To help achieve this vision, Mackintosh is setting up the OER University and is evangelistic in his elucidation of this concept. There is growing presence and force behind this vision, and as the OER movement gains traction and impetus, we should expect to see some changes in the way universities offer their programmes of study. I met Doug when we were both invited to keynote a conference in Barcelona this year. OER computer games social media OLPC MORE

I was also surprised to see so little development in gaming and gamification within education this past year. These edtech approaches received both buzz and practice over the past decade, but no longer seem to win attention in media and at conferences. Lastly, I forecast continued incremental growth of open educational resources (OER) and open access in scholarly publication. MORE

You may remember Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) for its groundbreaking and utterly depressing report, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Online Civic Reasoning. In the November 2016 Executive Summary , the researchers shared: When thousands of students respond to dozens of tasks there are endless variations. That was certainly the case in our experience. MORE

The fourth annual Reform Symposium Free Online Conference (RSCON) starts this Friday, October 11th, running for three days and in conjunction with Connected Educator Month. It''s an online global event highlighting “wow” moments in teaching and learning , and the entire conference will be held online using the Blackboard Collaborate webinar platform, running out of my FutureofEducation.com community. MORE

These slides accompanied my presentation during the Learning Technologies conference and exhibition held at London's Olympia on 25-26 January. I touched on personal learning networks, mobile technologies, games and gamification, the use of social media in learning, the role of user generated content, the phenomenon of ubiquitous connection, and technological convergence. OER social media Learning Technologies Conference mobile learning touch screens Games based learning MORE

Last week I participated in the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) 2016 conference. I was there for a few reasons, starting with having the fine opportunity to lead a pre conference workshop, followed by presenting on two panels, helping out with a Twitter component, and reconnecting with dozens of friends and colleagues. Let me share some materials here, along with reflections on the conference. Reflections on the conference. MORE

Last week was the major EDUCAUSE annual conference. Many quiet signs of OER. Aras Bozkurt helpfully created this social network analysis of Twitter discussion and influencers , on the fly, during the event itself, because he’s awesome that way: In short: the old conference walls are continuing to tumble down, brick by pixel. More talk of gamification, not so much about games. I already shared materials and thoughts from my various presentations and events. MORE

For the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working on CUE conferences, mostly from afar at my homebase outside of Chicago, Illinois. I’m excited to say that I will physically (rather than digitally) be in attendance at this year’s CUE 2017 National Conference and will be helping out wherever needed. I can’t wait to attend this conference and experience its energy in person! OER Playground (New!). MORE

If you have not participated in a Breakout EDU session at a local, regional, or national education conference, you must do it the next time you see one offered. Breakout EDU experiences have been used at faculty meetings, parent nights at schools, at all types of education conferences, and, of course, in many classroom settings. The lesson I learned with Pokemon Go is not that gaming and gamification are essential to learning. MORE