Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation

…from the annals of e-reviewing, self-promotion, gaming book sales on Amazon…debate simmers on blogs & Amazon…prompting our caveat to readers, writers and their (too) helpful family, friends, fans and supportive writing circles...

Feriss, by Drew Kelly, NYT

Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers’ reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine.

After several well-publicized cases involving writers buying or manipulating their reviews, Amazon is cracking down. Writers say thousands of reviews have been deleted from the shopping site in recent months.

Is a review merely a gesture of enthusiasm or should it be held to a higher standard? Should writers be allowed to pass judgment on peers the way they have always done offline or are they competitors whose reviews should be banned? Does a groundswell of raves for a new book mean anything if the author is soliciting the comments?

Timothy Ferriss marshaled his social media followers for favorable reviews of “The 4-Hour Chef.” Harriet Klausner now has over 25,000 reviews on Amazon. “You ever read a Harlequin romance?” she said. “You can finish it in one hour.”

Read the rest of Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation - NYTimes.com. Readers also shared their thoughts on this article. Read All Comments (391)

6 blog design tips for non-designers

…definitely CLW fodder. I should cross post it to the New Faculty Majority blog too (filed under wishful thinking). Tag it #readability, #webwriting & #genres (this last would make a passable CLW post too…let me count the genres I write thee…). 

I don’t do a lot of B2B (blogger-to-blogger) posts here, but I was trying to read a blog post the other day (about something I really wanted to learn about) and the design of the blog made it absolutely painful to read! So I thought maybe I’d take my experience as a web designer and write a little post with a few tips that’ll help make anyone’s blog more comfortable to read.

Blogger Cassie lays out 6 easy design tips with visual examples: left justify always, link color matters, use headers, watch line lengths, short paragraphs, skip serif for body text. But if you love something. keep it ~ it's your blog. Now read the rest of 6 blog design tips for non-designers

Grammar & Syntax Make #MOOC Debut

…here's an online writing course worth taking a look at…

…in Course Taught by Stanford Scientist on Coursera

Here\'s a really bad sentence: \"This paper provides a review of the basic tenets of cancer biology study design, using as examples studies that illustrate the methodologic challenges or that demonstrate successful solutions to the difficulties inherent in biological research.\"

Kristin Sainani - epidemiologist, statistician and writer - teaches scientists not to write like that. She does it in a classroom at Stanford\'s School of Medicine, and, since late September, she does it online

1213 Grammar and Syntax Make Their MOOC Debut in Course Taught by Stanford Scientist

#nanowrimo Week 4, Final Boss

…although neither a gamer nor facing the same problems, I can identify with this post and especially the ennui it expresses. Besides, I really like the graphic. The words, extra ones even, are already there but need rounding up for validation, whipping into shape. The monster is too baggy even by NaNoWriMo standards. Do I sound more like a cattle drover than a writer? Split the difference...maybe Garrison Keillor's cowboy character.

So I half-pantsed this novel, which means that with each new day, I’ve made up something else.... I have discovered a number of gaping plot holes and continuity issues in my novel. When I’m bored, my writing sounds boring. I yawn as I write it. I yawn as I read it over.... My enthusiasm for my novel is long gone.... The end is in sight, but it’s all vague, and janky, and not how I imagined it! And all of this is coupled with the conviction that if I stop now, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for giving up.

This week is my Final Boss week. In video game parlance, that means that it’s my hardest challenge yet, and is largely uncharted territory. As an excellent Final Boss ought to do, it takes all the problems I’ve dealt with since the beginning of the month, and throws them at me all at once.

Read the rest of Ari's post, Week 4, Final Boss. Photo by Flickr user Monda@NoTelling.

10 Tips on How2Finish Your #NaNoWriMo Novel

…#digiwrimo goal too. Obvious even pedestrian but still useful ideas for staying both sane and in #wrimo mode. Since I keep forgetting about or blocking some, a reminder is welcome. Not being linear and changing tracks are especially welcome and reminders. Besides, it's a blog post too in case needed for #nablopomo. By the end of the month I will be either totally worded out for the rest of the year, word...or so fit that I won't be able to stop writing. Tipster Thaïs writes,


I learned about National Novel Writing Month through my creative writing professor, Randon Noble, during my freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C. In October of 2006, almost everyone in my creative writing class decided to give NaNoWriMo a try, including me. Most people mentioned writing about home, dating, or other personal and realistic topics.

On the night of November 1, Edward P. Jones visited American University to read from his book, The Known World. During the Q&A, a student in the crowd told him that this was the first day of NaNoWriMo. When the student asked Mr. Jones if he thought someone could write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, Mr. Jones said absolutely not and if someone did, it wouldn’t be worth reading. After that book reading, I think half of my creative writing class decided not to participate in NaNoWriMo.

But I did participate.

<snip> I started writing my novel longhand, but within the first week, I decided to write exclusively on the computer because I found that I typed quicker....Writing a novel in a month was still difficult and when I faced a problem (how to organize disembodied scenes or what to do when the writing wasn’t flowing), I had to create new solutions to get me through the month.

Here’s my advice for completing a 50,000-word novel within 30 days:

1. Be confident, not critical. NaNoWriMo is about word count, not about perfection or style. Think of this as a first draft. Just produce, produce, produce. 
2. Write about an idea you’re obsessed with and can’t get out of your mind. Remember, your novel can always change tracks.
3. When you’re tired of writing about that main idea, create subplots to fill pages. When I was sick of writing about the influence of a death machine, I wrote a love story subplot. 
4. Write scenes. Scenes with narration, dialogue, action, and description take up more space than expository information. 
5. Set a word minimum EVERY DAY. NaNoWriMo recommends 1667, but if you’ve fallen behind, increase that. Do not set a daily hour minimum because some days you’ll write more quickly than others. Tell yourself that you can’t go to bed until you reach that minimum number of words. Keep track of your word count by checking the number of words in your document at the beginning and end of each day.
6. If you miss a day, then make up those words as soon as possible. Some people prefer to make up those missing words on the weekend when they have more time. Whatever you do, don’t wait until the end of the month. 
7. Don’t write linearly. Bounce around, writing scenes that occur at different points in the novel. During one week, for example, write a scene that takes place at the end of your story, then one that takes place in the middle, and one that takes place in the beginning. This keeps you interested in the material and prevents you from feeling stuck. Leave markers for areas that you want to come back to and fill in. On days when you feel uninspired, go to these markers and start writing those missing scenes. 
8. At some point, it doesn’t really matter when, create an outline to organize your scenes.
9. Don’t delete anything unless it’s 100% necessary to make the novel seem cohesive or coherent. Erasure will move you in the opposite direction of where you want to go. Temporarily cut scenes instead and save them in a different file. You never know when an extraneous scene might become useful. If you do delete a scene, then replace it. 
10. Find a quiet writing space that you can regularly use like a public library or a bedroom. One of my colleagues even writes in a closet. Try not to piss off your roommates. 

Read all of 10 Tips on How to Finish Your NaNoWriMo Novel: by Thaïs Miller, author of novels, short stories, and poetry, as well as a writing instructor at Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Photo by Flickr user Chapendra.

November means no excuses

…#nanowrimo & by extension #digiwrimo advice + a timely (even overdue) rant from Heim Binas' fiction blog. 

Expect to see more posts here this month, and ones about digital writing. Even though I couldn't nano without a computer, I've never thought to make the obvious computers language writing connection. This year, however, I am taking a try at Digital Writing Month. Can't miss that connection. Is this then no NaNo? No, still nano-ing. This year it is double or nothing month. Why both? I'm not entirely sure but will explore the why while navigating the shoals of how. What about plot? T'm still working on that one. Stay tuned...

And now for that timely rant I promised. Heimas Binas wrote,

#DigiWriMo: 50K Digital words in 30 days

…I've been doing #NaNoWriMo since 2004 or thereabouts. First year, my laptop went south on me within sight of the finish line. Since then I've completed every year. I still couldn't say why I do it either except that I've gotten in the habit. It's become a November ritual.

NaNo, as a computer assisted writing project, meets base line blog requirements. The Hybrid Pedagogy folk assured me that DigiWriMo would compliment not conflict with NaNo, so I registered. Come to find out, what they have in mind is different enough that conflict seems inevitable. So am I in or am I out?

Digital Writing Month (@DigiWriMo) is a wild ride through the world of digital writing, wherein those daring enough to participate will wield keyboard and cursor to create 50,000 words in the thirty short days of November. Can’t imagine writing 50,000 words? Drop in anyway! We’ll have lots of exercises to bend your brain, break your habits, and 
basically rock your writing world. 

Still blissfully unaware of the potential wrath of Stephen over using "collaborative" instead of "cooperative," they have also listed it as a MOOC.  My month of writing is less "wild abandon" than solitary, permission to write badly for a month without editing, revising, giving a thought to readers. Since DigiWriMo sponsor and participants have been going on about social media and collaboration, we could be at cross purposes here.

Never mind, it's a mooc and presumably a connectivist one, so I'll just do it the way I want: do their parts their way when it suits but not when it doesn't. Take or follow what I want, ignore the rest. In other words, I am but on my own terms. Now to figure out what those are...and how this turn changes NaNo. Turning social media (whether usual output or created for the occasion) into a plot (even a post modern one) will be the real challenge.

Nor will it all take place or be recorded here either. My #WriMo ~ its own distributed network. I started a Google Reader folder for just plain #wrimo, already populated with a handful of alert and blog feeds. #digiwrimo in Topsy shows significant traffic already and related links. Of the November #acwrimo (for academic writing), the less said the better.

Digital Writing Month for 50K Digital words in 30 days is hosted by Marylhurst English and Digital Humanities program, modeled after NaNoWMo and sponsored by Hybrid Pedagogy. 

PowerPoint as an Interactive Teaching Tool

…and writing tool. The presentations a computer based genre. I've never cared for them or how students and even seasoned presenters use and abuse them. Still, it is undeniable that presentations are a distinct and valid genre of writing. So maybe it is time to look at them like that. Geoff Cain, Brainstorm in Progress, writes,

PowerPoint is on every computer in this college and every college I have worked with. Students, faculty, and staff use and abuse it every day. Those of you who know me know that I am not particularly an advocate of commercial technology but it is a tool that is being used for teaching and learning. When I am wearing my instructional designer's cap, I have to think about the best uses of any tool. Here is a presentation I gave on PowerPoint (with links to more resources for learning about PPT).

Brainstorm in Progress: PowerPoint as an Interactive Teaching Tool 

English and borrowing

…The computer connection with this one is that it comes from Mr Verb, a language / linguistics blog that is in my feed reader, filed in the language folder. Still, items like this signal the CLW's return to language topics. 
\
Got a request to comment on the source of this quote ... now available on t-shirts, etc. It's famous but I couldn't remember offhand when the message came where it was from. As many readers will recall faster than I did, it's from Jame Nicoll and widely quoted (see here). The full quote, which floats around in a set of variants, is richer:

Don't Write Yourself Off: Bio-writing Secrets to Living Larger Online - Forbes

…writing advice from Forbes, specifically targeting self-defined entrepreneurs, those readers hopeful of or desperate to market themselves online. Is this for Computers Language Writing? You betcha. I'm experimenting, reinventing CLW again, rescuing it from the dark forest in the kingdom of the moocs, looking for a mode and format that fits both suits its original and description and interests me enough to keep blogging. Back to writing and language basics. If you want to read about Massive Open Online Courses, check archives (search or see tag cloud in sidebar) or head over to MOOC Madness.

The article is also cracking good advice for bio and introduction writing that students, native and non native speakers alike, so often stumble over. Later, putting yourself out there as a product, you will need a good cover letter.  Then there are those interminable LinkedIn profiles. It's genre and related to bio / intro writing assignments, cover letters, etc. Forbes contributor Dena Kouremetis writes, 

invitation to a #mooc on moocs (in #highered)

…aka MoocMooc (already using the word too many times, suggesting a mooc³), will mooc its way around the tubz and distribute on networks six days, next week, August 12-18. Have the good #hybridped folk putting it on seen, Gordon's adaptation of José Bogado's la vaca de los sinvaca’?

"Yeah," so we muttered amongst ourselves over at Change11, CMC11 and POTcert Facebook groups, "aren't they all?"  

Filtering EdTech news & deconstructing the ENT

…"Mo Money Still No Business" titles Edukwest's ceducation news - ENT #23 for July 16- 22 and may refer to big money spent on acquisitions. yet to show earnings or have business plans. Coursera, among others, comes to mind.

Deconstructing the Acronym, ENT reminds me of the slow moving, ancient trees in Lord of the Rings. Education is anything but slow moving lately, to a fault many say. The same cannot be said of all practitioners. Therein lies conflict yet to resolved. EN is obvious for Education News. I'm still working on the T. Education News Today? EduKWest (KW for publisher/content curator's initials) is self-described as "on the search for better education," although "better investments in" might be just as if not more apt.

Any collection of annotated news links within a field is a potential filter. Bear in mind that the ENT bent leans to edtech, edu-biz, sales, startups, acquisitions, launches and the like ~ strong commercial, corporate and pro-privatization, as in this recent article about education reform. Not agreeing with this particular (and increasingly pervasive) bias is all the more reason to track it.

This weeks stories are no exception: acquisitions, launches, edu-biz start-ups. Tech and newswire services, not higher ed media, are the major contributors. Blogs, opinion pieces, guest posts and other features yield links and learning resources to check out, share, perhaps bookmark. Language Garden, destined for sharing on Blogging English and the StudyCom's online Help Board, is just one example.

Mo Money Still No Business – ENT #23 July 16th to July 22nd 2012

Zen, the Art of Metacognition & #MOOC Maintenance

Or more about Quality-Based Discrimination, Peer Assessment & Technology in Academic Matters, (Canadian) Journal of Higher Education. All are relevant to autonomous learning and other topics current on various mooc blogs and under discussion among participants. As the post progresses, I see it connect with New Faculty Majority (higher ed teaching, assessment), community (networked publics, informal learning), specific MOOC (Change11, Bon's digital identities) and personal networks /blogging concerns.


Steve Joordens, professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, writes... 

In 1974, Robert M. Pirsig wrote a book entitled “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, within which he provided a philosophical argument for the primacy of quality. Quality is described as a metaphysical underpinning of, well, just about anything; an underpinning from which other characteristics can be derived. I read this book for the first time about 2 years ago, after I had become passionate about using technology to better support the development of meta-cognitive skills in students. I was completely amazed how well Pirsig’s conceptions fit with the sorts of assignments I had been promoting as powerful and much needed. In some sense, his depiction of the primacy of quality made explicit an assumption that was at the core of much of what I was doing.

Goodbye #MOOC Season Hello ~ #CMC11, #POTcert11, #change11, #evomlit

It's a wrap for Mira Costa's Program for Online Teaching Program certificate course, which will return in September as #potcert12. Forget about the POThead jokes: we've already made them all. Change 11, not the infinite MOOC after all, is also coming down to the wire. Dave Cormier exhorts the weary and mooc-worn to catch their second wind and face the final five sessions like a fresh, much shorter version. Vance Stephen's Multiliteracies (evomlit) never turns the lights off. That's why there is no number at the end of the hashtag. I signed up and get the Dailies but never got into either CCK12 or LAK12.

 Good news for CMC11 participants. The beat goes on. Carol Yaeger writes, 

CMC11 is still open for your participation ... the playground for connectivist learning adventures.  There are several recent registered participants and a few who have come in the past few months (please let me know who you are by sending me an email ... thanks).  I do know about Becky from China, Brandy and Sarah in the US and the few who have been posting blogs and Tweets from time to time ... and you know who you are :-) 

Since we will be open for Independent Study ESC students starting 1 May, I will endeavor to add my blog commentary on a weekly basis and send out the NewPosts at least weekly, if not more often.

The folks in China are not able to access Facebook or Google, and their blogs may be slightly different in format.  This means that they are unable to join in the hangouts and You Tube presentations.  We will be looking for additional ways to communicate beyond the NewPosts, Twitter and such.  If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them along.  I think the discussion posts here and the material in the NewPosts should be OK ... Becky, and others in China, please let me know.  Thanks.  (Greetings to the Current Participants ~ CDL Projects)

I responded, opening a discussion on the site:

Google+ Hangout: takes more bandwidth than I have access to. Sure would be nice to have a transcript (text) or report (blog post)
Continuations, China, connecting (because you can't do connectivism let alone exchange ideas about it unless you do): using mostly Fb because it is convenient, I suspect I've missed out on some announcements (i.e. final projects) and discussion here. I found the creativity/trans-multicultural literacy engaging and a natural for me. I am all for keeping on. I start tagging again. Are we using social bookmarking? FYI Diigo, among other features, has a good comment and sharing features, enough to use as a discussion forum.  

China ~ it's a good and perhaps even necessary exercise to think about how we can connect / communicate without (eek!) Facebook or Google. A challenge, but hardly the end of meaningful online communication. Let's start with what is open and where Chinese participants *can* connect. What blogging platforms are available? Can we use theirs? What about Yahoo, email lists, bulletin boards, other social media, bookmarking, photo sharing with comment features? 

Not entirely OT, I offered to help an Italian friend in Australia with a project for low bandwith access project putting basic literacy / skills / K-12 education resources online for a Haitian orphanage. How multi-cultural can you get? 

Technology and culture: a test case

This relates to Lisa's post, It's a Facebook thing and ignorance of the internet. Both make me think of high school debate topics in the late 50s. I was set to write "remind." They are not the same. "Better Dead than Red vs Better Red than Dead" was a popular topic along with whether or not to recognize China. 

Which is stronger: technology's power to shape local culture, or local culture's power to influence the way technology is adopted and used?

If it's the former, as I suspect it is, then technology becomes a homogenizing force, tending in time to erase cultural differences. If it's the latter, then technology plays a subservient role; the uniformity of the tool does not impose uniformity on the tool's use. Culture prevails.

We're going to get some insight into this question over the next decade or so as e-readers - in the form of both devices and apps - spread and become even cheaper. As Caroline Winter of Bloomberg Businessweek reports, in two of the most prosperous Western countries - the U.S. and Germany - the adoption of electronic books has so far taken very different routes. E-books are booming in the U.S. Less than five years after the introduction of Amazon's Kindle, e-book sales already account for about a quarter of all U.S. book sales, and that percentage continues to rise sharply. In Germany, where e-readers are also readily available, e-books still represent just 1 percent of overall book sales.

The difference is largely a cultural one. Germany, the birthplace of Gutenberg...

Read the rest of Technology and culture: a test case

Digital Student Writing (Tags #change11 #potcert11 #evomlit)

Upfront disclaimer and confession: this post has nothing to do with current or even recent lesson topics in either Change 11 or Program for Online Teaching. Aha, serendipity alert: inadvertently, I seem to be in sync with the POT Wk 20 topic, instruction design. 

 

Whatever, Digital Student Writing and the perennial problem of getting students to write are germane and central both to the declared focus of this blog and online or computer assisted learning (whatever the current nomenclature flava is). Moocxtination (just made that up, more or less a mashup of MOOC + destination) is less clear, especially without a map or well beaten path to follow. For now, I'm relating it online writing and study groups (e.g. in areas such as GED, ESL, college prep, continuing education, DIY PD, etc. that I have perhaps futile hopes of adapting MOOC model to)


Taking where learners write from the most and are more comfortable writing strikes me as a logical starting point. It's like planning a drainage systen: first see where the water wants to go (or not) and then design accordingly.

Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students :: WIDE Research Center, Michigan State University

This white paper reports initial findings from a Writing in Digital Environments (WIDE) Research Center study entitled Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students. These initial findings are drawn from a survey of students enrolled in writing classes at a sample of US postsecondary institutions.

Doomed or Lucky? Predicting the Future of the Internet Generation

According to Mindshift and the Pew Foundation's Future of the Internet V survey, there is still no consensus when it comes to the internet or predicting the future. Has there ever been? As the common expression about relationships goes, "it's complicated." Whatever, the results are relevant, each in its own way to the (more or less) varying MOOCs underway, hence the post even if not following any of the assignments. That's autonomous for you,

photo by Flickr

Looking into the proverbial crystal ball, a slew of technology experts weighed in on the Future of the Internet V survey conducted by Pew Research and Elon University, and came up with a predictably mixed scenario: It’s complicated.

Asked to consider the future of the Internet-connected world between now and 2020 and to choose from two statements, of the total 1,021 responses, 55% agreed with this optimistic view:

#mooc/s & me: what week is this anyway?

Discussion seems thin on the Program for Online Teaching's Facebook group. If discussion has moved to another location, I missed it. Group is where most of my current POT activity centers lately, posting links and comments. The same, to a lesser degree, seems true for the Change11 group. Facebook is convenient because I already check in to manage local (2), P&WPicnic and New Faculty Majority pages. Even so I do as much of that as possible by email and the Fb share button on my toolbar. 

I don't intend to title every CWL post, however infrequent, "catching up," even if the best way to describe them so far. Hence,  "#mooc/s & me." One problem (among, alas, others) surely lies in trying to address (and tag) too many moocs in a single post, an inevitable corollary to following too many moocs.  A workable solution may not be possible but still a learning experience either way ~ succeed or fail. 

   

This morning I am catching up on reading and comment on Program blogs but need to break away shortly for Saturday morning reminders on the community announcements blog, may something more fun on the other. Ever on the look out for economies of scale, I think about ways to combine mooc and community blogging. Such is the quest for a virtual Philosopher's Stone of blogging. 

POTcert's tools for online and hybrid course are interesting and teaching an enduring interest. Currently, neither is my primary focus. Social media, content curation and developing online community (and other) networks are, all related to and overlapping with tools and teaching. The more related self-paced study projects are on the back burner for now.  Here's one local project, Virtual Salt Missions Trail

Change11 ideas and concepts fit right into my emerging/evolving image of community networks ~ autonomous, overlapping, linked, distributed ~ as related. These are not class, course or event but include events, groups, and need to learn to survive, thrive. Too many silos though. The same applies to isolated, intermittently communicating clusters of adjunct faculty across the country. Stephen's latest post on Half an Hour struck me as relevant to flexible organizing for both. 

Posted via email from Mooking About

STOP SOPA: #SOPASTRIKE Jan18

My favorire "stop sopa" page is Zachary Johnson's shadowbox with the moving light (just move your cursor) on Zachstronaut. Adding this one to my feed reader... tomorrow. Today ..... 

 

Sites are striking in all different ways, but they are united by this: do the biggest thing you possibly can and drive contacts to Congress. *Put the source code for this page your site* ~ it's my main page at Mountainair Online (the web page). I have no control over blog policies. I'm not really up to tinker with source code to show a black out page on my blogs. So I am settling for posting information and exhortations (like this one). Except for following #sopastrike on Twitter and @fightfortheftr) and Reddit, I'm staying off public pages today. No Facebook or 

Personal blackouts seem to be running either 24 hours (midnight to midnight) or 8AM EST to 8PM EST. Major supporting sites like Wikipedia, WordPress, Google, Internet Archive (+ Wayback Machine), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Tucows and many, many more are striking for 24 hours. Looked like a major slow down on Facebook when I checked (before 8 am).  

What can you do to support the strike if you don't have a blog or web page, can't blog and RT #sopastrike stories? Make a call; sign the petition; learn more; the action of the hour is to speak out. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper, opposing the bills. Contact local news stations and let them know that this is an issue worth covering. And there is still email, what they could be coming after next...

Today's Google search page:

 

Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web! 

#evomlit chat anyone?

Here's an idea that come to me straight from Jenny saying "see you online or on Twitter." Let's do a twitter chat with its own hashtag: set a time for synchronous discussion on twitter like #FYCchat, #Engchat, #ELTchat and others.  

 

This fits right into the tags part of "Declaring" too and is easy to do. Set a time, show up then on Twitter, search the designated #hashtag and join the discussion or just follow. Twitter chat discussions usually set a topic but don't have to. It might be better to have a different (modified) tag instead of using just #evomlit because we use that as a general tag. What about #mlitchat (to save characters) or #evomlitchat? We'd still want to use #evomlit for archiving.

Think about it. What would be the most convenient time for as many "multiliterates" as possible. 

 

Searching, I saw more links and resources about #twchat than I would have expected. There's another blog post here too as well as a synchronous activity to host for Program for Online Teaching. Until then, I offer a few links to tide you over:

• Small Biz Trends (not just for ed), How to participate in Twitter chat 
• Mashable, HOW TO: Start and Run a Successful Twitter Chat
• Cybraryman, Educational Chats on Twitter
• PLP Network, Twitter for Teachers - Discover hashtag #PD

making a list, checking it twice

So #evomlit 2012 begins. #Change11 & #POTcert11 heading into 2nd half. Time to (try again to) get it together. That reminds me of a Nebbish cartoon. But not worry overmuch either if I don't...

 

For those, who as Vance phrased it, like ticking items off checklist, here's where I am this morning. I feel obliged to mention though that like may have little to do with it. I am approaching that Swiss cheese brain stage of life plus multitask online in several other areas, so no list = forgetting. Necessity as they say can be a real mother, or in this case, grandmother. 

Multiple multi-tasking... would that be multi-multi-tasking or multi-tasking²? I digress. Back to the list ... with commentary aka asides.

One advantage to MultiLit The Rerun: some tasks are already done, although even those benefit from checking and perhaps tweaking. 

• In YGroup (obviously), set to web mail (I change setting for ease of replying at least for 1st week, which also reinforces the reply habit)
  
• Posterous account and subscribed to Multiliteracies
  
• already got blog/s
• Ditto Delicious and Diigo
• feeds already in reader for all the above 

If you don't already have these and with feeds in reader and/or aggregator, I recommend taking care of it early. NOW! Next week if not sooner, you will be overwhelmed and hard put to get to it. 

Next MOOC, if you have notice and register early, do it before course starts ~ my  #1 tip on how to pack for a MOOC. 

New this time or something to do every time, I 

• Introduce myself again on group, read ALL introductions and post greet other participants
• Sent request (pending) to http://www.facebook.com/groups/194181233930205/
  
• Registered (pending) with our "new" Ning http://epcopmooc.ning.com/
  
• Remove #hiatus tag from Multiliteracies folder in Google Reader (like mail, what you can do with GR is a whole topic on its own)
• Post addresses, IDs and urls for email, twitter, blog/s, aggregator page, PLN, other social media. This should be part of introduction but I forgot yesterday so will add them to this post.

email: vcrary@yahoo.com or vanessa.vaile@yahoo.com

ID/s: Yahoo ~ vcrary; Google ~ vanessa.87036

CWL (blog) http://computerslanguagewriting.blogspot.com

Twitter: @VanessaVaile, @NewFacMajority

About.me: http://About.me./VCVaile

Netvibes: http://netvibes.com/vanessa_vaile

Now back to thinking about where I want to go, whether to commit to a "project" or just putter as I meander the mooc landscape collecting, curating, engaging and of course procrastinating. Thinking of the denizens of digitalandia, be they natives or tourists, immigrants or visitors, I realize that I am none of these, more like a footloose vagabond at home in mind.  

Observations about learning, knowledge and technology

Recent #MOOC & #PLE research from Rita Kop: publications on Massive Open Online Courses and Personal Learning Environments. 


Rita (ur-moocquette or mooc wonkette? Maybe both...) writes...

People interested in Massive Open Online Courses will probably be aware of the research by Helene Fournier and me on Personal Learning Environments and MOOCs. We carried out research in the MOOC PLENK2010 (The MOOC Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge that was held in the fall of 2010). The data collected on this distributed course with 1641 participants has been massive as well. Its analysis has kept us and some fellow researchers busy over the past year. The research has resulted in a number of publications and I thought it might be useful to post links to all of our journal articles, conference papers and presentations that were published in relation to PLEs and MOOCs in one space. Each publication looks at the data from a different perspective, eg, requirements in a PLE, self-directed learning, learner support, creativity.

Read the rest at Observations about learning, knowledge and technology: Research publications on Massive Open Online Courses and Personal Learning Environments (and save the links)

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