Let’s curate and preserve our digital/virtual heritage

Today I made a presentation about my MOOC-experiences for a Blended Learning Symposium. Turned out I only had ten minutes, this text is the elaborate version. Blended Learning is about learning in the physical, digital and social space. My question: what about the virtual? A university can think it is out… Continue reading

What I learned after all those online courses

Listening to Stephen Downes discussing Massive Open Online Courses (see previous post) I felt the need to make an overview of the online courses I participated in during these last few years. Downes inspires me a lot and I fundamentally agree with the discintions he makes between connectivist MOOCs which are… Continue reading

MOOCs explained (by Stephen Downes)

Stephen Downes, the Canadian MOOC-pioneer (Massive Open Online Courses), delivered a talk in Armenia and as usual he generously shares the recording and the slides. My own MOOC-experiences started in 2008 with CCK08, facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. Back then we lived in full euphoria about the power… Continue reading

How one gets tired of virtual worlds

Reacting on my previous post about Second Life veterans uniting, draxfiles asked on this site and on Facebook: Interesting how some folks get “tired” of a world unlimited in its creative possibilities, a world that is continuously mind-boggling in the sense that folks make awesome things and yes: a LOT… Continue reading

Waiting for the new Bee and PussyCat episode

Just learned about Frederator‘s Bee and PussyCat show in The Wall Street Journal. It’s a great story about an indie production for YouTube, getting no corporate response yet mobilizing a lot of devoted fans on Kickstarter and now launching on YouTube. This is the first video they published in August… Continue reading

Destructive Personal Learning Environments

‘The web is a terrorist’s command-and-control network of choice.’ That’s the title of an opinion article in the Financial Times, written by Robert Hannigan, the chief of Britain’s electronic spying agency GCHQ. The digital natives who joined the terrorist organization Isis are very adept in using social media and in… Continue reading

Understanding Media by Understanding Facebook

Professor Owen R. Youngman teaches a great course about Understanding Media by Understanding Google, but maybe he should consider a follow-up: Understanding Media by Understanding Facebook. Ravi Somaiya explains in The New York Times how Facebook is changing the way its users consume journalism. For quite some time media experts… Continue reading

Understanding Google, embeddable content and MOOCs

What makes mobile so transformative? Why is Google a revolutionary company? These are questions asked and answered in the Coursera course Understanding Media by Understanding Google. Professor Owen R. Youngman (Northwestern University) focuses during six weeks on Google and what makes it so important, not just for media people but… Continue reading