Why Sceptism about MOOCs..?

After having read this article http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2013/02/18/the-dark-side-of-moocs/, I realised that in the last few weeks, I have remarked that it appears a lot of sceptism about MOOCs and their innovation they introduce into the learning (and lifelong learning) community.

And it's not only about critical thinking or (negative) evaluation about the gap supposed to be covered by them, but it seems that people don't give MOOCs the necessary time to let them show their potential. Indeed, dark colours are used to describe their premature results.

While MOOCs are in their childhood period and trying to pass through the relative diseases, I believe it is meaningless to compare them with the traditional classrooms. For expample a comparison with existing e-learning environments might be more useful.

Learning Analytics Tools that fit in Elgg

This is my first post that aims to be published in LAK12 MOOC. So, it aims a. to test that this blog has been sucessfully included into the aforementioned online course and b. to ask for ideas regarding a tool that can track Elgg analytics in terms of members connenctions and members activity. In other words, I look for a SNAPP-like tool that works with Elgg. Any idea..?

From e-learning evaluation to e-learning tools evaluation

The Elluminate Session today, thanks to Helene Fournier, showed us the aspects of (self-) evaluation/assessment of the learning process that runs through a Personal Learning Environment.
But, let me walk one step away addressing mainly to the engineers of my PLENK colleagues: If we put it on an general basis, how would evaluate a tool that is used for e-learning purposes? In this case, speaking of evaluation, I mean usability evaluation.

For example, how would I decide if the LMS A is better than the LMS B, from usability point of view, but taking into account all specific needs of the learning process? Maybe a set of heuristic guidelines modified specifically for e-learning would help?
Digging into the bibliography, I can see limited work on usability evaluation focused on tools intended to be used for e-educational purposes.

#PLENK2010

This is my first post for #PLENK2010

First post

This is the first post.