Open Course in Education Futures

Well... it's been an exciting eight weeks and many of us have learned some very important things from the course. I'm going to go on live for the last time in the edfutures course today at 2pm Eastern. We'll talk a little about how the scenarios are going, share some go forward ideas and talk generally about the course and MOOCs.

If you're interested, happy to have you.

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008104&password=M.10C4E3970050B77...

I'll post a wrap up message tonight that will give people a sense of what they can do for the last 3 days of the course...

Not everyone is going to be a leader in every situation. There are four scenarios currently posted and, I expect, we might get a few more before we get to the end of this very interesting experiment. But, lets say, you don't feel like you've been engaged enough to really start your own. You don't, maybe, have the kind of time to put in to do the reading and work out what exactly it is you're supposed to do.

But you still want to do something.

Here's your invitation to join in. The first and most simple rule is

"Add don't take away" -

Well...

We've got three scenarios running and could easily use a couple more. If you've been thinking about it or are just coming into the game, check out the last couple of newsletters for instructions.

Hey folks,

Well... you could be doing what wendy drexler is doing which is diving into writing a mashup futures scenario. Pretty interesting stuff, and i'm pretty sure she put it together this morning.

http://nafutures.wikispaces.com/The+Blended+Mash-Up+Model

I was expecting it over in the course wiki, but that's cool. Join in... help her write it. A fun place to start might be to pick one of the 'future stories'. In those sections you write, say, a news story from the year 2025 of what the world would look like in that given scenario.

*******************************

Great chat today,

And some latent enthusiasm was drummed up in the chatroom to get started on writing some futures scenarios. In an effort to try and get things started, I'm going to setup two streams of the scenario planning - one for those who are interested in a little more structure and essentially, just some open space for those who want to go ahead and work their own magic.

*********************************************

Structured futures discussion

http://edfuturescenario.wikispaces.com/Structured+scenario

Hey folks,

Live today at 2pm Eastern.

It's been a very interesting course so far, we saw a very strong start, and then i think some confusion about what people were expected to do. I've had several comments from people that weeks 5-6 were just more than they could assimilate. We've learned a ton (both as fledgling open course educators and in terms of how people see the future of education) but what I'd like to do is invite you all to finish out the last nine days of the course with me. I'd like to turn to the idea of scenario planning...

Hi,

Welcome to week 6 in the Edfutures Course!

The readings and a four minute "pulling things together" video will set the stage for the last few weeks in the course.

As was mentioned late last week, we are not having a live session today. George had his flights changed and is going to be flying during the live session time. We are going to have an impromptu session on Friday, but we have no date for that at the moment.

thanks.

Hi,

Welcome to week 5 of the Future(s) of Education Course.

Dave and I decided after much deliberation (or, 2 minutes on skype) to change topics slightly. Week 5 will now focus on Data Sources - readings and misc information for this week can be accessed here. Please stop by the discussion forum and share your preferred data sources.

Week 6 will now focus on methodologies.

George

We've had two very strong critiques of the edfutures course this week that you may find interesting. They may be in line with what you are feeling... feel free to jump in and help improve the model. Here are some of the main points

1. The course is not directive enough
2. Not enough facilitation of students by instructors
3. "One thing in particular that I find hugely problematic about this course is the primitive nature of the environment in which we're working." (would be nice to know more about this)
4. Unmanaged expectations