Presentation
MOOCs in Context: the re.mooc in Africa
Stephen Downes, March 11, 2013, EPFL Media Design Lab, Lausanne, Switzerland, via Skype

Organized with Alex Barchiesi, postdoc in EPFL Media Design Lab  (after a PhD in Particle physics), based on his concept of the re.mooc: how to re-use the material coming from the xMOOC and reorganize it in a localized version that could facilitate the "After school" education in African coutries. 

[Link] [Slides] [Audio]

Chomsky: The Corporate Assault on Public Education
Noam Chomsky, AlterNet, March 12, 2013

I thought Chomsky over-reached with Syntactic Structures, but since the days of Manufacturing Consent there is very little Chomsky writes with which I would disagree. It doesn't take a lot of analysis of the language to draw the same conclusions he does. The same with the current piece. Chomsky writes, "One effect of imposition of a business model is a drive towards what is called efficiency...  transferring costs to individuals is called 'efficiency.' We see that all the time." Also, " If you want to privatize something and destroy it, a standard method is first to defund it, so it doesn't work anymore, people get upset and accept privatization. This is happening in the schools."

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Online Learning]

Welcome to the School of Open, Class of 2013
Jane Park, Creative Commons, March 12, 2013

Cable Green writes, by email: "The School of Open has launched! Take a free online course on copyright, CC licenses, Wikipedia, open science, open culture, open video formats, and more at http://schoolofopen.org/. Read more about the launch here. Please help spread the word - thank you."

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Traditional and Online Courses, Video, Web Logs, Copyrights, Wikipedia]