E-Learning and Digital Cultures MOOC - Discussion EDCMOOC: Utopias and Dystopias Film Festival I signed up some time ago to do the Coursera online course E-Learning and Digital Cultures (#edcmooc). I am going to blog some of my thoughts on the course over the next five weeks, starting with week one’s film festival about Utopias and Dystopias. Bendito Machine III Bendito Machine III shows quite a dystopian vision. Here human beings worship technologies that fall out of the sky and each new technology makes the previous one obsolete. Ecological Implications New technologies make older technologies obsolete leading to more throw away artifacts and creating landfill with all the flow on effects that carries with it. Social Implications Individuals are putting their obsession with technology ahead of relationships, allowing technology to set cultural expectations and agendas. I adore this tweet from Edel Horan: Bendito Machine reminiscent of public fervor over new Apple products! Inbox Inbox looks at the limitations and advantages of online communications. Limitations of Online Communications
resourcelinkbce | Just another WordPress.com site Teaching about cybersafety is the responsibility of every teacher. Here in Australia, we are fortunate to be able to access the fantastic services of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the government authority which has responsibility for the regulation of broadcasting, the internet, radio communications and telecommunications. Part of ACMA’s role is providing cybersafety education through the Cybersmart Program, which is designed to support and encourage participation online by providing information and education which empowers children to be safe online. It does this by providing information and resources for children, teens, parents, schools and libraries, as well as running seminars and workshops free of charge for all of these groups. This is just one example of the terrific high quality video resources available on the Cybersmart Facebook Page. The potential to connect, share, create and partake of a world of information is at student’s fingertips. Instagram – Keek –
Transhumanist Declaration Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth.We believe that humanity’s potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions.We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable.
Eight Brilliant Minds on the Future of Online Education - Eric Hellweg - Our Editors by Eric Hellweg | 12:12 PM January 29, 2013 The advent of massively open online classes (MOOCs) is the single most important technological development of the millennium so far. I say this for two main reasons. While at Davos, I was fortunate to attend an amazing panel — my favorite of the conference — with a murderer’s row of speakers. Why this disruption is happening: Peter Thiel, partner, Founders Fund “In the United States, students don’t get their money’s worth. “You have to ask yourself, ‘What is the nature of education as a good?’ Where we are in the evolution of this change: Larry Summers, former President of Harvard “It’s important to remember this really wise quote when thinking about the transition to online education: ‘Things take longer to happen than you think they will and then they happen faster than you think they could.’ Daphne Koller, founder of Coursera “We’re at 2.4 million students now. Raphael Reif, president of MIT “We manage this transition very carefully.
Is Google Making Us Stupid? - Nicholas Carr Illustration by Guy Billout "Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can feel it, too. I think I know what’s going on. For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. I’m not the only one. Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. Also see:
H-: Wrestling with Transhumanism Transhumanism for me is like a relationship with an obsessive and very neurotic lover. Knowing it is deeply flawed, I have tried several times to break off my engagement, but each time it manages to creep in through the back door of my mind. In How We Became Posthuman,1 I identified an undergirding assumption that makes possible such predictions as Hans Moravec’s transhumanist fantasy that we will soon be able to upload our consciousness into computers and leave our bodies behind. I argued that this scenario depends on a decontextualized and disembodied construction of information. There are, of course, many versions of transhumanism, and they do not all depend on the assumption I critiqued. But all of them, I will argue, perform decontextualizing moves that over-simplify the situation and carry into the new millennium some of the most questionable aspects of capitalist ideology. We seek to void all limits to life, intelligence, freedom, knowledge, and happiness.
Our #EdcMooc paths to Information and knowledge | Eleni's First Steps The last three weeks have been extremely rich and creative although I haven’t come back to the blog to record my thoughts. One of the things that keeps coming back in my mind are the words of George Roberts few months ago when I started the first UK-based MOOC “First Steps in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education“. During the orientation, George encouraged us to dive into the #fslt12 curriculum (the hashtag of the aforementioned MOOC) and make it ours. George’s words make perfect sense to me while engaging with #edcmooc as a student and while trying to encourage, as an educator, my students to internalize their course content and experience it as a whole. By internalizing the course content, quite a few questions keep coming up and the “dialogic” engagement via the Twitter chat revealed that I am not the only one with many research questions. This experience is going to help me immensely in a PhD program…so many research questions swirling through my head! What do you do? Like this:
EPIC 2020 | Higher Education Reform 40 Useful Tips For Anyone Taking A MOOC As these resources have grown in number and the list of institutions providing them has become ever more prestigious, free online courses are gaining legitimacy with employers as a method of learning valuable job skills. While there’s still a long way to go in terms of acceptance, more and more employers are recognizing the value of cheap, effective educational programs that can keep employees up-to-date and engaged in their field without spending a dime. Whether you’re looking to online education for personal reasons or to get ahead in your career, use these tips to help you get more out of open courses and use what you learn to market yourself, improve your performance, and stand out on the job. Treat them like real classes . If you really want to take away a lot from a free online course, then don’t treat it any differently than you would a course you’ve paid to take.
Week 1: Discussion on Utopias and Dystopias Venture Lab What constitutes learning in the 21st century? Should reading, watching, memorizing facts, and then taking exams be the only way to learn? Or could technology (used effectively) make learning more interactive, collaborative, and constructive? Schedule The course runs from Oct 15 - Dec 20, 2012.Workload 4 hours a week.Technical Requirements You need a computer that allows you to watch the video lectures, and the ability to upload your assignments which will be digital artifacts such as powerpoint or video presentations.Statement of Accomplishment Subject to satisfactory performance and course completion, you will receive a statement of accomplishment signed by the instructor. « Less