When they do group projects in the research/composition course I teach, I’m impressed with their topics, the depth of their knowledge, and their passion. What seems wrong is that their presentations are only to each other. Sure, they invite their friends, but at a small college where everyone takes a whole bunch of the same courses, that’s not a very satisfying audience. The students teach me and have changed me -- dramatically -- but I shouldn’t be the only person to benefit from their knowledge and fresh ideas.
Read More...A MOOC is not a Thing: Emergence, Disruption, and Higher Education
November 19, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
A MOOC is not a thing. A MOOC is a strategy. What we say about MOOCs cannot possibly contain their drama, banality, incessance, and proliferation. The MOOC is a variant beast -- placental, emergent, alienating, enveloping, sometimes thriving, sometimes dead, sometimes reborn. There is also nothing about a MOOC that can be contained. Try as they might, MOOC-makers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity cannot keep their MOOCs to themselves, because when we join a MOOC, it is not to learn new content, new skills, new knowledge, it is to learn new learning. Entering a MOOC is entering Wonderland -- where modes of learning are turned sideways and on their heads -- and we walk away MOOCified.
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A MOOC is not a thing. A MOOC is a strategy. What we say about MOOCs cannot possibly contain their drama, banality, incessance, and proliferation. The MOOC is a variant beast -- placental, emergent, alienating, enveloping, sometimes thriving, sometimes dead, sometimes reborn. There is also nothing about a MOOC that can be contained. Try as they might, MOOC-makers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity cannot keep their MOOCs to themselves, because when we join a MOOC, it is not to learn new content, new skills, new knowledge, it is to learn new learning. Entering a MOOC is entering Wonderland -- where modes of learning are turned sideways and on their heads -- and we walk away MOOCified.
Read More...Udacity and Online Pedagogy: Players, Learners, Objects
August 27, 2012 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
This sentence is a learning object. Wayne Hodgins, the “father of learning objects,” first came up with the idea for them while watching his son play with LEGOs. The basic notion is that we can create units of learning so fundamentally simple and reusable that they can be applied in different ways to different objectives and lessons, no matter the context. Hodgins’s dream was of “a world where all ‘content’ exists at just the right and lowest possible size.” Like a single sentence. Like a single question on an exam. Like a photograph, a moment in a video, a discussion prompt. As online learning has grown, learning objects have become something of the Holy Grail of instructional design... Or the windmills at which it tilts.
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This sentence is a learning object. Wayne Hodgins, the “father of learning objects,” first came up with the idea for them while watching his son play with LEGOs. The basic notion is that we can create units of learning so fundamentally simple and reusable that they can be applied in different ways to different objectives and lessons, no matter the context. Hodgins’s dream was of “a world where all ‘content’ exists at just the right and lowest possible size.” Like a single sentence. Like a single question on an exam. Like a photograph, a moment in a video, a discussion prompt. As online learning has grown, learning objects have become something of the Holy Grail of instructional design... Or the windmills at which it tilts.
Read More...Learning as Performance: MOOC Pedagogy and On-ground Classes
August 24, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Chris Friend
I once heard an interesting story about my former collegiate marching-band instructor, Dr. Richard Greenwood. According to legend, Greenwood once held up the score to an extensive piece the band was working on, pointed to it, and said, to the surprise of those around him holding instruments, "This is not the music we are playing. This is not the song we are performing. This is only a map. It's a guide to get us where the composer wants us to go." He then went on to discuss the merits of interpretation, flexibility, and improvisation within a framework.
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I once heard an interesting story about my former collegiate marching-band instructor, Dr. Richard Greenwood. According to legend, Greenwood once held up the score to an extensive piece the band was working on, pointed to it, and said, to the surprise of those around him holding instruments, "This is not the music we are playing. This is not the song we are performing. This is only a map. It's a guide to get us where the composer wants us to go." He then went on to discuss the merits of interpretation, flexibility, and improvisation within a framework.
Read More...A MOOC by Any Other Name
August 13, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Hundreds in Google Docs
On August 13, as part of a collaborative exercise in Hybrid Pedagogy’s MOOC MOOC, nearly 500 participants worked together in seven separate documents to create essays about MOOCs. They were given specific parameters -- half a day, cite three sources, write exactly 1,000 words, and illustrate with an image. Working in sections of about 50 participants each, each group succeeding in massively co-authoring, and massively peer-reviewing their articles. The article below stood out as one ready to publish, but all the articles were noteworthy. We’ve included a short Storify at the end of the complete piece below, including links to all the Google Docs in which the essays were written.
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On August 13, as part of a collaborative exercise in Hybrid Pedagogy’s MOOC MOOC, nearly 500 participants worked together in seven separate documents to create essays about MOOCs. They were given specific parameters -- half a day, cite three sources, write exactly 1,000 words, and illustrate with an image. Working in sections of about 50 participants each, each group succeeding in massively co-authoring, and massively peer-reviewing their articles. The article below stood out as one ready to publish, but all the articles were noteworthy. We’ve included a short Storify at the end of the complete piece below, including links to all the Google Docs in which the essays were written.
Read More...Audrey Watters Wrestles with MOOCs
August 11, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Pete Rorabaugh
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as they are situated both inside and outside of traditional higher education institutions, naturally raise questions about those institutions. My recent article, "Occupy the Digital: Critical Pedagogy and New Media," began to uncover some of those questions. In that article, I assert "that academic work must be useful beyond its tower and that digital culture offers new opportunities to achieve that goal." Perhaps MOOCs are a way to take academic work beyond its traditional boundaries. Or perhaps MOOCs are so extra-institutional that they will work no real changes on higher education. I recently invited Audrey Watters to an interview over Twitter to discuss what road MOOCs might be paving for us all. Both of us will also be participating in MOOC MOOC, an experimental, investigative one-week course hosted by Hybrid Pedagogy. This interview is an invitation behind the critical lens of MOOC MOOC.
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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as they are situated both inside and outside of traditional higher education institutions, naturally raise questions about those institutions. My recent article, "Occupy the Digital: Critical Pedagogy and New Media," began to uncover some of those questions. In that article, I assert "that academic work must be useful beyond its tower and that digital culture offers new opportunities to achieve that goal." Perhaps MOOCs are a way to take academic work beyond its traditional boundaries. Or perhaps MOOCs are so extra-institutional that they will work no real changes on higher education. I recently invited Audrey Watters to an interview over Twitter to discuss what road MOOCs might be paving for us all. Both of us will also be participating in MOOC MOOC, an experimental, investigative one-week course hosted by Hybrid Pedagogy. This interview is an invitation behind the critical lens of MOOC MOOC.
Read More...#digped Storify Pt. 2: A Backchannel in the Backchannel
August 09, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Robin Wharton
The first installment, "We Interrupt This Broadcast," deferred the question about the use of video lectures and broadcast education in MOOCs, and focuses instead on those contributions related to the other questions Sean's #digped post raises. In this installment, I pick up the MOOC-related strands of the discussion and the resulting conversation about shifting funding models for higher education and the pressing questions they raise.
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The first installment, "We Interrupt This Broadcast," deferred the question about the use of video lectures and broadcast education in MOOCs, and focuses instead on those contributions related to the other questions Sean's #digped post raises. In this installment, I pick up the MOOC-related strands of the discussion and the resulting conversation about shifting funding models for higher education and the pressing questions they raise.
Read More...#digped Storify Pt. 1: We Interrupt This Broadcast . . .
August 07, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Robin Wharton
In his article, "Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera," Sean asks us to consider, "If online education has made so much progress, why isn’t it more obvious? Why are the good folks at Coursera (who are actually just now catching up to those of us who’ve been doing this for a decade) getting all the attention, while also not putting the best face of online education forward?" He ends the piece with a call for pedagogues "to innovate, to experiment, to play and be played with," and cautions against oversimplification of online learning and MOOCs, of both the forms they take and the issues at stake when we are debating their merits and demerits. In an effort to engage some of the more productive discursive strands weaving in and out of the recent media "MOOCopalypse", we decided to focus last week's #digped discussion on the broader question of broadcast learning, which is the model (as Sean points out, sometimes erroneously) most frequently associated with MOOCs and other, more traditional (did I just write that?) online courses.
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In his article, "Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera," Sean asks us to consider, "If online education has made so much progress, why isn’t it more obvious? Why are the good folks at Coursera (who are actually just now catching up to those of us who’ve been doing this for a decade) getting all the attention, while also not putting the best face of online education forward?" He ends the piece with a call for pedagogues "to innovate, to experiment, to play and be played with," and cautions against oversimplification of online learning and MOOCs, of both the forms they take and the issues at stake when we are debating their merits and demerits. In an effort to engage some of the more productive discursive strands weaving in and out of the recent media "MOOCopalypse", we decided to focus last week's #digped discussion on the broader question of broadcast learning, which is the model (as Sean points out, sometimes erroneously) most frequently associated with MOOCs and other, more traditional (did I just write that?) online courses.
Read More...Broadcast Learning: A #digped Discussion
August 01, 2012 | Filed in: #digped
by Sean Michael Morris
This Friday, August 3 from 1:00 - 2:00pm Eastern (10:00 - 11:00am Pacific), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion under hashtag #digped centered on the difference between content-delivery and learning in online education. We’ll use as focal point for the discussion the problems and advantages of, and future potential for, the video lecture as utilized in flipped classrooms, MOOCs, hybrid courses, and more. In “Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera”, we suggested that video lectures used to create large-scale, “auditorium”-style learning environments may not be the very best application of technology. Our discussion on Friday will inspect how this technology is being used and abused, and how it might be used better.
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This Friday, August 3 from 1:00 - 2:00pm Eastern (10:00 - 11:00am Pacific), Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion under hashtag #digped centered on the difference between content-delivery and learning in online education. We’ll use as focal point for the discussion the problems and advantages of, and future potential for, the video lecture as utilized in flipped classrooms, MOOCs, hybrid courses, and more. In “Broadcast Education: A Response to Coursera”, we suggested that video lectures used to create large-scale, “auditorium”-style learning environments may not be the very best application of technology. Our discussion on Friday will inspect how this technology is being used and abused, and how it might be used better.
Read More...Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera
July 26, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Sean Michael Morris
Coursera is silly. Educational technology news has been all a-flutter over the last few months about the work that Coursera is doing to bring higher education into the open. But I tell you what: I signed up for one of their classes -- a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy from the University of Michigan -- only to discover something really startling. Really: startling.
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Coursera is silly. Educational technology news has been all a-flutter over the last few months about the work that Coursera is doing to bring higher education into the open. But I tell you what: I signed up for one of their classes -- a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy from the University of Michigan -- only to discover something really startling. Really: startling.
Read More...The March of the MOOCs: Monstrous Open Online Courses
July 23, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Jesse Stommel
MOOCs are a red herring. The MOOC didn’t appear last week, out of a void, vacuum-packed. The MOOC has been around for years, biding its time. Still, the recent furor about MOOCs, which some have called “hysteria,” opens important questions about higher education, digital pedagogy, and online learning. The MOOCs themselves aren’t what’s really at stake. In spite of the confused murmurs in the media, MOOCs won’t actually chomp everything in their path. And they aren’t an easy solution to higher education’s financial crisis. In fact, a MOOC isn’t anything at all, just a methodological approach, with no inherent value except insofar as it’s used.
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MOOCs are a red herring. The MOOC didn’t appear last week, out of a void, vacuum-packed. The MOOC has been around for years, biding its time. Still, the recent furor about MOOCs, which some have called “hysteria,” opens important questions about higher education, digital pedagogy, and online learning. The MOOCs themselves aren’t what’s really at stake. In spite of the confused murmurs in the media, MOOCs won’t actually chomp everything in their path. And they aren’t an easy solution to higher education’s financial crisis. In fact, a MOOC isn’t anything at all, just a methodological approach, with no inherent value except insofar as it’s used.
Read More...