Yet another dose of goodness from David Kernohan, reproduced in full:

Every blog post I read, every tweeted link I see, every breathless gushing article about “tsunamis” and “disruption” I flick past is a nail in the coffin of rational and realistic debate about the way connected technology can support learning. Every sturm und drang keynote – every hyped-up sharp-suited Silicon Valley sales pitch takes us further and further away from the idea of people talking to each other, making stuff, and learning as they go.

And now, this October, it is time to take a stand. I am pledging to refrain from discussing, speculating and analysing the trend for the remainder of this month. On my blog, on twitter, in conversation. It is no longer anything to do with those who are interested in education and technology. It is a monster, and I refuse to be a part of the forces that are feeding it.

If you agree – join me. Celebrate #mooctober by writing about everything else in the education, technology, funding and policy world that catches your eye. But ignoring this one, glaringly overdone and over-hyped topic.

#MOOCtober 2012. End the madness.

(ps: #ds106isNotaMOOC – likewise #phonar )

For my part, I’ll add I have no particular argument against the cMOOC people, or Ed Startup 101 or a host of other open online course-like thingies that people are working on. Even the venture capitalized MOOCs prompt more bemusement and curiosity than fear and loathing for me at this point. And I’m afraid with the ongoing discourse and activities at TRU and OpenEd12 a week away there’s no way I’m going to be able to avoid conversing about MOOCs over the next few weeks.

But I am taking the #MOOCtober pledge as a means of countering the emerging notion that this form represents the sum total of innovation in higher education today. Or even the most significant innovation. As I’ve argued before, change is a multi-dimensional affair, and in my view the real action is elsewhere.

Two worthy examples, tweeted with the #MOOCtober tag yesterday by Scott Wilson:

• a three day Finnish hackathon using Github to create an open textbook.
• and I’ve been following Matterhorn for a while. But I don’t know if I’ve ever blogged about this noble, open source lecture capture and video management project.

Hopefully #MOOCtober will unearth a cornucopia of these under-discussed efforts, in which open online education innovation is practiced by a global networked community of practitioners. And hopefully I’ll pitch a few pointers in myself before the end of the month, when I expect this space to regress into lemming-like hypemongering.