Personal Blogs

How does  ds106 compare to Coursera and like in terms of technology, pedagogy and philosophy? interesting question; they are so different to the extent of deterring any comparison but here is a try:

1. Technology: the technologies used and required are not necessarily radically different in context, but rather in extent. ds106 requires a very higher level of ICT literacy from its participants. they have to establish themselves a virtual (optional) identity and space and communicate with each other using various technologies (mainly blogs). the participant needs to be very familiar of the virtual domain as well as online communications. Coursera and like on the other hand rely on more humble technological requirements, which may vary depending on the course you are taking but the essentials are just a computer and a reasonable internet connection. 
2. Pedagogy: very different approaches here. based on the discussions on MOOCs we have read this week, Coursera may be a standard example of an xMOOC based on the behavioral/cognitive theories whereas the ds106 is an excellent example of a cMOOC based on connectivism. the former offers structured courses with pre-determined content delivered by a tutor whereas the latter has no official syllabus and relies on the content created and provided by the learners themselves, without even a facilitator. this does not necessarily mean that one is better than the other though, just that one or the other may be more applicable to certain contexts and situations. as an example, it may be almost impossible to run a ds106 like course for surgical training, a field in which creativity is actively discouraged.
3. General approach and philosophy: this is closely related to differences in pedagogy. in summary, ds106 assumes the learners are willing to take the ownership of their learning, create PLEs and eventually, self-learn. other(s) however do not have such assumptions other that taking a person's own enrollment in a given course as a token of a desire to learn. the rest is pretty much mediated by the platform and tutor(s).

As i have iterated above, these differences do not necessarily signify a hierarchy in any sense, they are just different approaches to learning/teaching with different areas of applicability.