By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fall of the Banner Ad: The Monster That Swallowed the Web
Harhad Manjoo, New York Times, 2014/11/09
The internet was originally a military and academic network designed for the free sharing of information and communications. As it began to be opened in the 1990s to allow commercial participation there was significant opposition to the introduction of advertising to the environment. These fears turned out to be well-founded, in my opinion, as much of what is bad about the web today can be traced back to the need to pursue clicks over content. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Beyond Borders: Global Learning in a Networked World
Stephen Downes, Nov 10, 2014, Unbordering Education, Yerevan, Armenia

In this talk I address the phenomenon of open online learning, and in particular the massive open online course (MOOC), and discusses how it opens new frontiers in learning. Through their use of open educational resources and a student-centered pedagogy, MOOCs make learning accessible to people no matter where they live. This is resulting in the transformation of the global education system such that advanced and formal learning is becoming increasingly accessible and affordable. In this talk I talks about the transformation of educational systems talking place, the policy implications of open online learning, and the practical implementation of open online courses. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Managing Open Access publication
Owen Stephens, Jisc Monitor, 2014/11/11

If you're reading this article and wondering what APCs are, you're not alone. There are dozens of things it could be, and the author doesn't even bother with a link, let along an expansion of the acronym. From the context, after a bit of sleuthing, I figured out that it probably means 'article processing charge'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Data on Diversity
Beryl Nelson, Communications of the ACM, 2014/11/11

Diversity is an asset in pretty much any working or learning situation, but diversity can be a challenge, especially with participants who are not accustomed to diversity. This can result in bias and stereotyping among members, causing them to misrepresent or filter what other group members are saying or doing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Federated Education: New Directions in Digital Collaboration
Mike Caulfield, Hapgood, 2014/11/11

I think that this is quite a good proposal that has many merits. It begins by pointing to what is probably the central problem with Wikipedia: obtaining consensus within a very large community. "You go online to share it and you’re teleported past the personal and dialogic and suddenly find yourself having to defend the inclusion of this fact or this edit. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Internet Archive launches its arcade: Classic games in a browser
Christian Nutt, Gamasutra, 2014/11/13
From the 'mindless diversions' department of OLDaily: the Internet Archive has made available in-browser versions of classic arcade games, including Frogger, Joust and Galaga, to name just a few. Many of my old favorites are here (I was an arcade rat at the time the first video games came out; I actually paid money to play pong, and though I always preferred pinball (because you could get free games), I played many of the games listed here when they were new). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Keep on Co-Claiming
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2014/11/14

I don't know whether "co-claim the web' will earn as much traction as "reclaim the web" but I enjoy Alan Levine's efforts to find something like a middle ground here. The middle ground is more or less what I do as well - I still use services like Flickr and Twitter and Facebook but I would not be lost or despondent should they suddenly shut down. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Online Journals Increase Student Communication Skills
Patricia Fioriello, Kids Learn to Blog, 2014/11/14
Oh hey, remember when blogging was the next great thing to help kids learn to communicate on the web? They still are! The trick is to get started. "We encourage starting things simply. Have your child start by describing his day. What did he eat for breakfast? What did he and his friends talk about at recess? Did anything good happen today? Bad? This will get the child in the writing mood and get the basics down quickly." Nothing fancy. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mozilla Open Badges
Various authors, Mozilla, 2014/11/14

If you want to get started with badges and don't know where to start, this is the place to start. It's the Mozilla Open Badges wiki page, and it has the basic information, likes to starter kits, and links to a bunch of other resources. "A digital badge is an online representation of a skill you’ve earned. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Data is Just A Clue to the End Truth
David Crotty, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2014/11/14

"Show them pieces of the picture, so they can stand back for a little bit and let it pass, and come away with a deeper understanding." And "look after truth and goodness, and the beauty will look after itself." These are the essences of data visualization. More...