By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Remix culture and education
Steve Wheeler, Learning with 'e's, 2016/06/27

This post defines 'remix culture' and what it means to education. It is a follow-up to an earlier piece on digital literacies in remix culture. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Staying Human in the Machine Age: An Interview With Douglas Rushkoff
Andrew O'Keefe, Singularity Hub, 2016/06/27
This is one of the better lines I've read today (applies equally to the internet and to Brexit): "What those of us unversed in Marxist theory at the time didn’t realize was if you get rid of government you create a very fertile soil for the unbridled growth of corporations." Rushkoff, of course, is talking about what happened to the world of the internet he talked about in Cyberia.. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Six centuries of secularism
William Eamon, Aeon, 2016/06/27

Interesting thesis: "by elaborating mechanical processes and spelling out how things worked – in striking contrast to the well-documented secrecy of the guilds – writers began to transform the mechanical arts from personal know-how into scientific knowledge. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Talking numbers about open publishing and online learning
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, 2016/06/27

I think I've always known this, but Tony Bates, who has a foot placed firmly in each camp, has the data to support it: "open, online publishing will almost certainly reach more readers than a commercial publication or an academic journal. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Import Blackboard Common Cartridge into WordPress
Tom Woodward, Bionic Teaching, 2016/06/27
It's hacks like this that make the world great. What we have here is basically a PHP script that read a Blackboard-produced common cartridge (the URL is hard-coded and inaccessible to me; you will need to substitute your own), creates an array of resources from the manifest, gets the resources as necessary, and then saves them as WordPress posts. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Robots won’t replace teachers because they can’t inspire us
Eric Johnson, Recode, 2016/06/27
I know a lot of people will want this to be true but it's not. I've been inspired by various people over time: John Lennon. Doug Gilmour. Neil Young. Arsinio Hall. Jose Bautista. These are my role models. These are (among others) the people who inspire me. Not one of them is a teacher. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Coursera pilots a new course format
Coursera Blog, 2016/06/24

Coursera is launching a new format today. You will recognize it as "what we had before MOOCs". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Making Sense of MOOCs: New UNESCO-COL guide now available
Mariana Patru, Venkataraman Balaji, Commonwealth of Learning, 2016/06/24
From the intro: "The Guide is designed to raise general awareness amongst policy makers in developing countries as to how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) might address their concerns and priorities, particularly in terms of access to affordable quality higher education and preparation of secondary school leavers for academic as well as vocational education and training. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 21st Century Credentials: Telling the Story of the Whole Student
Cali Morrison, WCET, 2016/06/24

One of the criticisms of traditional testing and credentials is that they represent only a narrow part of a person's learning. This post summarizes a discussion by Ryan Craig, managing partner of University Ventures, who made the following points (quoted):

• We’re beyond the ‘take our word for it’ era – there is a loss of faith in the greater community about what higher education does.
• Technology has changed the game – learning is ubiquitous and is pushing higher education toward unbundling the degree. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Next Play for LinkedIn - an ePortfolio in every classroom
Kathryn Chang Barker, LinkedIn, 2016/06/24
I think you can view this article on LinkedIn without signing into LinkedIn - if not, please let me know. Kathryn Chang Barker writes, "LinkedIn can and should be in every secondary and university classroom in the world, but it needs to add one more tool – an ePortfolio." I have no doubts about the benefit of an ePortfolio - or, morewidely construed, a Personal Learning Record - but does it have to be on LinkedIn. More...