Will learning management systems go away?

Siemens & Tittenberger (2009) pointed out that technology is not neutral. Rather it comes with assumptions and ideologies. For instance, using LMSs gives teachers greater control over the information. The knowledge is more centralized and is closed by default (i.e., students need to get permission to participate). Conversely, using blogs and wikis not only decentralizes […]

Moodle and other education technologies in language teaching

Moodle has been developed based on the social constructivist principles. At present, its course management features are great and a number of tools, including the discussion forum and glossary, allow for some level of collaboration; however, the platform, itself, is not open and, thus, limits the full potentials of the the blogging and wiki tools. In fact, learning […]

Beyond the political lefts and rights

In the video, Lawrence Lessig urged the Occupy Protestors to frame their discussion against the lobbyists in Washington that have taken control over the US congress. The target should be crony capitalism rather than the capitalist system or corporations. Reframing the discussion this way can help to unite the Occupy and the populist Tea Party movement. The […]

Teaching English with social media tools and mobile technology: A look at China

As mentioned in a previous posting, a recurring theme in the 2011’s MOOC has been that the current education model no longer meets the needs of learners in the 21st century world where knowledge is changing fast. In “2005-2012: The OpenCourse Wars”, David Wiley (2008) imagines himself looking back to the present time in the future; […]

Ideas from the thirteen weeks of MOOC

One recurring theme of the thirteen weeks of MOOC sessions has been that the current education system is no longer appropriate for learners in the 21st century. Many of the MOOC presentations in the past 13 weeks point to this problem from various angles – formal learning, informal learning or somewhere in between. The following image […]

Soft educational technologies in the age of networked intelligence #change11

Using the definition of technology as “orchestration of phenomena to our use”, Jon Dron in this presentation, distinguishes between soft and hard technologies. Soft technologies are more “needy”and require active orchestration of phenomena by humans; hard technologies, on the other hand, do not require much human intervention, given that the act of manipulating the technology […]

“Becoming over memory”? #change11

Cormier’s “Becoming over memory” Dave Cormier criticizes a common practice of teaching that focuses too much on repeating and memory, rather than becoming and knowledge. This practice is said to be partly conditioned by the the print culture, where knowledge is packaged in the form of a book for the learners to consume. Cormier, however, […]

Deschooling and open education: Questions for David Wiley #change11

“Education is inherently an enterprise of openness” In his 2010 Lecture at TEDx, David Wiley contends that the notion of openness is built into the enterprise of education. “Open” as in open content, open textbook, or open source means sharing. Education, likewise, is about sharing in the spirit of generosity. In this sense, education is […]

On the danger of digital scholarship and code switching #change11

A question in the chat box of the MOOC session asked Martin Weller, the author of Digital Scholarship, a) whether too much focus on digital scholarship can undermine the quality of scholarly work and b) whether digital scholarship requires academics to switch codes. On the danger of digital scholarship In thinking about the first point, […]

The blind review process of the blogosphere #change11

In “Digital scholarship”, Weller (2011) explores many ways that digital technologies are transforming scholarship, i.e., allowing scholars to network, socialize, collaborate, make their ideas known efficiently and in finer granularity, removing the filters establishing by traditional authority, and ultimately democratizing knowledge. And yet, one of the questions hanging over the establishing digital scholarship remains the […]