MOOC on Universal Design in February

Accessibility: Designing and Teaching Courses for All Learners is a free 6-week professional development course available that will help you gain a better understanding of accessibility as a civil rights issue and develop the knowledge and skills you need to design learning experiences that promote inclusive learning environments.

During this six-week course, you’ll learn how to:

●     Recognize and address challenges faced by students with disabilities related to access, success, and completion.

●     Articulate faculty and staff roles in reducing barriers for students with disabilities.

●     Apply the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in designing accessible learning experiences.

●     Analyze the benefits of Backward Design when developing learning experiences.

●     Use Section 508 standards and WCAG 2.0 guidelines to create accessible courses.

●     Determine which tools and techniques are appropriate based on course content.

You will have the opportunity to earn badges that recognize your mastery of these competencies.

Audience: Anyone may enroll and participate in the MOOC. It has been designed for faculty and staff in higher education at any type or level of institution.

Why take the Access MOOC? Watch this short video to find out! (Audio described version)

Access MOOC begins on February 22^nd

Next steps:

1.       Register at Canvas Network

2.       Share and follow the conversation on Twitter using #AccessMOOC

3.       Follow our Access MOOC Facebook Page

The course is a collaborative effort of faculty and staff from SUNY Empire State College and SUNY Buffalo State College, funded by a SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grant.

MOOCs are so 2012 but IS There Gold in Them Hills?

The first two chapters in the MOOC story have been written: heroic arrival and unbounded enthusiasm followed by disappointment and backlash.  I argued in Fall 2012 that for liberal arts colleges at least the real future is in what this article calls SPOCs (small private online classes).  I've experimented with this form both last year and this.  MOOCs are like the Apollo space program - the benefits were not in getting to the moon but in all the tools that smart people invented in order to get to the moon.

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Friedman on MOOCs (2013)

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Professors’ Big Stage

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 5, 2013

I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?”

You may think this MOOCs revolution is hyped, but my driver in Boston disagrees. You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform. When he met me at the airport I saw he was wearing some very colorful sneakers.

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Online Classes and Degree Programs (2013)

from New York Times

NATIONAL BRIEFING | EDUCATION
Online Classes Move Closer to Degree Programs
By TAMAR LEWINPublished: September 17, 2013

Coursera and edX, the two largest providers of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are inching closer to offering degree programs, although the courses so far carry no academic credit. Coursera is now offering courses from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, covering most of its MBA program’s first year curriculum. And Edx is starting two “sequences,” linked courses in a particular discipline. Both are from MIT: Foundations of Computer Science, a set of undergraduate courses that will begin this fall, and Supply Chain and Logistics Management, a set of graduate level courses that will begin in fall 2014.

Ten Part Washington Post Series on Higher Education (2013)

Dylan Matthew's ten-part series "TUITION'S TOO DAMN HIGH" on the Washington Post's "WonkBLOGS" appeared this summer. Matthews is a young journalist new to the education beat.  Some criticism of the series emphasized its "book report" quality (in contrast to "real reporting"), but it does a decent job of bringing lots of things folks are talking about onto our radar screens in these short pieces. -DR

Tuition's Too Damn HighDylan Matthews, WaPo Wonkblog

1. Part 1 Why is college so damn expensive?
2. Part 2 Why college is still worth it
3. Part 3 The three stories of rising tuition
4. Part 4 How important are state higher ed cuts?
5. Part 5 Is the economy forcing colleges to spend more?
6. Part 6 Why there's no reason for big universities to rein in spending
7. Part 7 Is government aid actually making college more expensive?
8. Part 8 Are rich kids ruining college for everybody else?
9. Part 9 Can MOOCs solve the college cost crisis?
10. Part 10 How can we fix skyrocketing tuition?

A Feminist Alternative to MOOCs?

Feminist Anti-MOOC
Inside Higher Ed August 19, 2013 
By Scott Jaschik 

At first glance, "Feminism and Technology" sounds like another massive open online open course. The course will involve video components, and will be available online to anyone, with no charge. There are paths to credit, and it's fine for students to take the course without seeking credit. An international student body is expected.

But don't look for this course in any MOOC catalog. "Feminism and Technology" is trying to take a few MOOC elements, but then to change them in ways consistent with feminist pedagogy to create a distributed open collaborative course or DOCC (pronounced "dock").

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