During March phase of #mtw3 I will link to other events and content that might fit in. Digifest 15 has just finished. So far through Twitter I have found a blog post about the keynote from Simon Nelson of Futurelearn. The whole blog from Nicola Osborne is here.

Previously I had got the impression that the MOOC was not that well accepted by UK universities. Maybe Digifest is a special audience. But Futurelearn seems to be doing ok. Simon Nelson announced new partners from Europe, Columbia and Korea and is quoted in a press release -

"Social learning is proving to be one of the most effective means of delivering online courses at scale, and I am proud to welcome this roll call of prestigious universities from around the world."

Online a global connection is effective so it may not matter if UK support is a bit patchy. The claims about social learning are supported-

"Close to 40% of learners are behaving socially, engaging in conversations around the course content and making comments which themselves become a rich source of learning material for others."

So I feel ok about linking to YouTube when the link appears to be limited and also suggesting books to people not on the course. I sometimes get support from people I work with on Phonic FM. All sorts of theory might relate, brands for example, an excellent Futurelearn course. So I can't help noticing what Simon Nelson said about radio. Apparently when he joined the BBC in 1997 "there was much discussion of whether the web would mean the end of radio." This may have seemed unlikely several time since but look around now. Many people listen to streaming rather than FM. On Phonic we are gradually putting more energy into various sites where shows can be uploaded. Also short clips for YouTube etc. Maybe there is a twenty year gap between a transition appearing as a possibility and turning up on a significant scale.

In his book about Styles of Organising , Gibson Burrell writes about Radio One and the mistaken decision to get rid of Dave Lee Travis and others. The recent case study is that Zane Lowe decided to leave. So what would be interesting is policy at the BBC and Apple over time. By the way I think the book is still hardback only, not sure if there will be many changes before a paperback.

Back on Digifest I can only find a timelapse video so far on YouTube when searching for Digifest 15 . I hope more turns up soon.