My work environment has been a bit noisy lately. The school is having the roof renovated. The building’s air-conditioning units have been disconnected during the time of this refurbishment.It being summer, there’s a need to open windows and to bring in industrial air-conditioning units to maintain a workable atmosphere within the building. At the beginning of this week, contractors wheeled two of these units into the space close to my office area, plugged them into the mains and switched them on.Other units were similarly introduced at points throughout the building. The Science teachers who worked in the areas, including myself, viewed this activity with amusement. It was evident that the contractors knew nothing about thermodynamics.It sucksThe heat exchange part of an air-conditioning unit operates in a way similar to a refrigerator. In normal use, the unit sucks warm air from the room through a cooling unit and filter. Fresh air from outside the building is drawn in through windows and other openings to replace the heated air expelled during the process.The resulting chilled air is blown back into the room while the removed heat is air-pumped to the exterior, usually through a duct in a window.In the case of the units that we observed, there was no such venting. Instead, the hot air from the action of the cooling unit was being pumped back into the room. It was as if a fridge had been turned on and its door had been left wide open. In such a circumstance, the fridge does nothing more than make a noise and heat the room.The overall effect of the air-conditioning units being used in this way was not unlike that of using large blow heaters. In no time, people started to complain about the rising temperature.A little learningScience is a wonderful thing. Its principles are being utilised in just about every piece of technology that contributes to our lives today. Of course, an understanding of scientific principles isn’t always necessary to use or install the equipment that puts these principles into effect.There are at least three levels of understanding that can allow one to realise the significance of a scientific idea, such as the thermodynamic principles that were put to use in the construction of the air-conditioning units:It works provided certain conditions are met according to a recipe for installation. For the air-conditioning unit to be effective, it has to be functioning and have its required vents clear, one of which has to be ducted to the exterior.It works as it follows the thermodynamic idea that heat can be pumped by using a small amount of energy that is eventually released as heat (which is why the fridge with its door open does nothing more than heat up the room).It works, and its function can be explained by thermodynamic principles:a) energy can neither be created nor destroyed,b) heat energy is released when a gas is compressed so that it condenses to a liquid and this same heat is taken in when the liquid is allowed to evaporate - this is what happens in the heat exchange unit of a fridge,c) some energy will always be wasted when heat energy is pumped using mechanical means - entropy is always increased as a consequence.Understanding at level 3 can be achieved by senior secondary school Physics students.Level 2 can be understood by able students of Junior Science.Working recipes that define the factors that are important in level 1 need only be followed when it comes to the correct and appropriate installation of a piece of technology in general circumstances.The example that I unpack here shows how related learning can apply at various levels to the curriculum. What is significant is that the most elementary levels of learning are still important to the correct use of technologies that involve sophisticated principles in their design and construction.SortedAs it happens, the contractors were notified by Science teachers about the correct use of the air-conditioning units which were immediately switched off. Appropriate locations near windows were then found. Necessary ducts to the outside of the building were fitted correctly to the machines within 24 hours.Through all this, the cicadas continued their sibilant summer chorus.

The Office of Eduational Technology just published a developer’s guide on behalf of US Department of Education, it’s called "A primer for software developers, startups, and entrepreneurs". Opportunities abound for software designers and developers to create impactful tools for teachers, school leaders, students, and their families. This guide for developers, startups and entrepreneurs addresses key... Read More ›

I start this post with the recognised regret that I wanted this to be a weekly theme, but for the time being it's every few weeks or so. Still, better than nothing I suppose!Been doing quite a few different things of late really:Ploughing on with an online module for acute oncology. This has involved working with the new Director for CPD and a Consultant Oncologist from Clatterbridge. The module will be delivered in India as well as the UK, and we've just rewritten the module spec so everything is a bit more organised and flows better.Continuing work on investigating VLE Minimum Standards, and trying to develop a theoretical/conceptual framework from Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory of motivation. This is also relevant to my role in the University TEL Implementation Working Group for minimum standards. Thinking about the above as a research paper for publication.Submitted a couple of conference abstracts, and a few more to come over the next couple of weeks.Organised and run a couple of student drop in sessions with a focus on mobile device support. Pretty low turnout despite lots of students reporting problems with email, wifi, mobile library, etc., etc. Picked up a couple of staff development sessions to try and engage our academic staff with technology enhanced learning.I'm now also playing a role in the University TEL Implementation Working Group for developing digital literacies. So I read @dajbelshaw 's recent post for references, with great interest. More here soon.Online module I'm running (Transferable skills) is ticking over. Thinking about how I can engage students (Foundation doctors) in forums a bit more.Looking to develop a cross Faculty Research Methods module for masters level. It will largely be an OER (or constituting OER) so it can be reused/repurposed for the different modules in each of our schools. Interesting little project. I'm sure there are loads of other things bubbling along but I don't want this post to drag too much! Peter@reedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Вчера мы получили большой отзыв от одного из наших давних пользователей, которым мы решили поделиться со всеми нашими читателями. Представленный текст написан Еленой Кузьминой, методистом по информационным технологиям московского педагогического колледжа "Пресня". Мы работаем в области дополнительного профессионального образования взрослых. Недавно … Continue reading →

When a learner is in an environment that is relevant to what's being learnt, the likelihood for effective engagement is high. Learning by doing is supposed to be one of the most successful ways to learn.Both these factors - the relevant environment and the doing - are thought to provide jointly the greatest incentive for a learner to take interest in what is to be learnt. They form the basis for what is referred to as authentic learning.For as difficult as such situations are to establish and sustain in face-to-face situations, elearning environments can present major barriers to authentic learning that are almost impossible to overcome unless the elearning vehicles are in situ.Typical examples of these are online tutors for word processing, graphics applications or other computer functions where the learner is involved in using mouse and keyboard to operate a tutorial directly relevant to the application.I cite the Southern Hemisphere planisphere with a built-in tutorial as one example of an in situ learning vehicle in a junior Science elearning resource.The examples given above are all very well, but unless a considerable component of what is learnt is transferable to other purposes, the learning acquired by the learner has limited use elsewhere. One of the characteristics of authentic learning is the transferability of the learning to other situations or disciplines.Two examples where generic and transferable skills can be learnt are online instruction in touch-typing, and the use of a flight simulator as part of training to become an aircraft pilot.Kallan and Tuxedo presenting a session in building in SLRecently I was privileged to share in the facilitation of a session sponsored by ISTE, teaching people online to manipulate and assemble prims, the building blocks of Second Life (SL).As well, part of the duties I perform as an ISTE docent in SL involves assisting and teaching newcomers to that environment by the use of text and voice chat. The learning facilitated in these situations is authentic.People who come into SL need to acquire new skills. Most who stay to use that environment want to learn skills that can only be acquired online. But other than exercising skills in associated disciplines such as art and design, the skills I teach to newcomers are only useful in Second Life. And here is the conundrum associated with authentic elearning.Apart from learning that is directly associated with the elearning application or platform, how is authentic learning achieved online?

The A-GAMES Project is a collaboration between the University of Michigan and New York University. The research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The A-GAMES project (Analyzing Games for Assessment in Math, ELA/ Social Studies, and Science) studied how teachers actually use digital games in their teaching to support formative assessment. The study... Read More ›

Eliademy is used by more and more people every day to teach and learn easily. If you are interested in knowing more about the story of our user-friendly e-learning platform, take a look at the cool infographic below! Want to … Continue reading →

As part of the newly formed North West OER Network, we'll be facilitating an open online course (I'm not using the word MOOC), during Open Education Week 2014 (10th-15th March).We'll be using the 'Intro to Openness' course developed by David Wiley as the foundations for this course, and we will be facilitating a number of synchronous and asynchronous platforms, including Tweet Chats, Facebook Group discussions and Google+ forums and Hangouts. There'll be a few of us facilitating the course that you're probably familiar with already - the likes of @chrissinerantzi, @suebecks, @alexgspiers, @annehole, @kshjensen and @lenandlar . Take a peek at the course site within p2pu, the Facebook community for the course, and the Google plus community for the NWOER Network.You can also start following @northwestoer (and me if you already dont!). We will be using the Twitter hashtag #nwOER so don't forget to use that in your tweets/posts/etc.Hope to see some of you getting involved!Peter@reedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Yes. I know. It's been over a month now. I have been immersed in resource development and other things - overseeing bathroom and kitchen refurbishments at home, while catching up with my family who have been on leave recently.This week I am, once again, privileged to be hosting Kevin's Day In A Sentence. Kevin Hodgson (aka Dogtrax) has kindly let me host this week's DIAS.Just to put you in the picture, Kevin is an energetic, community minded teacher who is forever creating new ideas to involve people in people activities. One of his most successful ventures in this direction is his weekly Day In A Sentence. People are invited to summarise in one sentence a day out of their week.There's been a lot in the news lately about Earth's, now famous, gastronomic eruption in Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull. This amazing phenomenon stirred again most recently, a clash of the Earth's hottest and coldest elements, to bring about a truly global effect.This week's theme for Day In A Sentence is to summarise in one sentence the extremes of your day. So sock it to us, hot and cold, wet and dry, happy and sad, whatever . . .. . . just give it all to us in a sentence by clicking here, or by leaving your sentence in a comment at the foot of this post.

Meaningful games create powerful impacts on players, fostering a positive learning culture that enables expression and the ability to learn from failure. GlassLab’s Game Design Handbook serves as a living, quick, and actionable resource for learning game design for developers (though every person is a game designer at heart!). A good resource!! We especially love... Read More ›

We all have something to share. A project, a passion, an idea, or the knowledge and expertise we’ve gathered with the years. Nowadays, in the digital era, it is easier than ever to spread our ideas and share them with … Continue reading →

Negotiable Letter CC BY Flickr user MathplourdeSo this week is Open Education Week, and as I’ve previously posted, the North West OER Network are facilitating an open course. We’re encouraging people to engage with David Wiley’s Intro to Openness course on p2pu, and we’ll be hosting a number of synchronous and asynchronous discussions, such as tweet chats, Facebook group chats and google+ community stuff, etc.  In preparing for this, I have been thinking about the title, which we’ve tentatively labelled as a MOOC, but I think all of the team recognise the ‘iffyness' of the term, as well as recognising that all the letters are negotiable. Now I’m not one for all of the derivations of the MOOC term (Like DOOC, POOC, FOOC or whatever they are), but I've been thinking about what it is that we’re actually offering. And it came to me, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but somewhat serious! We’re offering truly flexible, open, online, learning situations.FlexibleOpenOnlineLearningSituationsFOOLS. We’re fools offering FOOLS. Have to say, this made me chuckle a bit, but does any of this matter. No matter what we call these initiatives, we're doing stuff in the open, and whilst there are huge drop out rates, etc, etc, it's still positive. The data suggests people are accessing MOOCs to fit their needs, dipping in and out as they see fit. This might be at odds with the way we traditionally view courses, but perhaps it's time we start to look at things slightly differently and look for the positives....I'll be blogging about the Intro to Openness 'thing' we're doing this week, but in the meantime, let's try and move past the name. After all, it's just a name...'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,Nor arm, nor face, nor any other partBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!What's in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet;So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,Retain that dear perfection which he owesWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name,And for that name which is no part of theeTake all myself.Peter@reedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

The Institute of Play has released a white paper called "Psychometric Considerations in Game-Based Assessment", it is a work of multidisciplinary scholarship. It’s also the first publication of multidisciplinary collaboration. GlassLab brings together game designers, learning scientists, and psychometricians from Institute of Play, the Entertainment Software Association, Electronic Arts, Educational Testing Service, Pearson’s Center for Digital... Read More ›

What a wonderful cornucopia of extremes in a day! I am delighted to report a baker’s dozen of contributors and their extreme creations:Cheryl enjoyed . . .I spent the day shivering in a snowy storm, skiing trails that went from powdery snow in fog, to cream cheese snowy views across the valley where there was sun.Gail Poulin busied . . .I spent a busy day with my husband as we worked like soldier ants lowering stumps, covering the area in wood chips, transplanting bushes, and finally relaxing peacefully on the deck with a beverage and watching nesting birds at the feeders.Virginia completed . . .I started the day with an empty calendar for the month of May and now every day is filled with at least one thing and many times two.Mr Wood experienced . . .The day began cold and grey, then became hot and sticky, and just after it got wet and sticky, it became sunny and warm.Kabod facilitated . . .I delicately discussed "Stirrings" in The Giver over and over today with silly, pubescent Seventh-and-three-quarters Graders.Ken waxed . . .In 24 hours, our bathroom was transformed from a functional facility and possible retreat to an empty wooden box with holes in all sides that the wind whistled through.Anonymous sighed . . .Yesterday morning I got to play with my granddaughter in the morning and had to kiss her good by in the evening. I wouldn't get a chance to see her in person again till June.Gail Desler expressed . . .I spent the day with 6 dedicated, innovative, caring 5th grade teachers, 5 of whom received "pink slips" this month (where in the heck did the expression "pink slip" come from - and what's the terminology in your district?). Difficult times in California.Bonnie extemporised . . .Could there be anything more extreme? We left on a plane from Tel Aviv, Israel on Monday night at midnight and arrived at Newark airport, New Jersey at 5AM and there's a 7 hour time difference. So getting back to normal, well what's normal anyway?Elona announced . . .My students were working away quietly at the begining of the class and then the fire alarm went off.Tracy activated . . .A flurry of activity to get parent permission for 25 students in 15 minutes for a last-minute opportunity to attend a day-long literary festival, after which I stayed at the school in the quiet of my classroom for the day :)Kevin initiated . . .Between coaching youth baseball, writing a grant proposal, composing daily poetry, working on some educational pieces for a website and watching my three boys run-run-run, the week of school vacation has been anything other than restful.Cynthia ebulliated . . .The air was already oppressively humid at 7:15 a.m., and then the rain began; however, the seniors were able to have their crawfish boil at 1:00. Yum!

Creating a great online course: art or science? At first, creating an online course may seem difficult but with some experience you understand that you just need to know a few good practices and above all to adapt to your … Continue reading →

The Contingent Pedagogies project team at SRI International has been working to help teachers assess their students’ understanding of key science concepts and adapt their instruction accordingly. Students often bring problematic ideas to the classroom, and it is important to surface and address them in instruction to promote learning (National Research Council 1999). Working with... Read More ›

I have heard it said that teachers are assessors and that assessment is part of the teaching and learning process. I often wonder if the meaning of the word ‘assessment’ is sometimes stretched and perhaps misused in contexts to do with learning.Standard assessmentAt the moment, NCEA standards are of two types. There are Unit Standards, awarded to learners who meet all component criteria for a particular standard. There are also Achievement Standards, awarded as Achieved (just a pass), Merit and Excellence.Re-assessmentA learner, who does not meet the criteria for a unit standard or for an award in an achievement standard, can choose to be re-assessed after a period of re-teaching and further study.My thinking has never been aligned with the philosophy of teaching to a standard. I don’t believe that’s what ‘education’ is about. However, as a teacher, I have no choice but to accept the assessment system that is now intimately bound with secondary education in New Zealand.At least re-assessment permits the learner to revisit the learning and allows the teacher to do some more teaching.Re-submissionNZQA is reviewing, again, the process of assessing learners for NCEA standards in New Zealand. The specific issue that I bring to this post is the matter of what’s called a re-submission. I’ll explain.When a learner completes and submits a standard assessment test, and it is not clear to the assessor whether the learner has actually met the standard, the test script can be returned to the learner for amendments to be made. These are performed by the learner under test conditions before re-submitting the test script for the assessment to proceed. This process is called re-submission.Furthermore, during re-submission the learner is not permitted to study on the topic, nor receive any teaching, coaching or advice associated with the standard, before revisiting assessment tasks they performed in the test script. They are only permitted to consider their answers and perhaps amend them.There have been many debates by teachers about what constitutes a case for re-submission. Performing a re-submission is quite different from entering into a phase of re-teaching followed by re-assessment. Teachers like things to be cut and dry. So many discussions at the moment centre on the criteria for re-submission.A disservice to learningAs a teacher who is more interested in what learners learn and how they learn, than what they achieve in a standard test, I am often in a bind over the issue of re-submission.I feel that I’m doing learning a disservice if I do not permit (and cannot permit) learners to revisit the learning. This is precisely what happens, and must happen according to the rules for standard assessment, when re-submissions are permitted for learners who are very close to meeting criteria for a particular standard.In such instances, I start wondering what my role is as a teacher and educator. I also wonder if I am doing learners a disservice by permitting them to re-submit their test evidence without any further teaching and learning taking place.I feel that if learners are in need of more teaching and learning, then they should be given the opportunity to receive just that. This opportunity is denied learners who gain a standard on re-submission.What are teachers for?

So Open Ed week has started and my timeline has been filled with tweets and links to sites, blogposts, etc.Of course, our facilitation of the Intro to Openness course has also started, and we've kicked it off with a Google Hangout led by Paul Booth. There were some technical issues but things got going ok. There'll also be more hangouts later this week, as well as the Tweet chats over the coming days.Thanks to Martin Hawksey's work with the TAGS explorer, I've managed to create an archive of all tweets mentioning #nwoer or #nwoerchat. This gives us some pretty interesting data - I'm just wishing I stuck with that Social Network Analysis MOOC a few months back ;-)Anyway, as you can see from the data, the Tweets are just starting to pick up - hopefully this will increase further over the course of the week.(Click to expand)And below is an interactive version of the different people tweeting in the network. As you can see, there are a couple of key nodes in this network and again, it will be interesting to see how this develops. I'll look at how we can make more meaning from this data throughout the course of the week.Peter@reedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

The online corporate training market is growing by 13% per year and is expected to keep this pace until 2017 [1]. According to the 2014 Training Industry Report, 44% of US companies are planning to purchase online learning tools and … Continue reading →

I finished writing a print-based learning resource a few weeks ago. I say finished - it was really only a draft before I passed it on to the editors.I put a copy of it on the Science database and was grateful for feedback received from our now huge Science teaching cohort. It was good to get comment from colleagues who, like me, had been plunged into the sweat of writing learning resources to deadlines.Storyline an interestAmong many aspects of the draft discussed was its storyline. This attracted interest from my colleagues as it was seen as an effective teaching feature. It also made me think more deeply about strategies I’d used in creating the storyline in the first place. I realised that I hadn’t really planned it.It became clear with more thought and discussion that a storyline in a learning resource should not be a starting point for writing. My past experience has shown me that building necessary learning around a plot can be difficult. It’s a manufactured process that has the potential to limit severely pathways the writing may follow.A different approachAdhering to a storyline can stymie other useful teaching ideas that may otherwise emerge. It can lead to contrived resource components that do not satisfactorily contribute to effective learning.The storyline that seemed to work so well in this resource was created using an entirely different approach. Here’s how it came together for a NCEA Level 1 generic learning resource on writing a scientific report.Staid and boring stuffI started on the second chapter simply because it was the one I had in mind when I put my fingers to the keypad. My plan was for Peter to write a report of something he did during his holidays and hand it in for his Science teacher to assess at the start of term.I had practically finished that chapter when I'd already decided that it was boring, principally because it involved doing homework for a teacher. Undaunted, I continued with chapter 3, then drafted chapter 1 and was half way through chapter 4 when I really couldn’t pursue my ideas any more. The resource was becoming all too staid and boring.Change tacticsI went back to chapter 2, stripped it down and rewrote it introducing a friend, Mahi, an intelligent Māori girl who could write good scientific reports.It was she, not the teacher, who read Peter’s brief report of his visit to a museum exhibition on colossal squid. It was she, not the teacher, who desperately wanted to see the exhibition after reading Peter’s report.And it was she who tried to follow the deficient instructions in the report. As a result of these shortcomings, Mahi missed out on her planned visit to the exhibition - all good material to use for teaching about informative report writing.I switched back to rewrite parts of chapter 1, simply introducing the characters Peter and Mahi. I then flicked to the other draft chapters incorporating the growing relationship between Peter and Mahi as friends who supported each other with their interest in Science.Here’s how chapter 1 begins:Reading magazines Peter found a magazine page that had an article about a car that ran on water instead of petrol.Activity 1A Read Peter’s magazine page shown below. 1 What is the name of the magazine that this page came from?__________________________________________________________________2 Explain two things you see on the magazine page that might suggest that the information about the car is not true. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Peter wanted to find out more about the car, so he went to a car showroom and spoke with a salesman. The salesman laughed at Peter and did not believe that a car like that could be made. Peter still wasn’t sure if the information in the magazine was true. 3 Explain two other things Peter might do to find out if the story in the magazine is true. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Check the answer guideProof of the puddingThe rest of the resource fell into place using the theme of collaborative learning between two school chums. Peter followed up Mahi’s library research into giant squids and colossal squids. He then asked her for help when drawing a graph for the report he was writing.Instead of Peter handing in his report for a teacher to mark, he chose Mahi to help him improve it. This permitted a chummy dialogue between two friends that was not only fitting and appropriate, but had the potential to enhance learner interest.All this was laid over a framework of teaching and learning. I got a real kick out of how easy it was to incorporate a story line in a learning resource, and from the supportive feedback I received from colleagues.The proof of the pudding will be when I examine feedback from learners!

Looking at MOOCs Rapid Growth Through the Lens of Video-Based Learning Research http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i1.3349 Michail N. Giannakos, Letizia Jaccheri and John Krogstie Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway Abstract—Video learning is becoming an increasingly important part of contemporary education. In the decade there has been an increase of many and diverse forms of... Read More ›

"Open Educational Resources (OER) provide a strategic opportunity to improve the quality of education as well as facilitate policy dialogue, knowledge sharing and capacity building." (UNESCO, [1])   Eliademy recently started crowdsourcing OER (Open Educational Resources) online courses in order … Continue reading →

Last night was the first Tweet Chat for the #NWOER facilitation of the Intro to Openness course.The tweet chat focussed on 6 key questions throughout:Q1 What does openness and open education mean to you? Q2 Why does openness matter? Q3 What/How/Where do you share? Q4 How can we become more Open (in our practice or sharing our learning?) Q5 Do you use Open Source Software? Pls give details of what tools/platforms you use? Q6 What are the benefits of sharing?I shared the updated visuals using Martin Hawksey's TAGS Explorer, and Katherine Jensen created a Storify story.I thought it was an excellent Tweet chat, and there was lots of short discussions that got me thinking. We got onto the levels or shades of openness, and how the term 'open' means different things to different people, so I just wanted to pick up on some of my earlier work on visualising openness as well as Amber Thomas' great post on 50 shades of open.As Amber suggests, there is the purist view of 'open', which Schaffert & Geser (2008) suggest contains four principles: Open Access; Open Licensing; Open Software; Open Format. This kind of links in with the '4 R's of open' from David Wiley - Reuse, Rework, Remix, Redistribute (although he's recently added a 5th).Amber also picks up on other aspects such as the 'anonymity of user', which might also be incorporated into the purist perspective of 'open'. Now I don't want to delve into these specifics too much, but just wanted to reinforce the notion that 'open' doesn't have to meet the purist view. Things can more or less open, and I love this analogy:"Openness is not like a light switch that is either 'on' or 'off'. Rather, it is like a dimmer switch, with varying degrees of openness" (Hilton iii, Wiley, Stein & Johnson, 2010) So with this in mind, some time ago I attempted to visualise openness (right), or more-so visualise the openness of any particular object (RLO, OER, etc). I thought that by mapping an object against the different criteria for 'open', we could have a visual representation.So as in my previous post, I gave the example of an interactive Flash movie file (a little OER) that has been licensed with Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC) and placed within Jorum. The resulting visualisation might look like this;I suspect I should revisit this and revise the criteria for which an object might be more or less open. By way of the discussions last night, I'm thinking how we might visualise just how open a typical MOOC is (a big OER). I think we'd probably find it's not very open, and this is the part that some people get confused about. Because a MOOC is free, it doesn't mean it's open. Not in the purest sense at least. Returning to the Hilton et al. dimmer switch analogy, MOOCs are probably so dimly lit that we can't see all that much. A murky dark shade of grey, as Amber might suggest.Now I'm not against this per sé - I don't consider myself a purist. I think opening access to education is in any form is definitely a positive, but I do feel a sense of regret that MOOCs (in general) aren't more open. This is likely because MOOCs sort of stemmed from the Open movement, but aren't very open. I'm not just talking about making the content more open. I'm also thinking about things like workflows and curriculum development aspects, as well as platforms, etc. There are so many aspects where MOOCs could be more open. I'd like to think the FOOL (Flexible, Open, Online, Learning) we're currently facilitating is more open - access and licensing are certainly more open. But perhaps we should also share the processes of setting up and facilitating this type of 'course' - Paul Booth and Chrissi Nerantzi have been invaluable and without them this probably wouldn't have happened. But what can other people learn about our experiences? What works and what does not? What would our advice be to others?Right, that's a fairly big brain dump. I think there is a lot more to be discussed but I'd love to hear the thoughts of others....Peter@reedyreedlesThe Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

As teacher, I often tramp the journey. Most of the way, I learn more than I teach, which is fortunate as I’m bored easily.Even the well trodden-paths bear fruit. But I have to be more aware when pacing there; vigilant, else I miss what is to be learnt.As teacher, most of what I learn on the well-tramped lanes happens as I watch others less familiar with the paths. This learning is the most enlightening, yet so difficult to pass on to others.I’ve begun to understand why.As teacher, all learning is a journey. How can a learner explain the destinations to someone who has never been there and seen what they’re like? There is often no measure to compare, no gradation to gauge against, and no foundation to build upon.And so learning, once accumulated, is not necessarily always useful. At least, not as useful as we might think it should be. And so it is that the adage of teachers ‘filling jugs’ doesn’t really work, no more than their teaching does.Johnstone’s Information Processing Model, a simplified version which heads this post, suggests that there is a real need to tread the ways often. It implies that learners may not be wholly aware of what’s to be learnt on the way, nor of its significance even if they were.It also reinforces that perhaps filling jugs doesn’t work so smoothly, that much is spilt in the process - that many approaches may have to be tried before the jugs contain anything useful at all.