[Xmca-l] Re: Quick question and assistance

[Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com>]

Not directly referencing MOOCs, but this new volume of papers may be of interest.

Meskill, C, 2013, Online Teaching and Learning, Sociocultural Perspectives, London: Bloomsbury

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/online-teaching-and-learning-9781441159458

Phil
On 18 Dec 2013, at 7:23 am, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear XMCA'rs,
> I'm wondering if anyone can point a colleague to Vygotsky-inspired folks
> writing on MOOCs. I know there has been a lot of discussion about moocs
> here on XMCA, but was wondering what's out there in writing.
> I've forwarded the original message below.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your suggestions,
> greg
> 
> 
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Alex Rosborough <alex_rosborough@byu.edu>wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I have a colleague in general K-12 education that asked me the following
>> question:
>> 
>> *Alex: re: vygotsky. can you point me toward a piece (not an overly long
>> piece) that deals with the centrality of human relationships and mature
>> support to learning, the sort of piece that leads to the conclusion that
>> moocs and other forms of on-line ed might be okay for training but not for
>> education? (i've spent part of the morning trying to find my vygotsky
>> book--edited by john-steiner, but to no avail, nuts). thanks for your
>> guidance, Alex. B.*
>> 
>> And an additional comment:
>> 
>> *…it's the zone in its various manifestations i'm most interested
>> in--not just talk about guidance and a bit of coaching but serious
>> relationship, embedded in meaning tasks that facilitate mentoring and open
>> folks up to reimagining themselves as capable learners and serious problem
>> solvers (if this makes any sense at all). *
>> 
>> Unfortunately, I'm not very up on MOOCs and technology. I know many of
>> these practices claim to be very Vygotskian but in some cases they're often
>> superficial interpretations. I think he's alluding (possibly) to the idea
>> that modern "constructivism" is not necessarily the same as Vygotskian SCT.
>> 
>> I referred him to Fred Newman's and Lois Holtzman's work(s) concerning
>> "performance"… And I'm pretty sure you don't typically get the Vygotskian
>> drama-based / role-playing / language-play performance that is appropriate
>> and valuable for CHILDREN (K-12 public education system) through many Moocs
>> and such.
>> 
>> I know there may be some differing of opinions but do any of you have an
>> article or suggestion that might help this professor?
>> 
>> Or are we both out of touch with what he's asking? I'm sure that second
>> language issues are appropriate to this discussion as well.
>> 
>> I appreciate any short reply and/or reference you can send. Thank you,
>> 
>> Alex Rosborough
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Visiting Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson

Status: O