I had this post as a long opened tab in my browser, and only today I managed to find some time to read/see it. I wanted to comment on a few things:

I agree with you that we don’t have enough (and easy) tools available as to create an experience alike to that of KF. Then again, the user base of KF is way smaller than that of the wide network. So the question remains if it’s possible (and even if it makes sense) to create such tools. Last year I started an experiment in Colombia with open courses, and I ended up creating some mash-ups using Yahoo Pipes, which actually make a little easier the tracking of blog posts and comments. I talked about that earlier this year: http://bit.ly/bjzj0W I’ve been experimenting with the creation of conversation graphs, and now I’m trying to create them automatically from the content available in the student’s blogs. I do think that can be a very useful tracking tool for both teachers and students.

I’ve offered three open courses so far (“Tiny Open Online Courses”, to be precise) in my country, and I have run exactly into some of the barriers that you mention in your presentation (that 80%). The interesting thing (I’m not sure that’s the best word) is that I’ve seen that low confidence in their learning skills in the teachers participating in the courses. This means that these kind of courses, at least in my own environment, need to have more structure than that found in CCK*, for example. I think we need “transition experiences” in order to ‘reboot’ the perception of students (in my case, students who are teachers themselves) about their own learning.

Clearly, this transition has to do with tools (use the tools they are familiar with, and avoid at the beginning new websites that create new points of attention) and methodology (give progressive control over the learning experience), among other things. At the end, the goal would be that learners have the skills to learn on their own, using the tools they find relevant.

I expect to present some of the lessons I’ve learned so far in OpenEd in November, but I wanted to chime in and let you know about the things we’re doing in Colombia. Like you said, we need to know at least who else is working in this stuff.

Kudos on the presentation. Lots of good questions to think about!