By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A digital public space is Britain’s missing national institution
Jemima Kiss, The Guardian, 2015/03/11
I'm not sure I agree with the 'public garden' metaphor as a model for provision of open educational resources in the community. I understand the desire to move the discussion our of the crass competitive marketplace. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Fast Food Commercials Aimed At Kids 'Deceptive'
News Staff, Science 2.0, 2015/03/11

I have long argued that if we are to filter web content for kids at all, we should be censoring things that are really harmful, like fast food products. I'm not alone, maybe. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Manu Sporny
Manu Sporny, YouTube, 2015/03/11

This is a YouTube channel with a set of resources about linked data (LD) in JSON. If that sentence makes no sense to you at all, you can safely skip this resource. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On rote memorization and antiquated skills
Daniel Lemire, 2015/03/11

"To my surprise," writes Daniel Lemire, "there is an abundant supply of teachers and parents openly supporting rote memorization and antiquated skills." He then deals with some of the objections people raise. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Big Picture
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/03/11
I love the diagram, and the concept is well-executed, but the word 'apps' stands out like a sore vendor-specific thumb. It shows up in the responses: "People have begun to grasp Journey 1, the journey from courses to resources, but still struggle with the journey from resources to apps." So why don't we fix the terminology:

• Courses - prepare you for the future ('remember these directions')
• Resources - support you in the moment ('use this map')
• Sources - guide your behaviour ('use the SatNav')

It's a slightly different take on the meaning of 'source'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Debunking the Myth about a Creative Destruction of Higher Education with Technology as the Driver
Unattributed, Contact North, 2015/03/11

The central premise of this post is that "while it is the case that technology is sneaking into the nooks and crannies of the post-secondary system, it is not producing transformative change." Looking at the evidence itself - from the structure of universities to the nature of assessment - the author argues that little has changed in universities. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Mythology of Leadership
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/03/10

With nick shackleton-jones I tend to agree that "leadership models tend to overstate and rationalise the role of leaders, politely glossing over the fact that in most organisations many leaders were probably not ideal candidates for the role." It's a common instance of the tendency to overascribe outcomes to a single or pivotal cause. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Skills for the Networked World
Sahana Chattopadhyay, ID, Other Reflections, 2015/03/10
This is an interesting post because it summarizes a number of other posts on new skills and comes up with a list as a bit of a synthesis of them. I think that overall it's a good list, though there's some duplication and cross-categorization. And it mixes skills and values. Things like autonomy (aka 'courage zone') and diversity are values (and he should add openness and interactivity). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, 2015/03/10

Doug Belshaw flags this interesting account on time created by Brain Pickings's Maria Popova. The core thread of the discussion describes how our perception of time changes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Digital Learning Companies Falling Short of Student Privacy Pledge
Natasha Singer, New York Times | BITS Blog, 2015/03/09

I would like to say I hoped for some other result, but really, could we have expected anything different. There's far too much money to be made selling student data for any of them to worry about following some pledge nobody noticed anyway. More...