<meta charset="utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Hi Trebor:</font></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">"Quality online courses are in fact neither cheap nor easy to teach but<br>
such nuance does not fit into the shtick of the Republican governor."</font></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If online courses largely duplicate face-to-face courses, then yes, they are neither cheap nor easy to teach. However, content duplication online has very little of the expense of creating a second copy of a physical text. The social dimensions of online learning are more difficult to scale, but a fair bit of progress can be made if we let go of the assumptions that:</span></font></span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: small;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br>
</span></font></span></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: small;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">a) structure = learning (either in content organization or planned learning activities/outcomes/evaluation)</span></font></span></span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: small;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">b) The educator is the central node in the learning experience</span></font></span></span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: small;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br>
</span></font></span></span></font>In the CCK08/09 course that Stephen mentioned in his post, we devote considerable time to discussing the changed power relationship between educator and learner in an open online course compared with traditional courses. It's important to mess around with what learners can now do (in terms of social interaction and content exploration) that educators used to do <i>for them.</i>..and how "technology" can do for learners what learners used to have to do themselves (i.e. aggregation, patterning, content discovery).</div>
<div><br></div><div>George</div>