By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Try Out / Please Break TRU Writer?
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2014/12/17

So I like this idea: "The idea of the TRU Writer is a simple way for faculty, researchers, students to publish web content in a rich, media form without having them create accounts. Rather than try and explain, take a ride on the random example spinner (Randomness is something I nearly always try to toss into the mix)". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Khan Academy founder has two big ideas for overhauling higher education in the sciences
Gregory Ferenstein, Venture Beat, 2014/12/19
So let's have fun talking about why these would never work: "Sal Khan has a few ideas for how to radically overhaul higher education. First, create a universal degree that’s comparable to a Stanford degree, and second, transform the college transcript into a portfolio of things that students have actually created". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Flickr removes CC-licensed photos from Wall Art program
Ryan Merkley, Creative Commons, 2014/12/19
I can't say that I'm surprised there was an outcry, and I hope people now understand what the CC-by license allows. The Creative Commons blog states, "Our vision is one where content of all kinds is freely available for use under simple terms, where the permissions are clear to everyone. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Internet Is a Zoo: The Ideal Length of Everything Online
Mark Uzunian, SumAll, 2014/12/19
I don't link to infographics. That's one key message I want people to take from this post. So please don't send me infographics to link to. Having said that, this post is a link to an infographic, because this one actually occupied my attention for a couple of minutes, and presented some useful information that appears to be data-backed (you'll have to scroll down past the advertorial content (which is why I don't link to infographics)). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Strict Finitism and Transhumanism
Peter Rothman, Humanity+, 2014/12/19

I have a very unhappy relationship with the concept of infinity. I maintain that I can't comprehend infinity, and infinity insists on inserting itself into my cognition. This impacts what I think about pretty much everything (including, even, what I mean when I say 'everything'). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Developing Personal Learning
Stephen Downes, Dec 20, 2014, 6th IEEE International Conference on Technology for Education, Amrita University, Kerala, India, online via A-View.
In this online presentation I discuss the evolution of personal learning technology and then itemize in more detail the elements of the NRC Learning and Performance Support Systems program, including the personal learning record, personal cloud, resource repository network, competency detection and recognition, and personal learning assistant. More...

By Tony Bates. 2014 though is a significant year for me, because I decided to stop taking paid contracts from April (in principle, at least). As a result, I haven’t been as engaged with the Canadian post-secondary system as previously (19 institutions in 2013), and since starting on my open textbook in May, I haven’t been keeping up and blogging about new developments in online learning as much as in previous years. See more...

By Tony Bates. Different media and technologies operate differently over space and time. These dimensions are important for both facilitating or inhibiting learning, and for limiting or enabling more flexibility for learners. There are actually two closely related dimensions here:

•     ‘live’ or recorded (time)
•     synchronous or asynchronous (space). See more...

By Tony Bates. My next three or so posts will be looking at key characteristics of media and technologies, again as part of Chapter 8 on ‘Understanding Technology in Education’ for my open textbook, ‘Teaching in a Digital Age‘. In this post, I look at how media and technologies can be classified along the broadcast/communicative dimension. See more...