OCL4Ed is starts June 18, 2014

"Learn about the concepts of open educational resources, copyright and Creative Commons open licenses to achieve more sustainable education for all." http://wikieducator.org/course/OCL4Ed/Start_here/ I signed up to take a look and see some of the design changes that have been made. I plan on looking around more tomorrow. Also coming up soon: Coursera's Copyright for Educators and Librarians. Starts July 21, 2014. Kevin Smith is involved, so this is bound to be a good course.

Sebastian Thrun's pivot

There are a lot of "I told you so's" aimed at Sebastian Thrun for his initial enthusiasm for MOOCs and his recent turn-around. Udacity is now going to target job-specific training. So... ok, we told you so - BUT I'm thinking about how he got to this "fail": He was willing to experiment and go way out on a limb in a very public way. He had the social capital to gather up venture capital and develop a platform in short order. He has brought online education to the attention of many - including ivy league schools. He experimented in a BIG way. We told him so, but he learned it for himself. I'm sure that he will go on to do many more interesting things. Now I'm trying to think about what would be different if the last couple of years of MOOC craziness hadn't happened?

Design 101 - Victor Papanek - In print only

I'm doing Design 1o1 (one-oh-one - not laugh out loud) through iversity.org One item on the suggested readings - Victor Papanek Design for the Real World - I'm reading the first edition which happened to be available in the academic library I frequent. They haven't thrown it out yet even though it's one of those academic libraries that seems bent on marginalizing the printed book. How frustrating that Papanek is not legally available electronically! (I'm quite sure that the material at gobookee.org is not up there legally.) I would like all of you to read it - and read it in its' entirety. I listened to some of Dave Cormier's discussion for #WWEOpen13. I'm rather confused. He seems to be saying that there's no longer a need for fixed texts. The conversation with the group seemed to fall somewhere between "print is dead" and "I like print." I think that you ought to read Papenek - not as revised or condensed or regurgitated by someone who might shift Papanek's arguments in some way. Write your own work and have your say! Don't mess with Papanek's expression. Also if I were teaching a course in design, I would insist that the students should read Papenek. Apparently this is "teacher as leader = bad." Perhaps if I disguise myself as a fellow student I could enthusiastically endorse the reading of particular texts?

First page of the preface from the 1st edition

Design in the Real World: Ecology and Social Change - 2nd edition (2005).

Design 101: I've only missed doing one assignment so far and will catch up on that one today. I'm not trying to be the best or even good. I'm not agonizing over the assignments. I'm doing that thing where you get an idea, do it, and ship it.

Following along ETEC 642

I'm bound and determined to follow Bert Kimura's ETEC 642 course Facilitating E-Learning Communities (http://www.hawaii.edu/dl/courses/?action=course_info&crse_id=9764). The course website is at http://etec642summer.wordpress.com "Following" is the operative term. I'm already a week behind - for no particularly good reason. I think it might have to do with a character flaw - lack of discipline(?) I intend to get going right now!

Google+

Wow, Google+ has me stymied! I can't get Hangouts to work on my desktop. I keep getting an installation error 1603 when it asks me to install the talk plugin. I thought I HAD a talk plug in! I've read up as much as possible. I see reports of problems like mine going back years - though I wasn't having any problem until a couple of days ago. Tried some of the suggestions: Uninstalled things, re-installed things, tried setting it up in a guest account... No luck! I wanted to try the on air function. So here's the deal: What do you do when you run out of problem-solving ideas? I'm sitting here with a nice webcam and a pretty good mic and a nice fast Internet connection...no luck. (Thanks for listening)

Digital Public Library of America

Micah Vandegrift has written a piece on the Digital Public Library of America - what it is - and what it isn't - and what it might become. See http://www.inthelibrarywiththedpipe.org/2013/dpla/ Micah discusses joining one of the early discussion lists concerning the DPLA. I was on the list for a while as well (dpla-discussion@eon.law.harvard.edu) and my impression was that a lot of brilliant people had very interesting ideas about presenting digital collections - and terrific capabilities. They seemed mainly interested in presenting digital library content to scholars - other people just like them. Some of the participants in the early discussions didn't seem all that interested in including public library collections. Some of the discussants didn't seem all that interested in any user not affiliated with a research-intensive university. Public librarians were working hard to be heard. I was put off. I was hoping for the emergence of a digital public library of the world with no silly political or geographic boundaries. While I continued to read about the DPLA sporadically, I stopped following the day-to-day discussions. Now the first iteration of the DPLA has launched. Robert Darnton and John Palfry - both leaders in the DPLA were guests for a recent Special Event for Terry Fisher's CopyrightX course. Both talked about the a grand vision of what the DPLA could become and how it could become the digital library for all of us. I'm looking forward to DPLA developments!

Oprah's Life Class - a kind of MOOC

How to create community with participants from 51 countries:

Check out Oprah's Life Class web site.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/oprahs-lifeclass.html

Classes. Your homework. Check-in. (While registration is required to participate in discussions, there are no other entrance requirements.)

Daily Life Work; Videos; Weekly Question (with a spot for responses); Webcasts.

The website has a place for "My Notes" "Enter your thoughts in your personal online notebook".

There's a Facebook page.

Oprah's Life Class asks people to upload their photos via Instagram. The photos are broadcast so there's a sense that they are the visible part of the TV audience.

Ambassadors use Twitter to announce TV events beforehand and keep things going with lively tweets. The Twitter stream is available in the auditorium where the broadcast is taking place. Oprah tweets to her Tweethearts during the broadcast.

The audience in the auditorium interacts with the life coach and Oprah. Skype is used to bring remote students into the classroom to interact with the life coach of the day - and Oprah.

There are no grades.

What strategies can we borrow for our courses? (Is Oprah's Life Class a sort of MOOC?)