#CCK11 - Connectivism & Connective Knowledge in Action!
Zaid Ali Alsagoff, ZaidLearn, January 27, 2011.

I was delighted to find that James Morrison was able to connect with Zaid Ali Alsagoff and share some learning experiences. This post is Alsagoff's reactions to Morrison's visit, with descriptions and clips of his talk on the future of higher education. "Higher education is in a major transition period that will fundamentally change the way colleges and universities will conduct their business in the coming decades. Although change in social institutions is seldom rapid, the combined forces of demography, globalization, economic restructuring, and information technology are forcing colleges to reconceptualize their markets, organizational structures, and pedagogical practices."

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What is the learner responsibility in open education?
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, January 27, 2011.

Martin Weller gave a presentation to the CCK11 course yesterday (Elluminate recording) on open scholarship, prompting several participants to ask, "What's the connection to course content?" The week 2 topic in the course was Patterns of Connectivity. It's a good question, but Weller turns it around. "In an open, connected world of abundant content, perhaps the key skill is to learn how to make the connections between a wide range of free content and core principles." Also, " it demonstrates that old learning habits die hard. We are accustomed to signing up for a course, and whether it's free or not, being directed through it very explicitly."

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Will the Virtual School Movement Make the Same Mistakes as the Charter School Movement?
Erin Dillon, Education Next, January 27, 2011.

In this short post, Erin Dillon warns virtual supporters to avoid the mistakes made by the charter school movement. It's good advice: "what the virtual education movement is missing is a clear definition of quality that can be used to evaluate these new and growing providers and hold them accountable for student outcomes.... Early on in the charter school movement, advocates made some bad bargains, including offering a better education at a lower price than traditional public schools.... Virtual providers risk making the same bad bargain as states look for the lowest bidder-without good guidelines for quality, it may be hard for states to distinguish a high-quality, more expensive provider from a low-quality, low-price one." She expands on this in a longer column describing the need to focus on outcomes, take charge of data, secure independent oversight, and negotiate fair deals.

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Tags Associated With Other Tags on Delicious Bookmarked Resources
Tony Hirst, OUseful Info, January 27, 2011.

Tony Hirst looks at the connections between tags on Delicious for resources tagged CCK11 or cck11. For those interested in following his work, he provides the Python code used to create the diagram.

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Openness, Socialism, and Capitalism
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, January 27, 2011.

David Wiley makes the argument that, in certain circumstances, open educational resources and open content are not socialism. Essentially, the argument is that it is central to the principle of capitalism that if you pay for something, you get that thing. In the case of academic content, people pay for it, but currently do not get it - the output is instead transferred to some third party who will in effect charge you again for that content. The adoption of an open resources policy changes that, so that taxpayers actually get what they pay for. So open resources and content function essentially to restore the fundamental principle of capitalism. The argument could use some refinement (we also pay for F-35 fighter jets, but we don't receive those either; they are instead handed over to the Air Force). And ultimately, I think it fails to show that open resources and content are not socialist, as socialism affirms that people should get what they pay for in government. But the point is sound, that open content and resources are not at heart a refutation of capitalism, or at least, a contractarian (as opposed to a libertarian) view of capitalism.

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A open approach to book writing
Gráinne Conole, e4innovation.com, January 27, 2011.

Can a connectivist approach be applied to the writing of a book? Yes, people can write their own blogs, but as Colone writes, "Please, don't condemn me to having to wade through pages of peoples' blogs in order to find the one or two good ideas in there!" And there's no reason for the form to be limited to courses or informal learning. " In a sense it is a form of professional Connectivism, both in terms of me learning from the comments made by people and in them getting insight to my work and research ideas through the draft chapters.

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138,000 Holocaust-related photos now online, powered by Google and Picasa
Various Authors, Yad Vashem, January 27, 2011.

Yad Vashem and Google have performed a valuable service in making an archive of 138,000 holocaust photos available online. This is a memory that should be preserved and shared, so that people never forget. But do not send young people to this archive without guidance and discussion. The archive contains horrible horrible gruesome stuff. I reviewed if for as long as I was able, which wasn't very long. But the existence of the archive is necessary, and the lesson it teaches, stark and unforgettable.

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Ed2Go Is NOT Higher Education
Barry Dahl, Desire2Blog, September 2, 2008.

Barry Dahl launches an attack on Ed2Go, a provider of 'turnkey college courses' that are offered by accredited institutions. "They aren't college courses. They aren't OUR courses. They aren't taught by our faculty. They aren't developed and vetted by us. Their web services aren't supported by us. The assessments aren't created and evaluated by us. Student successes (and failures) aren't determined by us."


But he's going to have to come up with more than that. Most college courses in the world were not produced by Lake Superior College. That doesn't make them bad, much less 'not college courses'. And Ed2Go has been widely adopted - a quick Google search finds information on Ed2Go courses at Selkirk College, at Keyano College, at Northern Lights College, at NAIT. These are all respected Canadian colleges; are they all in error? I'm not saying that there isn't a case against Ed2Go to be made, but I am saying that it hasn't been made.

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