Like any good techie, I've been playing with Mastodon these past couple of weeks, now that Melon Husk has purchased Twitter.  Having a space on another microblogging platform isn't a bad idea, in case you want to pull the ripcord on the parachute if and when Twitter goes down in flames.  I tried Mastodon back in 2016 (or was it 2017?) when it was new, and I ended up deleting my account. 

Mind Meld: Micro Collaboration Between E Learning Designers And Instructor Experts by Jon D. Aleckson My rating: 2 of 5 stars A bit conflicted about this book. On the one hand there are some elements of sage advice in here, but the book has a few failings for my liking: 1. There is barely any cited evidence here (the references list is just 2 pages), and most 'evidence' seems to

Well, with 2019 here, and 2018 gone I've bid adieu to Academia.edu. There isn't one thing that really made me quit, but a variety of factors that really combined to make the network feel "sleazy".  When Academia.edu kicked off it felt like a good idea: a social network for academics to see what each other is working on, to share pre-publication versions of their work, heck even ask for feedback

Learning Together Online: Research on Asynchronous Learning Networks by Starr Roxanne Hiltz My rating: 3 of 5 stars Not very many people talk about ALNs (asynchronous learning networks) these days. Even the journal for ALNs has been renamed to "Online Learning". Still, this was an interesting historical dive which provided some interesting background on early online learning

I was holding off on posting this just in case I finished another book before the new year, but it seems like I will need to spend this week actually doing some writing for the dissertation proposal (can't let all this fine reading go to waste!). On the one hand I am surprised at how much I read, and on the other hand I am not.  This doesn't even include all the articles I read.  I keep

Today we're looking at my year in review at Publons (a site which helps you track the academic peer reviews you've done).  This site is a little more interactive (you have to mouseOver in order to see some stats..   Here are some of the MouseOver stats: Total citations of reviewed manuscripts --> 3 (average for field 7.4) Total citations of authored manuscripts -->2 (average

Very odd to be getting an alumni relations birthday wish, appreciated nevertheless oh great algorithm!

Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses by Steven D. Krause My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was an interesting collection of essays by people (who I think) met through an xMOOC (EDCMOOC) and decided to put their experiences together. It was interesting to take a slice of MOOC history and read some initial reactions to this phenomenon. Although, calling

Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked Learning by Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld My rating: 4 of 5 stars I liked this particular book on Networked Learning. It provided a nice balance between theory and actual practice. I think I am addicted to this Networked Learning thing.  I have a three more books on my to-read list on GoodReads, and I bookmarked the proceedings

The Design, Experience and Practice of Networked Learning by Vivien Hodgson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Continuing my reading into the presentation I want to do this April, and working on my readings for my dissertation proposal, here is this book.  This was quite interesting to read, and it definitely went by faster compared to another Networked Learning book I read recently. The