Thursday, July 30, 2020

Saxifraga mertensiana: An offer to build out a WUaS course on the MOOCit France platform from best STEM CC-4 OpenCourseWare ... for matriculating WUaS students this autumn ... * * * 4 horses and a foal in Indian valley to the east of Canyon 94516, How could I invite these horses to go on a walk with me - and around the far side of the Monroes, overlooking the town of Moraga? * Would I be the lead horse in a sense, and the 5 of them would follow along quite readily if I did certain things (learned specific behaviors?)


An offer to build out a WUaS course on the MOOCit France platform from best STEM CC-4 OpenCourseWare ... for matriculating WUaS students this autumn 



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Bonjour Yvain, 

Thank you for your email. And it was very nice to talk to you in Paris last Wednesday, July 22, 2020. 

If we could get help or assistance financially from edX, MIT or Grants.gov or similar, I think World Univ & Sch developing with MOOCit France in Open edX makes sense. MIT faculty and students could teach newly on this platform via WUaS Open edX as well, in the future, but at this point World Univ & Sch has no money to speak of whatsoever. 

Nevertheless, I think WUaS would seek to create a course with MOOCit's Starter plan. I have one course I've taught with much video - 

Society and Information Technology videos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJIy6LpZLeI&list=PLof6LHEpLfwrYnYlQfwU119jDpOwfnZuN - 

as one possibility (http://worlduniversityandschool.org/InfoTechNetworkSocGlobalUniv.html), and I'll look further into CC-4 MIT OCW for a great introductory course which might work for all of WUaS's prospective students (>10) beginning September 1, who might be studying differentially toward all 6 planned majors - worlduniversityandschool.org - for free-to-students CC-4 OCW-centric Bachelor degrees (as WUaS proceeds with CA licensing, and accreditation). 

More thoughts here - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/07/saxifraga-mertensiana-offer-to-build.html. If WUaS were to begin soon with MOOCit France, would I be able to email a new URL with the upcoming WUaS Monthly Business Meeting minutes for July 18, 2020, do you think? Thank you.

Best, 

- Scott MacLeod - CEO, Founder & President  
- World University and School



- CC World University and School - like CC Wikipedia with best STEM-centric CC OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization. 



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Yvain @ MOOCit yvain.demolliere@moocit.fr

6:51 AM (3 hours ago)
to me
Hi Scott, 

Thank you for your email and providing links to MiT OpenCourseware.

One pragmatic way of moving forward will be for you to do a trial of our Open edX hosting solution: https://moocit.fr/tarifs (Under Starter plan).
We can create a demo course for you that you can use as a basis to integrate content from one OCW course. 
I've looked at sample courses you provided, I think they are quite "light" in terms of available content, a lot of readings, references, etc.. but no videos or pdf to download.
It might require more extra work on your side if you want to provide more course material into your courses. 

Let me know what you think,

Best, 
--
Yvain DEMOLLIERE
CEO | MOOCit

Tel : +33 (0) 6 80 99 90 29
Skype : yvain.demolliere





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Dear Larry,

Here below is Yvain's response from MOOCit France re Open edX - with a Starter plan at 9 Euros / month and going up ..

Ideal to start and test the solution
9 € / month
1 Course, 1 Instructor, 10 Participants

This isn't very viable if WUaS seeks to develop online major universities in all ~200 countries, and since WUaS has no money to speak of whatsoever. But it does give us some value numbers, or Euro currency figures, with which to begin to think about an alternative. Interesting to get an educational, I.T., French CEO's commercial, business-like first take on all of this (and Pearson would probably do something similar) - but it seems like WUaS and potentially with edX and MIT could take this in other entrepreneurial directions ... and re CC-4 MIT OCW licensing as well.

I think it would make most sense if WUaS could do this in collaboration with edX instead, since WUaS is so MIT OCW-centric in its 4 current languages. Reach out to CEO Anant Agarwal, or MIT President Reif, again? Great to learn too that MOOCit France sees commercial value in WUaS in a sense, enough to offer these plans or tariffs - a kind of legitimization or credibility.

Interesting to learn that content here again on the web is key, and that the courses I shared with MOOCit France seem 'light' in terms of not enough video, but possibly 'heavy' in terms of the amount of reading, for example. If WUaS can begin to grow on an edX-related platform, and regarding the WUaS BOOKSTORE too, am wondering about, for example, WUaS Home Lego robotics' Engineering courses, as a 'makey-makey' approach to learning, beyond 'light' and 'heavy' courses.

Re Yvain's comments, I wonder also if WUaS could develop a new form of book too called something like the VIDEO BOOK, on top of publishing from a Realistic Virtual Earth (text in the sidebar in Google Street View). In this way students and readers could listen to these VIDEO BOOKs from their laptops, and watch the equations, graphs, images diagrams when important (built into the text). Pricing at WUaS for VIDEO BOOKS (re the content Yvain mentioned), published by the WUaS Press even, would be part of the reimbursement from nation states, and their counties, to WUaS. (This idea would build on the now old and established audio book idea - and could be adapted from paper books too - but would leverage our WUaS students studying from their computers, while co-listening, and occasionally watching, these VIDEO BOOKS). In the information age, sticky eyeballs, as well as parallel ear drums, in a NEW way, opens new possibilities. It's how to make this commercially viable at WUaS re Yvain's comments - and per our bookstore, since WUIaS students may not be realistically into buying and reading books (re MIT OCW-Amazon's contract too) via the internet, but they might, attention-wise, be open to listening and watching VIDEO BOOKs (if excellent enough or interesting enough for their majors). edX CEO Anant Agarwal, in this case could have tremendous insights, re both edX students thus far, as well as Indian students, and online students from other countries, as wiki WUaS continues to seek to build out from MIT OCW toward free-to-students' university degrees.

Having heard back from Yvain, I'll seek to get the WUAS Minutes out now.

I'm not convinced that MOOCit France is the sensible way to engage Open edX, or any of these other service partners - https://open.edx.org/marketplace-category/service-partners/ - and edX also doesn't seem like a viable opportunity. Building out our own WUaS MOOCit approach from the ground up could make sense with Grants.gov money, but I don't see an opportunity here either. Quakers (having just attended a FAHE - Friends Association for Higher Education - meeting in Zoom) - and Haverford and Swarthmore's IT departments as a possible MOOCit-like service provider? Contact MIT Profs Wyn Kelley and Joaquin Terrones further - re Brazil WUaS? Contact Google and Sundar Pichai and John Hennessy and Peter Norvig to see if they could become a service partner? This last approach could be most sensible. 

Smartphone is still 'down' or 'dead' but I should receive the new one today. Thoughts, ideas, questions, suggestions, comments?

Sincerely, Scott




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Dear Larry,

However, since there's a 15 day free trial window, if we were to proceed experimentally with MOOCit France to actually get something started on WUaS Open edX, a single course for our 5 possible students this autumn - since MOOCit France is making a real offer with a real viable (probably accreditable) platform - we could actually get started with our 2nd undergraduate matriculating class. My "Network Society, Information Technology, and the Global University" - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/InfoTechNetworkSocGlobalUniv.html - course also comes to mind as a possibility to experiment with, with about 7-8 weeks of video, and more -
Society and Information Technology videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJIy6LpZLeI&list=PLof6LHEpLfwrYnYlQfwU119jDpOwfnZuN

eg
The Information Technology Revolution - History and Geography - Scott MacLeod

https://youtu.be/FJIy6LpZLeI

This course is also listed in WUaS Course Catalog ... worlduniversityandschool.org ... and it's a fascinating and generative course. I could model it via MOOCit France in part in conversation with Charlie Nesson's JuryX edX HarvardX course.

It looks like however we wouldn't get our own WUaS Open edX domain at this point - and per the WUaS Minutes. On the other hand, we might get a new URL to send out with upcoming WUaS Minutes if I got started right now.

And perhaps something would emerge either financially or further Open edX-wise by the end of the 15 days, or similar.

What do you think?

Sincerely, Scott


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Dear Larry,

Simply factor in the costs of MOOCit France as service partner in Open edX - into WUaS reimbursement from countries for CC-4 MIT OCW-centric courses? (And somehow raise initial monies from Grants.gov - possibly via Sid Mazumdar somehow, with a creditable platform like Open edX?). Begin with my course in the next 15 days' free trial period, and then build out to 6 more for our WUaS majors before September 1, using much video from MIT OCW and Yale OYC? For our own WUaS domain it's 99 Euros per month, but limited to 50 students - like with the 49 Euro/month level with a MOOCit domain (https://moocit.fr/tarifs). WUaS would have to plan for one or the other if we were to offer 6 courses in our major by September 1, and after 15 days. That this is within Open edX's process and planning is perhaps most significant, however - https://open.edx.org/marketplace-category/service-partners/.

However, I don't see a lot of enjoyment in this platform re student retention necessarily, or innovative potential in the MOOCit approach either per se.  But Open edX is open to innovation, I think, if we were to have our own team, for example - from our own GitHub data platform perhaps.

Wait yet longer - and postpone our 2nd matriculating class at WUaS until an excellent opportunity emerges perhaps from edX itself (which doesn't seem that likely)?

Sincerely, Scott



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Larry,

It's interesting to see what building blocks MOOCit France sees as useful with their experience as an Instructional Design prize winner with Open edX - videos and pdfs, not books and references. Are videos and pdfs some new basic units - building blocks - of online education? Perhaps ...

I count 52 service partners on the Open edX page - https://open.edx.org/marketplace-category/service-partners/ - AMAZING as competition too. Get 3 bids or offers? And find what's possible in other ways by comparing and contrasting? Pearson in Britain, Unify in India - https://open.edx.org/marketplace/unify/ - and one other? Am seeking excellence in a platform, and experience with something like MIT OCW / MIT / Harvard / Academia ... possibly even re these service partners' branding, and am not finding it yet either. And yet, these service partners are all over the place - and have a relationship with edX and Open edX - so could we go with them all with time, for country-specificity eventually - and thanks to their connections with edX? Begin with MOOCit France, build an initial WUaS student body, and then figure out the next steps - including building our own WUaS team?

I think graduate student instructors at WUaS will be able to build courses with MIT OCW video and PDFs, as well as make their own videos and PDFs, in learning to become faculty members (and we could even hire for this via handshake - https://app.joinhandshake.com/employers/447700 and https://app.joinhandshake.com/users/19861050).

Sincerely, Scott



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I think it could be fun, enjoyable, to build out my course in Open edX via MOOCit France because the material is fascinating, and I could make PDFs too. And then to build out an Actual-Virtual Harbin Ethnographic course could be fun as well here.

As Yvain notes, they are offering us a pragmatic approach to getting started.

And I'd think because MOOCit France was the instructional design prize winner at Open edX, that there's more thinking about how Artificial Intelligence might be used ahead on the Open edX platform with MOOCit France than with the other 51 service partners. Planning for AI - and in all ~200 countries' official languages, has much merit!

Sincerely, Scott




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Larry, 

With MOOCit France, WUaS would also get an experienced team of developers to come into conversation with - up to a point - as well. And perhaps they could come to lead all 52 Open edX service partners. 

If we could get help or assistance financially from edX, MIT or Grants.gov, I think this makes sense. MIT faculty and students could teach newly on this platform via WUaS Open edX as well. I'd reply with something like this to Yvain first.

Scott



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Yvain,

I noticed in one of the MOOCit France sign-in processes a non-profit organization's 20% discount. As you can see at the bottom here in Guidestar and below it in the state of CA - worlduniversityandschool.org - World Univ & Sch is both a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization at the US federal level (and a non-profit in CA too). Is this discount available? Thank you!

Best, Scott
-  https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/07/saxifraga-mertensiana-offer-to-build.html -

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To Larry

Dear Larry,

I've looked through the MOOCit France Open edX platform - and like it. It's very extensible and flexible in multiple ways. It's also practical. I'm not able to add my course yet, it seems, but might in the future. Am looking for a MIT OCW course to try as well, on a WUaS platform that would become for-credit this autumn. I think MOOCit France said we could create 1 course in this 14 day trial period. The platform has much in common with the edX HarvardX JuryX course taught by Charles Nesson in 2016 too. I've given my credit card number - and would seek to stop this before 14 days if we think this isn't helpful somehow for WUaS.

Would you like to try it? I could share my login info with you over the phone - which I should get shortly - if helpful.

Thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions?

If we are going to proceed, it could be great to start building courses before 14 days from now, - for September 1.

Sincerely, Scott


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Hi Scott,

sure thing, WUAS is eligible for the 20% discount for non-profit.
We just applied the coupon to your account.

PS: I don't think you need to CC Ned and Anant to our emails 😂

Best,
Yvain




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Voilà!, Nicolas, et merci beaucoup,

Voilà! Ça marche maintenant. Merci à Nicolas
Scott





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Friday, July 31, 2020 


Info WorldUniversity
7:45 AM (53 minutes ago)
to contact, Nicolas, Yvain, Scott, Larry, Ned, Anant




Thanks so much, Yvain, Anant, Ned, Larry, Nicolas,

I like what I see in checking out the https://studio.app.moocit.fr/course/course-v1:WUAS+001+1 studio. It seems very extensible and flexible in multiple ways. It's also practical. Thank you for this remarkable platform for education.

Am simply keeping you, Anant and Ned, posted in these initial momentous steps for World Univ & Sch into Open edX ... and potentially regarding creating major online universities in all ~200 countries' official and main languages (and in outer space too!), and even wiki schools with courses people could create in all 7,117 known living languages - and in anticipating machine learning, translation and other AI in the Open edX platform.

Will free up your in-boxes for the time being, Anant and Ned - and thank you all so much for these amazing information technologies, and this structure and process that allow potentially for the creation of free universal highest quality online education (wiki, too, - for people-to-people open teaching and learning). It's a bit like the first Mars-walk in 2038 - n'est-ce pas? :)

More soon, Yvain! Thank you.

Cheers, Scott
https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/07/saxifraga-mertensiana-offer-to-build.html

https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nation_States
https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Languages









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4 horses and a foal in Indian valley


Ann and Jane, 

How are you both doing?

I just had a wonderful hour-long walk, and interestingly heard at the top of Indian valley, toward the end of the walk, some festive hispanic music wafting up what could be 1-2 miles away in the sound chamber of the valley. Impressive. Also saw my 2nd lone coyote - and am beginning to think they aren't as furtive as I thought; also heard 2 minutes later some coyote screeches in the brush. 

Love, Scott


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Ann, Ma, 

I'm guessing the festive music was coming from the little ranchero on the road into Moraga (possibly 1.5 miles away ... a 30 minute walk? potentially) ... and I also saw the 4 horses and 1 foal, which seem fairly 'high strung' in an unique to their western breed way which I haven't seen before. I'm guessing the people in the ranchero mind these horses, and the cattle too when they're around. It also occurs to me that with so many Hispanic or Latino people in California, that they kind of own a half of this state, and live on it in their own way, and where Spanish is the 2nd language of California. It's a wonderful culture which Ted knew fairly well, I'd think.

Warmly, Scott


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Hi Ann, Ma, 

Just back from a nice walk. A few nights ago I saw just 2 horses and the foal up on a hillside, from near the bottom of the valley where I sometimes start walking up it. I thought they looked like a little nuclear family, in human anthropocentric terms, and am not sure where the other two horses were. Could the ranchers have even kept them in? And this evening, also in the same area in the bottom, there were all lining the road, and one mare and the foal came right up to me and let me touch them briefly, especially the foal. Am learning gradually and empathically or intuitively about horse 'psychology' - and am amazed regarding this "Buddies" Tweet with eagle, HANDLER and other species - https://twitter.com/TheFigensezgin/status/1286927695901851648?s=20 - and their connections. I think food is a starting point :) 
How are you both? And how's the weather in your part of the world? Thinking about you! :)

Warmly, Scott




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Ann, Ma, But why without food did the foal and horse come up to me? Was the horse the foal's mother? They seemed to initiate the connection ...  Did they want to 'HERD-MEET' me? C'est possible. Warm regards, Scotty

Foal and mare ears were back a little, but they were present. 



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Ann and Jane (Ma), How could I invite these horses to go on a walk with me - and around the far side of the Monroes, overlooking Moraga, - some of the way, but not all of the way. (I wouldn't want them to become kind of annoyances or pests). Carrots? - when I see them next - and other horse-training techniques, understanding what they can learn and do beforehand (from Youtube)? Would I be the lead horse in a sense, and the 5 of them would follow along quite readily if I did certain things (learned specific behaviors?) One time some months ago, they seemed quite hot-to-trot, coming up right behind me and even in a pushy way almost - but there may also be other horse trainers in the background in all of this. Scotty :) (Any good Youtube videos for my learning you could point me to, Annie?:)


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Ma, Ann, 

Much insight into horse-thinking here, as well as possibly how following would work (but in a ring)
How to teach a horse to follow you. The In Hand Guy
 

Teach Your Horse to Follow You with Jonathan Field


Horse Behavior: Teach Your Pony to Follow You At Liberty



Scott



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Good morning, Ma, and Ann, 

It's a slightly foggy morning here. Regarding the 4 horses and foal in Indian valley that followed my up the main unfinished road a month or 2 ago, in almost a pushy way, at 5:50 in this first video - https://youtu.be/4O9QD0ppDtc - the trainer shows what he does with this occasionally 'pushy' horse into the trainer's space (but not so pushy from a herd animal's perspective). There's an amazing amount to learn in this first video too about horse psychology - and the round pen helps. I see horse's herding behavior as key to understanding their thinking.

This video gives me ways, also, of approaching the 5 horses in Indian valley in so many new ways - regarding how much they're open to be touched, and how they interact with a human, (and possibly with regard to each other as horses). The metaphorical handshake with horses per this video seems a bit distanced - a stroke on the neck, and a rub on the forehead etc briefly. Since the foal and mare came up to me the other day - as if to connect - maybe they'll do so again one of these days. Without food (since I can't plan for when I'll see them next to bring food), can I become one of their herd in a sense, I wonder (as a human?). There's something about building a certain kind of trust or rapport with horses in this first video too, with similarities and differences with the other videos.  

Do you have a horse or two on the ranch these days, Annie? And how are you both doing in these new social constellations we're living in during this coronavirus pandemic time - psychologically, culturally, meme-wise, thinking-wise - but possibly where the virus itself is 'mild' and providing an in case of emergency opportunity to plan for the next epidemic, all blown out of proportion by the internet media? Am hoping this email finds you both well, hail and hearty!

Fondly, 

Scott








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