collaborative learning
Les MOOC sont plus conviviaux que ce que l’on croit
Les auteurs de cet article présentent deux études en cours qui remettent en question la conception individualiste de l’apprentissage fondé sur les MOOC. L’utilisation des MOOC s’y inscrit dans le contexte de groupes d’étude partageant un même espace.
La possibilité d’interrompre un cours pour engager un débat entre pairs sur sa teneur est source d’opportunités d’apprentissage. Nombre d’études empiriques montrent qu’expliquer est l’une des manières les plus efficaces d’apprendre. Les auteurs ont également cherché à déterminer la meilleure façon de configurer ces groupes d’étude à l’aide de différents outils.
ICELW
ICELW works to improve online learning so that it makes a measurable difference in workplace performance and morale. Anyone with an interest or background in workplace eLearning is invited to attend and participate in the conference, which will take place in New York City from the 12-14 of June 2013.
The ICELW program cover a variety of topics relating to e-learning in the workplace and the use of technology to improve job performance, in the form of demonstrations, mini-seminars, case studies, interviews, debates, presentations, and panel discussions.
European MOOC Summit
Many European universities are engaging in MOOCs-related initiatives. Some host their MOOCs on US platforms, while others are developing their own platforms. What strategies do European universities employ?
The École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) will host a meeting in June in preparation for the Fall 2013 Summit regarding Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at European Universities.
The questions to be discussed include:
Why do European Universities engage in MOOCs? In which languages are they produced? Which audiences are targeted? How effective have the first MOOCs experiences in Europe been? Why should Europe have its own platform? How do MOOCs build upon existing online learning activities? How do regional, national or European governments see their role? What is the impact on mobility of European students? Which research initiatives are launched in Europe? What are the new business opportunities?
Key actors will gather at EPFL for two days of sharing information. On the first day, participants will have 5-10 minutes to present the state of affairs in his or her institution, i.e., what has been achieved so far and what are the key challenges. The second day will be structured around the themes that will emerge from the first day, such as those mentioned above.
OCW Consortium announces the winners of the Site Awards for OpenCourseWare Excellence
The OpenCourseWare Consortium has just announced the winners of the 2013 edition of the Site Awards for OpenCourseWare Excellence (ACE).
The Awards for OpenCourseWare Excellence provide annual recognition to outstanding individuals, courseware and OpenCourseWare sites in the OCW Consortium community. The awards are presented each year at the global OpenCourseWare Consortium’s annual conference, to be held this year May 8-10 in Bali, Indonesia.
The ACE 2013 winners in the different categories are:
- Landmark Award for OpenCourseWare Excellence: Notre Dame OpenCourseWare (United States). The University of Notre Dame is one of the founding members of the OpenCourseWare Consortium and launched its OCW site in 2006. The site currently has more than 50 courses in 24 subject areas, and in 2012 received visits from 300,000 individuals in 211 countries and territories around the world.
- Outstanding New Site Award for OpenCourseWare Excellence: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya OCW (Spain). Sharing material from more than 200 courses, the UPC OCW platform is also integrated with different information systems of the university, such as Prisma, Gauss and the library catalogue.
- Technical Innovation Award for OpenCourseWare Excellence: Peer 2 Peer University. The P2PU has been named the recipient of this award for the creation of an e-mail tool called the MOOC Maker, for offering Massive Open Online Courses using OpenCourseWare and other Open Educational Resources. The MOOC Maker has been recently used to structure a course through the MIT Media Lab called Learning Creative Learning, which enrolled 24,000 students.
“These three sites are outstanding examples of the creativity, dedication and generosity that are hallmarks of the OCWC community,” said OCW Consortium Executive Director Mary Lou Forward. ”We are thrilled to recognize their efforts and help draw attention to their contributions to the global body of open educational resources.”
The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 250 higher education institutions and associated organisations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.
The Knight Center concludes MOOC on infographics with 5,000 participants, its largest class to date
More than 5,000 participants from 138 countries participated in the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas’ Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization”, making it the largest class to date held by the institution.
The MOOC was taught by renowned expert Alberto Cairo between January and March 2013, as part of the Knight Center’s new MOOC initiative, which began in October last year with the first edition of the infographics course and counted with the participation of 2,000 people from 109 countries.
"As far as we know, this was the first MOOC on journalism in the world," said professor Rosental Alves, founder and director of the Knight Center. "This first MOOC was an experiment and I can now say that it was a big success. We proved the concept and now we are preparing several other MOOCs on journalism topics.”
Professor Alves said that about half of the participants were engaged in the discussion forums. "The fact that 2,214 people interacted in the forums of the course is really a good indicator of the effectiveness of the MOOC," he said.
“People from more than 100 countries have participated in this MOOC. We've had journalists, designers, scientists, economists, statisticians, developers, etc. This fact has made the course much richer and more engaging. It would not have been so interesting if the student body were not so diverse,” wrote instructor Alberto Cairo in his final message to the class.
The Knight Center’s pioneering MOOC programme has been designed especially for this new, massive format and seeks to encourage the largest amount of student-to-student and instructor-to-students interactions as possible. On March 8 the Knight Center launched its first MOOC in Spanish, "How to Improve Electoral Coverage."
Conference Programme for Learning Innovations and Quality: The Future of Digital Resources Available
LINQ event hosts from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have published the final conference programme for LINQ 2013. The conference in Rome will be supported by a variety of prominent figures vital to the fields of technology-enhanced learning, open educational resources, and vocational education in Europe and worldwide. Furthermore, their presence will further the highlight of LINQ 2013: the launch of ICORE, the International Council for Open Research and Education (www.icore-online.org). Registration for LINQ 2013 is still open for all interested parties until May 8th, but seats are limited and should be reserved as quick as possible.
On May 16th, Learning experts and pioneers such as Dr. Tony Bates of Tony Bates Associates, Dr. Ignasi Labastida, director of the OCW Consortium and Creative Commons, and António Silva Mendes, Director of Education and Vocational Training at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture will take part as keynote speakers at LINQ 2013. They will join the already confirmed Prof. Dr. Rory McGreal and Prof. Dr. Fred Mulder, both UNESCO chairs for Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). Together these esteemed speakers will establish the greater context of international learning innovations for LINQ 2013.
Complementing the established experts, selected researchers from over 150 submissions will also present new and innovative research papers and projects. Four parallel sessions, divided into three parts each, will provide the structure for presentations. The 1st Parallel Session will consist of invited European speakers as well as two workshops respectively on the co-hosting VOA3R project and the innovative ODS project. The 2nd Parallel Session will consist of the selected papers from the LINQ 2013 call. These papers in turn fit into three thematic sections: “Digital Resources & Online Repositories”, “TEL for Schools, Universities, & Lifelong Learning”, and “Innovations & Future Trends in LET”. In addition, the 3rd and 4th Parallel Sessions will be dedicated to the presentations of selected European and international projects, thematically divided into “Quality Management: Evaluation, Standards & Certification”, “Open Access & Open Educational Resources: Policies, Tools and Content”, and “New Knowledge Networks – Ideas & Innovation for LLL” on the one hand, and “VET, New Skills & Quality”, “Teachers in Focus: Competence & Skill Development”, and “Innovation in TEL” on the other. The final conference programme is available on the LINQ 2013 conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/2013/programme.
Registration for LINQ 2013 is still available for all interested groups until May 8th – only a few seats remain, so please register as soon as possible to ensure your chance to participate. Further information on registration is available at the conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/registration. For the latest updates on LINQ and related initiatives, follow @LINQ_Conference on Twitter and like www.facebook.com/LINQConference on Facebook.