Interesting. George Siemens, together with Bonnie Stewart and Dave Cormier have agreed (and been contracted) to write for Johns Hopkins University Press. George Siemens launched the first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in 2008 (with Stephen Downes). His book, about the scope and nature of higher education (HE) change, will not be open. So how does a believer in open education such as Siemens deal with this? Easy: by publishing the field notes on a blog (http://www.xedbook.com/). In the discussion about the publication decisions the ‘admin’ answers to objections:
We made a tradeoff between openness/impact and reputable press. Based on who we are hoping to impact with this book, the reputable university press won out. It may well be a non-sensical decision.
(hat tip to Stephen Downes for mentioning this development on his blog/newsletter).
This being said, Siemens together with Rory McGreal facilitates a real MOOC about Openness in Education. It started on September 10 and runs for 12 weeks. The MOOC ‘will explore openness in education – its roots, its growing influence, and economic and systemic impact.’ There is still time to register.
Still confused about what a MOOC actually is? There is a page about MOOCs in the peeragogy.org handbook, and here is a video conversation between Howard Rheingold and George Siemens. A nice quote about that memorable first MOOC in 2008 (which also had a cohort in Second Life): ‘It’s the internet. People did what they wanted to do.’
<a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VMfipxhT_Co#!'>George Siemens on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)</a>
This work by rolandlegrand is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International