It seems all the talk about the “decentralized internet” gets more concrete for ordinary internet users (citizens?) like me. Tom Simonite at Wired did a great job explaining decentralized applications (DApps) in his article The Decentralized Internet Is Here, With Some Glitches. He discusses alternatives for Google Docs (using Graphite),… Continue reading
Today I made a presentation about my MOOC-experiences for a Blended Learning Symposium. Turned out I only had ten minutes, this text is the elaborate version. Blended Learning is about learning in the physical, digital and social space. My question: what about the virtual? A university can think it is out… Continue reading
Listening to Stephen Downes discussing Massive Open Online Courses (see previous post) I felt the need to make an overview of the online courses I participated in during these last few years. Downes inspires me a lot and I fundamentally agree with the discintions he makes between connectivist MOOCs which are… Continue reading
Stephen Downes, the Canadian MOOC-pioneer (Massive Open Online Courses), delivered a talk in Armenia and as usual he generously shares the recording and the slides. My own MOOC-experiences started in 2008 with CCK08, facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. Back then we lived in full euphoria about the power… Continue reading
Professor Owen R. Youngman teaches a great course about Understanding Media by Understanding Google, but maybe he should consider a follow-up: Understanding Media by Understanding Facebook. Ravi Somaiya explains in The New York Times how Facebook is changing the way its users consume journalism. For quite some time media experts… Continue reading
What makes mobile so transformative? Why is Google a revolutionary company? These are questions asked and answered in the Coursera course Understanding Media by Understanding Google. Professor Owen R. Youngman (Northwestern University) focuses during six weeks on Google and what makes it so important, not just for media people but… Continue reading
The ConnectedCourses were discussing social capital and networks last week. Kira Baker-Doyle – Assistant Professor of Education, Arcadia University. Author of The Networked Teacher – started by explaining that one can own financial capital but not social capital. That is because your social capital is situated outside of yourself, in loose… Continue reading
I’ve been looking into an interesting course going on right now, Understanding Video Games, at Coursera by Leah Hackman and Sean Gouglas (Alberta University). It’s a rather institutional Massive Open Online Course, not the connectivist style we experience at connectedcourses, but I’m very interested in the subjects they teach. The… Continue reading
One of the important topics at the connectedcourses is… how to connect all the posts on the many platforms learners use. Facilitator Alan Levine mentions on his blog cogdogblog a few ways to aggregate content, two seem particularly interesting: gRSShopper by Stephen Downes, the guy who introduced me and so… Continue reading
[iframe] [/iframe] Why should you blog? Own a domain name? Because learning is so tremendously enjoyable and the web teaches us so much about what learning is. The web is not just a tool for learning, it’s an experience which allows one to experience, to live learning. In this video Jim… Continue reading