Organizers

creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by Mr Michael This is part 3 of 5 in a series of posts for Building Connected Courses: Feed WordPress 101 Basic Concepts of Syndication – and what to think about even before you touch that WordPress thing Installing and Setting up Feed WordPress – Minimal settings, and planning the way content is sliced, diced, and recombined »» Feeding the Machine «« – How to get RSS feeds into the aggregator without losing a finger Some Feed Magic – Optional ways to improve feeds from sites such as flickr, twitter, etc, creating a twitter archive, RSS Feed TLC A Few More Tricks – leveraging categories, adding attribution, setting featured images At the end of our last section on setting up Feed WordPress, we reviewed the basic process for adding a site to our aggregator. In this post, I explore this farther, […]

creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog This is part 2 of 5 in a series of posts for Building Connected Courses: Feed WordPress 101. Basic Concepts of Syndication – and what to think about even before you touch that WordPress thing »» Installing and Setting up Feed WordPress «« – Minimal settings, and planning the way content is sliced, diced, and recombined Feeding the Machine – How to get RSS feeds into the aggregator without losing a finger Some Feed Magic – Optional ways to improve feeds from sites such as flickr, twitter, etc, creating a twitter archive, RSS Feed TLC A Few More Tricks – leveraging categories, adding attribution, setting featured images In the previous section, we planned out a structure for our syndicated content. Now let’s plugin the machine and twiddle a few dials. If you like documentation, check the wiki on the […]

creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by cathywitch This is part 1 of 5 in a series of posts for Building Connected Courses: Feed WordPress 101 »» Basic Concepts of Syndication «« – and what to think about even before you touch that WordPress thing Installing and Setting up Feed WordPress – Minimal settings, and planning the way content is sliced, diced, and recombined Feeding the Machine – How to get RSS feeds into the aggregator without losing a finger Some Feed Magic – Optional ways to improve feeds from sites such as flickr, twitter, etc, creating a twitter archive, RSS Feed TLC A Few More Tricks – leveraging categories, adding attribution, setting featured images Why Bother? If you have gone this far, you’ve likely already made a decision to run a course or community in a distributed manner. Why would you do this when your institution […]

This is the first in a series of posts meant as a guide for almost anyone to create a WordPress site that operates as a networked hub for content created elsewhere. This is the engine, the Jim Groom Syndication Bus that drives ds106, the Open Digital Storytelling course/community/space. It is intended primarily for Connected Courses, which is intended to be offered in October-November 2014 as an open course in how to create open courses. I have built several of these sites in the last few years, after learning how it works with ds106, such as ETMOOC (Educational Technology MOOC), Project Community (The Hague University of Applied Science), Harvard Future of Learning Institute, rmooc (Thompson Rivers University), and most recently Thought Vectors in Concept Space (UNIV 200 at VCU). All of these sites are different, themes, pupose, kinds of syndicated content, but they are all are powered by WordPress and the […]

Connected courses are about connecting learners with each other and with networks in the world outside the classroom. They don’t have to be massive, but they can be. They do include videos and texts, but they are more about fostering cooperative communities of discourse than about passing quizzes about content. They connect classrooms and course cohorts within location-based institutions to learners and networks elsewhere in the world. They are about co-learning, trans-media, and codesigning the courses. (For more about connected learning in general, see this resource) I’m thrilled at the prospect of spending next week with many people who have been my guiding stars and mentors in online learning — I won’t list them here, but you’ll see their posts showing up here soon — planning an open, connected course for educators who want to create open, connected courses. Our course will begin in late September and run into December, with a group of facilitators lecturing, blogging, and commenting each week.

There is no shortage of online tutorials and guides on how to search for images on the web. To overly generalize, this boils down to “here is a list of sites, go there and type your keywords in a box”, with the added bits about how stealing is bad and a few links or videos from Creative Commons. You might get some power tips about using advanced search features. To me this is not teaching how to search (as a strategy) but how to use search sites (as a skill). More than semantic word play, this is the difference between knowing how to hit something with a chisel and how to sculpt art with a chisel. More than that, it’s easy to find images when you need specific subjects- like an image of a computer keyboard, a rhinoceros, a train engine, a knitting needle, a sunflower. Search engines are good […]

creative commons licensed ( BY-NC-SA ) flickr photo shared by Pedro Vezini I intend not to discuss the merits/demons of badging systems. My main response on weighing such questions always slide down to “It Depends”. But to me badging, nanodegreeing, calculating massive course dropouts remains overweighted on one side of the system. This has been mulling in the cranium for a while (often best where ideas are left to fade away) but came again to mind reading Heather’s post How do We Define Success in an Open Course? To me, the definition is always for the provider. Success is the success on the entity that offers the course. And of course (to be alliteratively not so clever, Wilbur) if you run courses, you want to know how well you are doing. No argument. And recognizing that people sign up for free no risk courses for different reasons is a relief. […]

The trails of distraction. If I worked for anyone else besides myself, I might get fired for my wanderings. This all started at lunch time, I noticed I had about six oranges in my fridge, and that also I was out of orange juice. I thought I would take a few moments to squeeze them using this little plastic gizmo I had in my cabinet… except I could not find it. Instead, I came across this antique one I had found and liberated from my Mom’s kitchen when we emptied out her house. Wow, it worked much better than the hand powered plastic gizmo! The pressure applied to the handle, the clever grooved insert– it is so elegant. Yes, I spent 20 minutes squeezing 6 oranges into one cup of juice. But the feel of that metal appliance, and the design of it– am I turning into some kind of […]

creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by martinjetpack A few weeks (or more) ago Karen Fasimpaur asked me if the new DS106 Assignment Bank as a WordPress theme was reliable enough to be used for the 2014 Making Learning Connected MOOC. I forget her exact words, but something like, “Can you re-assure us that it will not blow up?” I do question guarantees, even more so when it comes to Other People Using My Code, but offered to assist in anyway. No smoke or flames are in sight, but they turned on the lights this week for the CLCMOOC Make Bank where the items are “makes” For those new to the idea of “makes,” they are a big part of #clmooc. Over the course of the MOOC, there will be multiple Make Cycles during which time we’ll all be prompted to create and build, digitally as well […]

The four modules of Webmaker Training are somewhat non-specific. They are mainly designed to be an on-ramp for people who don’t have much experience with trying to #TeachTheWeb or people who are new to our community and the idea of Connected Learning. The four modules are the basics of what we as a community care about and why. We’ve tried to gather information that is useful when people are beginning to think about their involvement in the Mozilla community and in Maker Party, and we’ve tried to help people develop digital skills by prompting them to make using free and open tools. Since we have a wide reaching and global community, we have lots of different interests to think about. With Webmaker Training, I feel like we’ve found a model that can work for any interest, so I’m excited to see if I’m right.

Enter the Librarian.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200"] made for TV gone B Movie Franchise![/caption] In the fall, we will be running Webmaker Training: For Librarians as our first specific interest group. In thinking about the specific learning modules librarians would need, I felt like I need a little bit of backup. So I used me some connected networking skills and I reached out to some Mozillians who know libraries and librarians*.

Notes about this audience

1. Jennie said that one of her favorite quotes from the “sleep cell librarian crew” in our community was

“Librarians are trained by vendors.”

She explained that it’s normally proprietary software that ends up in libraries and, thus, librarians are helping people use that stuff. Solution 1: We’re a “vendor”, our software is the Web. Bam. 2. It was also pointed out to me that whether or not a librarian can justify his participation in #TeachTheWeb to a library director will determine if the modules are successful or not. Solution 2: Everything is open and free. I guess that most libraries in N. America are members of the ALA, but their e-learning resources are…uh…not free. Also, there’s not much in the way of information literacy or digital making in their e-learning catalog, so programs like Webmaker Training can augment. I don’t really know what a library director is looking for, but libraries are the perfect establishments for things like Maker Parties, digital skills workshops, web - ahem - literacy work. 3. There is a huge age gap in librarians, so there’s also a huge skill gap when it comes to technology. Solution 3: Karen suggested facilitating connections between generations, and I like this idea. I also think that modules for developing specific technical skills are a good idea. 4. There’s a difference between academic vs public libraries. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300"] Public[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignright" width="291"] Academic[/caption] Solution 4: I think we can solve this with modularity. Kaitlin and Greg over at the Mozilla Science Lab and Software Carpentry have been working with academic research librarians, so we have a jumping off place for things like data skills, indexing, unix, etc. I mean, look at these lessons. 5. There’s a difference between urban vs rural libraries. Solution 5: Oh yeah, I know! What can a rural librarian teach an urban librarian and vice versa? How does technology play a part in each library? What resources do libraries need? Let’s MAKE them together! 6. Librarians have some of the pedagogy stuff, so we need to have a stronger focus on the technical details. Solution 6: That aligns with my sense that we need some smaller more focused “skill” modules ;) It was also mentioned that Webinars, videos and anything people can consume at work world be helpful, so I’m thinking popcorn videos should make their way to http://training.webmakerprototypes.org 7. This group needs to understand how they can use this network and why it’s valuable to them. Solution 7: This is a discussion we should have together, but we have lots of case studies we can put together in an easily digestible format. Webpage to ebook anyone?

Digestion.

I’ve had quite a bit to think about in terms of how :For Librarians can fit into overarching visions of what Webmaker Training is or should become. These are my initial thoughts after digesting everything the “Mozillarians” had to say. I’d appreciate it if you collaborate with me on this by giving feedback, adding thoughts, curating content, donating ideas for good make prompts and otherwise help me push :For Librarians further.

Ideas for NEW modules

1. Logistics (how to organize a Webmaker event / Maker Party - could be an education remix of the Event kits!), maintaining and developing free public spaces (finding funding and programming opportunities, understanding distribution).
2. Building Online Networks (setting up a blog, HTML basics, online networking)
3. Privacy and Security for Public Spaces (How to make online anonymity default, 3rd party cookies, https, do not track, Lightbeam)

Ideas for Building :For Librarians

As I said, we have lots of amazing baseline content. We don’t need an entirely new Building module, we need learning activities that would be valuable to lots of librarians. So what does each librarian want to make that would immediately benefit his/her library? A couple ideas for make prompts:

• Make your typical learner profile (who are your largest group of patrons? Marginalized teens? Seniors? Children?)
• Teaching Kit for Computer Basics (click, double click). I found this resource, got excited about what the community could do with it.
• Top ten programs at your library
• Top ten problems your library has
• Teaching Kit for Searching (Especially in North America, library patrons are often elderly or disadvantaged who need basic training in everyday internet usage. Librarians are teaching people how to find health info, filing taxes, etc. How can we teach those basic skills in a way that people to keep coming to the library to level up?)
• What else? Help!

Discourse discussions we should have

• Best practices for encouraging critical literacies Honest and Open communication; (Exploring - could be based on typical learner profile) Community building (Connecting - could be based on “top ten programs”)

So that’s where I am in my :For Librarians thinking. What do you think? Leave a comment, or better yet, join the discussion. * Thanks to Emily, Jennie, Kaitlin and Karen for brain dumping for me, and to the folks feeding me ideas in email ;)