My Governor General #Award link with Alice Munro the Nobel prize winner

Admittedly I have the longest way to go to even be in the shadow of Alice Munro, the newest Nobel Prize winner of literature. Nevertheless my heart jumped a beat when I saw that in the past she got the Canadian Governor General's Award for fiction (three times!!!) and this year I was very proud to get the Canadian Governor General Gold Medal award. I agree that my award is only a start to invest in continued academic work, while Alice Munro is a completely accomplished and wonderful writer, but still it gives me a good feeling to have something in common with a strong human being. And her book the beggar maid was a good read, now in dodgy, read condition sitting on my bookshelf.  

I did not dare to write about getting the Gold medal award from the Governor General at first, as I am a bit uncomfortable with sharing accomplished work at times. But, today I thought I would just share it, because the gold medal really did give me a boost to make a difference with my future distance education work and projects. The Governor General’s Academic Medals have recognized the outstanding scholastic achievements of students in Canada for more then 125 years now. And I am a proud graduate student from Athabasca University. The medal which I was granted to receive is awarded to the student graduating with the highest average from a university program so it is a real honor to get the award.  Prizes sometimes matter on a personal level. For one my parents were really proud of me, and my nephews and nieces patted me on the shoulder expressing enthusiasm which really means a lot to me (and surprise that gold medals are also given to non-sporty people). It means a lot to me, also because I am well passed the average graduate student age (46 at present). 


So although my roots are Flemish and my family and I live in the United Kingdom at present, I say: Go Canada!

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IRRODL journal is out with rich online, #mobile and #eLearning articles

The latest version of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning has just been published and as always it is packed with online, mobile and eLearning wisdom.

There are a couple of OER related articles in this publication. One article that immediately got my attention was the OERscout technology framework by Ishan Sudeera Abeywardena, Chee Seng Chan, Choy Yoong Tham. They dare to tackle the relevant OER searching and finding challenge: as a major step towards solving this issue, this paper proposes OERScout, a technology framework based on text mining solutions. Just imagine finding the top-notch OER in a matter of minutes, what a wonderful world this would be. 

Table of Contents

Editorial

	Editorial: Volume 14, Number 4	HTML PDF MP3 EPUB
	Dianne Conrad

Research Articles

	Distance and e-learning, social justice, and development: The relevance of capability approaches to the mission of open universities	HTMLPDF MP3EPUB
	Alan William Tait

	The extent of and reasons for non re-enrolment: A case of Korea National Open University	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Hyoseon Choi, Yekyung Lee, Insung Jung, Colin Latchem

	The adoption of open educational resources by one community college math department	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	John Levi Hilton III, Donna Gaudet, Phil Clark, Jared Robinson, David Wiley

	Making distance visible: Assembling nearness in an online distance learning programme	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Jen Ross, Michael Sean Gallagher, Hamish Macleod

	Evaluation of the Vocational Education Orientation Programme (VEOP) at a university in South Africa	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Lynette Jacobs, Corene De Wet

	Measuring use and creation of open educational resources in higher education	HTML PDF MP3EPUB
	Ross Charles McKerlich, Cindy Ives, Rory McGreal

	Comparison of course completion and student performance through online and traditional courses	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Thomas Wayne Atchley, Gary Wingenbach, Cynthia Akers

	Mobile app design for teaching and learning: Educators’ experiences in an online graduate course	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Yu-Chang Hsu, Yu-Hui Ching

	Learning in a small, task–oriented, connectivist MOOC: Pedagogical issues and implications for higher education	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Jenny Mackness, Marion Waite, George Roberts, Elizabeth Lovegrove

	Virtual worlds: Relationship between real life and experience in Second Life	HTML PDF MP3EPUB
	Scott P. Anstadt, Shannon Bradley, Ashley Burnette

	The influence of e-learning on individual and collective empowerment in the public sector: An empirical study of Korean government employees	HTMLPDF MP3EPUB
	Mann Hyung Hur, Yeonwook Im

	OERScout technology framework: A novel approach to open educational resources search	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Ishan Sudeera Abeywardena, Chee Seng Chan, Choy Yoong Tham

	Power distance in online learning: Experience of Chinese learners in U.S. higher education	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Yi (Leaf) Zhang

	Assessment of the effectiveness of internet-based distance learning through the VClass e-Education platform	HTML PDFMP3 EPUB
	Chadchadaporn Pukkaew

Leadership in Open and Distance Learning Notes

	Editorial: Leadership in Open and Distance Learning Notes	HTML PDF MP3EPUB
	Marti Cleveland-Innes

	Leader-member exchange theory in higher and distance education	HTML PDF MP3EPUB
	Robert Leo Power

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Two call for papers #MOOC conference deadlines

Networked Learning conference - 7 - 9 April 2014 - University of Edinburgh, UK

Deadline for papers for Ninth International Conference on Networked Learning in Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Professional Development is Friday 4th October.

The conference is hosted by the University of Edinburgh, at the John McIntyre Conference Centre in Edinburgh, on the 7th. 8th & 9th April 2014.Keynote Speakers: Professor Neil Selwyn & Professor Steve FullerThis conference is considered a major event in the international 'technology enhanced learning' conference circuit, and provides a friendly, collegiate context for meeting researchers and practitioners in networked learning.

All submissions are peer reviewed, and accepted papers published in conference proceedings, submission information can be found at:

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/call/index.htm

Full Conference Details can be found at: http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/

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eMOOC conference 10 - 12 February 2014 - Lausanne, Switzerland.

eMOOC conference in Lausanne, Switserland. Deadline for submitting papers: this Friday. 

The organisers of the European MOOCs Stakeholders Summit 2014 have extended the deadline for paper submissions to October 4, 2013. The conference will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 10-12 February 2014.

Contributors are reminded that paper submission is open for the Experience and Research tracks:

 · The Experience Track is focused on experiences and best practices from practitioners in MOOCs or MOOC-related contexts. Papers in this track should focus on concrete experiences within an institution that have transferable lessons to share with other practitioners. 

· The Research Track aims to feed the general debate on MOOCs with scientific data. These research papers should address a solid research question, employ appropriate research methods, and provide data-based results. 

EMOOCs 2014, organised by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and P.A.U. Education, will see researchers, practitioners, and educators come together to collectively shape the evolution of MOOCs in the sphere of European higher education.

Please, see the conference website for more information and for guidelines to submit a paper.

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Hopes for #Google #MOOC partnership with #EdX

With a bit of a delay some thoughts on Google's move towards education (lining up with EdX for the MOOC.org platform). It does not come as too much of a surprise, as Google has been exploring education for a longer period of time. Starting with Google's business approach that people are able to dedicate some time of their Google professional work to innovative projects they set up themselves. This highlights to me the trust in experimentation, self-directed training and learning to reach new innovations. 

Google was also one of the earlier MOOC providers, with its wonderful and experimental (yet very useful) Power Searching with Google course:

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/powersearching.html

What I really appreciate with Google's vision is the effort to make things open. One of the examples related to Google and education is Google's course builder:

https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/

This builds upon what they learned from the early Power Search courses and such, and opens up opportunities for those looking to set up an online course (provided they have some knowledge in IT). 

Another angle which I find of interest is the Google teacher approach: or how to use Google tools for teachers. The Google teacher academy ignited new interest in using open tools for educational purposes. The teachers kept their expert role, and Google offered them additional tools that saved money and time, and opened up more collaborative options for all. This had a global impact, as teachers from around the world sought Google certification through the academy. http://www.google.co.uk/edu/programs/google-teacher-academy/  

Another angle are Google's innovative tools that have opened education: Google Goggle's for example, opening up opportunities for augmented learning: 

http://www.hl7standards.com/blog/2013/03/21/google-glass/

So to me partnering up with universities (especially EdX type universities) seems to be a logical next step. For what Google did miss was Subject Matter Experts, or teachers in general. Merging EdX with Google will no doubt result in optimal learning experiences (e.g. mobile optimized courses, seamless learning experience) and it has an enormous potential for Big Data related to learner analytics, as Google has one of the vast analytics opportunities out there.

And although Apple and Microsoft have launched some educational initiatives, it does not even begin to compare with the prior expertise Google has built up.  

My hope is of course that UNESCO's aim to reach 'education for all' will in fact become a possibility. But in order for this to happen Open Educational Resources must be build and expertise must be shared. Learners must be seen as intelligent people who themselves have expertise and knowledge to share, and who know which knowledge would help them out in daily life (whether professional or personal). This means that the current (x)MOOC that use 'the expert' instead off 'us, the experts', or 'the content' instead of 'all viewpoints' might have to change their game if Google and EdX really move towards a meaningful third road in between xMOOC and cMOOC. And I think Google's vision can pull this off, as it is a philosophy which has proven them lucrative. 

Higher Education is of course under pressure with all these new developments, but in a way it is not. The only thing higher ed has to do is come up with specialties, coaching and mentorship are still easier in face-to-face environments. But I like the parallel with publishers, their are big publishing houses out there, but there is always a space for smaller, specialized options as well. 

MOOC do have an effect on classroom teaching in universities: as professors are in some cases pushed to rethink their pedagogy, their course schedule. 

But in the end, teaching is a real craft. And all of us remember the great professors and rapidly forget the others. I feel that however wonderful a MOOC platform is build, or whatever emphasis is placed on pedagogy, at the end of the day the quality of what is taught lies with the professor (she or he). An enlightened teacher can lift learners to a higher level with pencil and paper, or fabulous mobile multimedia alike. Great teachers know how to connect with their learners prior knowledge, provide them with collaborative zest, and move their learners to the next level of insights. But I bet that professors that will become globally known for their expert teaching efforts, will get better pay-checks... Or would it mean that the rest will get even less? 

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#MOOC report from UK dep of business, innovation and skills

A more business oriented report on MOOC has been disseminated for all of us to read. It is free and can be downloaded or read here.

The headlines of the 122 page report :

• Conflicting perspectives on MOOCs divide education communities
• Learning Practitioners disagree about the value of MOOCs.
• Formal comprehensive analyses of MOOCs mostly concur that they are disruptive and 
• possibly threatening to current HE models 
• Reporting of MOOC learner experiences is positive
• The MOOC is maturing – and engaging with its business and accreditation issues
• Economist Intelligence Unit.
• Sloan Consortium..
• Austrade.
• Sub-conclusion: Formal analysis of MOOCs commissioned by authorities .
• Sub-conclusion: Journalistic and press writing about MOOCs 
• Accreditation – a route to payment..
• The US Community College sector – a possible model for stronger MOOC engagement 
• Technological challenges

It has some nice sections in it, so good to quickly peruse through those parts you know already and give it a bit more time on the new ideas.

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Join the first #FutureLearn #MOOC courses

The first courses will be going live on FutureLearn platform, the first UK-led provider of massive open online courses (MOOCs). FutureLearn is the result of nine months intense work and testing since its initial launch. For those interested in the business set up: FutureLearn is an independent company owned and spearheaded by The Open University, but in collaboration/partnership with top UK, Ireland and Australian universities. From today, some of the courses from our 20-plus partners will be showcased at a media event at the British Library, in London; but some of the courses will also be open to the public. Those courses will be public beta courses, so courses that are open to critique, improvements, and overall learning to get better. 

So for all of you experienced MOOC'rs out there, feel free to visit www.futurelearn.com and join the public beta testing of FutureLearn. Give feedback, share tweets, blogs, ... adding to the insights we all need to improve the courses even more, and become one of the potential standards of (x)MOOC (e.g. Coursera, EdX, Udacity). There will be videos, trailers of the courses to come, descriptions... and all of that stuff. But what we are interested in is what you feel is missing? 

• Are the FutureLearn courses truly mobile accessible?
• Do the courses provide a seamless learning experience (where you can leave the course and pick it up again easily)?
• Are they social enough to learn from peers, share experiences with others?

The trailers can be seen on each course page, or you can simply subscribe to the FutureLearn YouTube channel and get an idea of what is available.
As an example I put up the "Begin programming, build your first mobile game" course provided by the University of Reading. The trailer can be viewed below:

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Learn about learner #analytics with xAPI #TinCan twitter chat

I blogged on Tin Can before, and now there is an interesting experiment you can join. Varadarajan (Varadu) Sridharan recently joined a cohort conducted by Advanced Distributed Learning ( http://adlnet.gov/ ) where everyone learns about Experience API (xAPI or Tin Can). Experience API is an e-learning software specification that allows learning content and learning systems to speak to each other in a manner that records and tracks all types of learning experiences. FYI, ADL group is also the team behind the widely-popular SCORM framework, and Tin Can is really an visionary, cross-platform standard that will boost learner analytics (and big data in general I think). 
As part of Varadarajan xAPI (Tin Can) Design Cohort, the team of Varadarajan has created a Twitter Chat experiment, and an experiment is always worth trying if you have some time and an interest in the topic. You can participate in this chat and learn more about xAPI and xAPI resources.

In order to join you need to register with your Twitter id at http://xapijv.kneaver.com/ and the team itself already looks inspiring!

Here are the Twitter chat timings:
- Round One questions on Twitter September, 17th at noon, 12 p.m. EST
- Round Two questions on Twitter October, 1st at noon, 12 p.m. EST

Please share this with anyone interested in xAPI or learning analytics!

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