The BlueJ/Greenfoot Team Are Hiring at University of Kent at Canterbury

This does sound like a wicked-cool job.  And U. Kent-Canterbury would be a wicked-cool place to work.

We are a small team: essentially, there’s Michael Kölling and Ian Utting, who also teach at the university, and then there’s Davin (now doing his PhD) and me — where Davin and I are the sole developers at the moment. (Honourable mentions for our PhD students Michael Berry and Fraser McKay.) Right now, we’re too small, and we need more people! The group’s main activities currently include:

1. development and maintenance of BlueJ (a large Java application)
2. development and maintenance of Greenfoot (another large Java application)
3. user support
4. development and maintenance of various Ruby on Rails websites (greenfoot.org, greenroom.greenfoot.org and a few more)
5. developing a large-scale data collection mechanism for BlueJ
6. designing the Next Big Thing in computing education (ha! — we hope)
7. doing outreach with teachers, especially around the UK
8. developing educational material
9. writing academic papers

via The BlueJ/Greenfoot Team Are Hiring | Academic Computing.

A MOOC is not a Thing: Seeking a Translation

“MOOCified”?  I’ve read this twice now, and still can’t figure it out.  What are they saying?!?

There is also nothing about a MOOC that can be contained. Try as they might, MOOC-makers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity cannot keep their MOOCs to themselves, because when we join a MOOC, it is not to learn new content, new skills, new knowledge, it is to learn new learning. Entering a MOOC is entering Wonderland — where modes of learning are turned sideways and on their heads — and we walk away MOOCified.

“There is a relational aspect to learning.” There’s an invisible network (or potential network) underneath every learning community. The best MOOCs make the networks patent. The worst MOOCs are neutered, lost objects that float unabsolved in the ether as capital “L” Learning, abstract and decontextualized.

MOOCification: to harness (in an instant) the power of a nodal network for learning. Rather than creating a course to structure a network, MOOCification relies on nodes to power a learning activity (or assignment). MOOCification also refers to a pedagogical approach inspired by MOOCs that is unleashed in an otherwise closed or small-format course.

via A MOOC is not a Thing: Emergence, Disruption, and Higher Education | Open Education | HYBRID PEDAGOGY.