mobiMOOC - Free eLearning Opportunity

Source: http://goo.gl/pD82O

I recently chatted with someone who asked me, "How can I get ahead in education and, especially, get into the education technology field?" There many possible responses, but a question that I often ask myself when pondering "getting ahead" is the following one:

If I had to move tomorrow to another school district, how would that district assess my ability to facilitate-and manage--teaching, learning and leading?

From my perspective, this question gets at the heart of the changing nature of education. Are we building "online learning capacity" in how we conduct professional development or not? Some of the reasons why we need to do this are listed below:

1. Learning and teaching are steadily moving online. For example, The Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN) makes it possible for high school students to earn credit in a variety of courses. Although various factors (primarily, funding) have limited TxVSN's services, the implications for teaching and learning online in Texas are HUGE.
   Do a quick self-assessment: If you had to, could you facilitate your K-12 class(es) online?
2. TEA and ESCs have gone online. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and regional Education Service Centers (ESCs) are increasingly offering online learning opportunities for students and staff through Project Share.
   Do a quick self-assessment: When was the last time you participated in an online class for professional learning and do you have the technical wherewithal to do so now?
3. Professional, or personal, learning networks (PLNs) provide you with ready-access to a global community of your peers, and you can tap into that PLN at will to find ideas and information relevant to what YOU are interested in, what YOU need to do at work, and more.
   Do a quick self-assessment: Are you on Twitter and following at least 20 educators in your field that share great learning content?

These 3 reasons and self-assessments are important to consider. If you're wondering how you can get started achieving these, why not participate in the mobiMOOC free eLearning opportunity?

Details appear below:

What is a MOOC? Really short: it is a course that can be followed by anyone (Massive), which is open to all (Open), and is located online (Online) and is a Course. 

This format has been used a couple of times by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. Dave Cormier has built a beautiful movie which describes what a MOOC is, feel free to watch it in the History of MOOC page. 

A MOOC comprises a couple of online - in the cloud - spaces that are all connected to the course. Why this diversity of social media tools? Because each of these tools has different educational purposes. If you want to know which tool is added to this course for which reason, go to the designated wiki-page here.

How will you make the shift from face to face (F2F) only learning to F2F and online learning?