[Xmca-l] Re: [commfac] Re: FW: femtechnet: DOCC 2013: top listed story on Inside Higher Ed

Tue Aug 20 06:46:11 PDT 2013

Hi Andy,

I think, and this is just my line of thinking, that the best way to put CHAT education, and education in other ideas, is to create embedded initiatives.  It is really important not to create any bifurcations - I would suggest there are a number of moving parts that we are going to have to figure out - and it will be an ongoing exploration.  I think for Open Educational Content CHAT investigators could develop a series a common resource pools, something akin to the longer threads that sometimes emerge on this list, or also what you Andy have created with your Marxists.org site.  At another level, OER, you could do what Dr. Balsamo is doing, create platforms where individual can interconnect/link up different resource pools and help develop strategies for remixing them for specific purposes. And then at the local level you can develop problem solving groups looking into specific ideas and develop strategies that fit into the lives and the interrelationships between space and place at that particular moment of teaching history.  What is really cool is that these local levels have the potential of developing their own common resource pools that can then be interconnected with other groups.  Education then becomes less an exercise "banking" and more of a journey through a "web of trails."

What is great about this I think is it takes almost no money except at the local level where you need to actually pay the teachers facilitating the groups.  All of the applications you need are free and out there.

Michael
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 8:58 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: [commfac] Re: FW: femtechnet: DOCC 2013: top listed story on Inside Higher Ed

What, in your opinion then, Michael, is the best thing a group or
university teachers, with technical support and access to a website, but
no appreciable amount of money, could do to offer education in CHAT free
to the world?

Andy

Glassman, Michael wrote:
> I think one of the things we really need to do is change the vocabulary and the way we talk about different initiatives in Internet infused education.  Massive Open Online Courses is a marketing scheme not a point of debate about education.  MOOC sounds kind of cute but it is so broad as to be completely meaningless, and the appropriation of it is an attempt of those with the largest megaphone and smallest intellectual memories to take control of the conversation (same thing that happened with the phrase educational reform I think).  Ironically when the phrase was first introduced it mean something completely different from what we automatically think it means now.  It was introduced to describe a twenty-five person online course with high levels of connectivity by George Siemans at the University of Manitoba.  It was appropriated by venture capital companies like Udacity and EdX I would surmise because it is kind of a cute way of describing things like Teletubbies.  The trou
>  ble is then we are constantly arguing against the way MOOCs are which creates an uncomfortable bifurcation - is the Internet good for education or bad for education.
>
> I think we would be much better off it we used the United Nations terms which are much more descriptive - Open Educational Content and Open Educational Resources.  Open Educational Content sort of describes Udacity while Open Educational Resources describes better Balsamo's project.  This gives us the opportunity to say which is better for educational purposes.  We can ask the question, "Why do you think Open Content" is enough for an educational experience?  Does OEC limit students more than OER?  Basically what those proposing OEC are doing is throwing out centuries of not only discussions of education but pretty much every argument since Des Cartes.  They should be called on this publicly and made to answer for it.
>
> Michael
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 7:44 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: [commfac] Re: FW: femtechnet: DOCC 2013: top listed story on Inside Higher Ed
>
> It is unthinkable from the perspective of any world view that values
> diversity.
> XMCA values diversity.
> Ergo....... or is that er.... go??
> mike
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co
>
>> wrote:
>>
>
>
>> I especially like the concluding paragraphs:
>>
>> Among the forms of MOOC hype that Balsamo said she hoped the DOCC would
>> combat is the idea that massive online courses allow some "best" professor
>> to interact with students everywhere, so that all can learn from the
>> superstar. It's not that there aren't very talented professors out there,
>> she said, but the superstar emphasis is wrong ("Is there really a 'best'?"
>> she asks) and doesn't encourage group learning.
>>
>> Said Balsamo: "The idea of the one best talking head, the best expert in
>> the world, that couldn't be more patriarchal. That displays a hubris that
>> is unthinkable from a feminist perspective."
>>
>>
>> Read more:
>> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/19/feminist-professors-create-alternative-moocs#ixzz2cSdlb7pt
>> Inside Higher Ed
>>
>>
>> On Aug 19, 2013, at 6:24 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Dear Xmcaers-
>>>
>>> The following link to femnet mooc seems to me to offer a very interesting
>>> model for members of xmca to think of following. We here at UCSD have
>>>
>> been
>>
>>> thinking along
>>> such lines, but this is a developed model that might actually provide
>>>
>> some
>>
>>> kind of
>>> strategic guide to action. I can imagine any number of stimulating such
>>> efforts various
>>> congeries of xmca could cook up.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> Forwarded from Lisa Cartwright at ucsd.
>>>
>>>> Hi everyone, the DOCC 2013 MOOC alternative course discussed today today
>>>> in Inside Higher Ed had one of its pilots taught in our department last
>>>> spring by Liz Losh and me with Monika Sengul Jones, Cristina Visperas,
>>>> Lousie Hickman, Erika Cheng, Yelena Guzman and others leading the
>>>>
>> effort to
>>
>>>> produce innovative course design and materials and hosting a conference
>>>> dedicated to it--big shout-out to these graduate students for making
>>>>
>> this
>>
>>>> launch happen. We are one of the 17 colleges offering the class to
>>>> undergrads in this coming year. I thought some of you you might enjoy
>>>> reading this alternative effort given the pervasive of MOOC discussions
>>>> right now.  Best to everyone, Lisa
>>>>
>>>> I suggest you take a look.
>>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> http://www.insidehighered.com/
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> femtechnet mailing list
>>>> femtechnet@lists.uoregon.edu
>>>> https://lists-prod.uoregon.edu/mailman/listinfo/femtechnet
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden