This is the blog of Dr. Curt Bonk, Professor at Indiana University and President of CourseShare (there are NO Guest Blogs and NO advertisements permitted).

Links
Dr. Bonk's Home Page
TrainingShare
PublicationShare

Bonk's Emerging Learning Technologies course

Video Primers in an Online Repository for e-Teaching and Learning (V-PORTAL)

Click here for information about my recent book, MOOCs and Open Education Around the World.

Bloggers I follow
My reading list
MOOC Business Plans are Changing
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Just thought I would post a few MOOC articles that I have been reading lately. Some seem noteworthy.

First of all, I am enjoying reading the blog posts from Class Central from time-to-time. Three of them from the end of December are listed below. One article has the top searches, courses, MOOC universities, languages, and other trends. Another has the five big MOOC trends: 1. The Rise of Self-Paced Courses; 2. The Death of Free Certificates; 3. MOOCs Targeted at High Schoolers; 4. Big MOOC Providers Find their Business Models; and 5. Big Funding Rounds to Accelerate Growth. I can definitely see these trends in my research and travel; especially the rise of self-paced courses and more MOOCs at the high school level.




 
Secondly, yesterday Inside Higher Ed had an article (The Limits of Open) wherein Coursera has changed their business model. Now free courses have a “view-only” access to graded assignments. You must pay for that. The video lectures, discussion boards, and practice quizzes remain free. And Coursera have “specializations” which you pay by the course ($79) or prepay the entire program (e.g., $474 How to Start Your Own Business). Read the article.

Some people do not seem too pleased about this. George Siemens points out that with these new business models that MOOC companies like Coursera seem to be addressing the venture capital providers instead of primarily targeting the larger goal of increasing access to education. He goes on to say: "“It is dismaying to see the so-called Silicon Valley ‘hypesters’ and geniuses failing to deliver on promised change,” wrote Siemens, who previously helped organize the MOOC Research Initiative, a research grant project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “The deep pool of a visionary and re-architected future ended up being about as thick as a dollar bill.” Of course, these are likely short quotes from a much longer interview and he probably had much more to say and no quote entirely represents what a person has actually said. But, still, it is interesting. Read the article!

These are just some of the recent MOOC news. As always, there is much much more. But I thought I would keep this blog post short. I have been invited to give a spotlight session on MOOCs and Open Education at the annual Wisconsin Distance Teaching and Learning Conference in Madison. I will likely go. See some of you there perhaps.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Subscribe to the TravelinEdMan podcast
  posted by Curt Bonk @ 12:37 PM   0 comments
Enjoy this blog? Subscribe to my RSS feed  
What is learning?
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Someone asked me for my definition of learning a few days ago. We often hear different definitions of learning depending on what theoretical point of view we associate with, be it, behavioral (classical or operant conditioning), social learning (ala Bandura), cognitive, constructivist, connectivist, etc. With the vast resources and opportunities in front of learners today, a particular theory or perspective may no longer apply. So what is learning then?

Defining learning?
According to Merriam-Webster’s, learning is “the activity or process of gaining knowledge or skill by studying, practicing, being taught, or experiencing something: the activity of someone who learns.” Synonym discussion of learning noted by Webster’s: “knowledge, learning, erudition, scholarship mean what is or can be known by an individual or by humankind.”
But I did not look at Webster’s or any learning theory book when responding. Instead, when asked, I simply thought about it and I said:

Learning (per Bonk) is: “The accumulation of ideas, experiences, concepts, facts, insights, and awarenesses that enable a sentient creature to react to and live within one’s surroundings in a more intelligent, thoughtful, appropriate, artful, empathic, and/or reasoned way than previously possible.”

How’s that for off the top of my head? “Accumulation” may be the wrong word, but oh well. I guess I was attempting to be inclusive as today learning is best thought of from the standpoint of multiple theoretical approaches and models or perhaps no learning theory. As instructors, we are creating learning environments that are often highly blended ones, combining aspects of face-to-face and online environments.

Final note that I double majored in both Human Learning and Human Development in the educational psychology department when at UW Madison in the late 1980s (I minored in educational technology); hence, there is some aspect of human/creature development in the definition of learning above. As noted by Vygotsky and many other sociocultural researchers, learning and development overlap and are highly intertwined constructs. As the pool of learning resources expand, we can begin to think not just about some small or short-term aspect of learning (e.g., behaviorally shaping someone who wants to learn to dance or shoot a pool stick), but take a more macro lens on how we develop over time. I will end there…for now.

What is your definition of learning and why? (By the way, it is great to see that the School of Education (and the educational psychology department) at Wisconsin remains #1 among public universities. I sure "learned" a ton when there.)

Labels: , , , ,

Subscribe to the TravelinEdMan podcast
  posted by Curt Bonk @ 6:58 PM   0 comments
Enjoy this blog? Subscribe to my RSS feed  
About Me

Name: Curt Bonk
Home: Bloomington, Indiana, United States
About Me: I am a former accountant and CPA and a former educational psychologist. I am now Professor of IST at Indiana University and also adjunct in the School of Informatics. I founded and later sold SurveyShare. As president of CourseShare, LLC, I run around the world training instructors to teach online and give motivational talks about emerging learning technologies. I also write and edit books related to e-learning and blended learning. See bio and vita.

See my complete profile

Click here for information about my recent book, The World is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education.

Visit the Indiana University Home Page of E-Learning Expert Curtis J. Bonk.

Recent Posts
Archives
Popular Posts
Powered by

Free Blogger Templates

BLOGGER