By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Workplace by Facebook opens to sell enterprise social networking to the masses
Ingrid Lunden, TechCrunch, 2016/10/10
Facebook is launching an enterprise version of its software called Workplace in a bid to replace emails in the office. Everybody wants to replace workplace emails, of course, but there is a wide range of products already in the marketplace that already do that. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. From Deficiency to Strength: Shifting the Mindset about Education Inequality
Yong Zhao, 2016/10/10
This is an excellent article that takes a deep look at the concept of merit and 'the achievement gap' in education. In a nutshell, the argument begins with the observation that cuurent programs operate on a 'deficit model' of learning - students are judged to be deficient, and then it is the task of education to address that deficiency. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. To promote growth, Canada needs to fixate on data before credentials
Nobina Robinson, Globe, Mail, 2016/10/28
The proposition is this: "If innovation is going to be the means through which we achieve growth and talent is the driving force behind innovation, let’s start by measuring this key input to growth correctly. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 100 Stories: The Impact of Open Access
Jean-Gabriel Bankier, Promita Chatterji., Bepress, 2016/10/28

From the abstract: "This report is a pre-print that has been submitted for publication with UNESCO. It looks to answer the question: "why does open access matter?" We examined 100 stories of impact to produce a framework for describing the concrete benefits of open access for readers, authors and institutions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Virtual Courses Are Now Second Nature
Toni Davis, Cisco, 2016/10/28

Post about Cisco's announcement about the launch of a new Digital Education Platform from the show floor in Anaheim. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Choosito & Quick Key Partner to Provide Resource Suggestions Based on Assessment Results
Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers, 2016/10/28
Richard Byrne summarizes: "Choosito is a neat search engine for students and teachers to use to find websites based on reading level....  Quick Key is a popular app that lets teachers quickly score formative assessments." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning Objects Debuts Competency-Based Education Platform
Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology, 2016/10/28

The website doesn't have many words, only the bare minimum to get the idea across. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. English man spends 11 hours trying to make cup of tea with Wi-Fi kettle
Bonnie Malkin, The Guardian, 2016/10/12

Voice-activated WiFi kettles are still in the realm of future technology (and, I would think, about as safe as a Galaxy Note 7) but this nightmare scenario still draws out an important lesson for the internet of things (IoT) and technology integration in general. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. YANSS 086 – Change My View
David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart, 2016/10/12

This podcast discusses an experiment whereby the history of discussions was run through natural language analytics. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Isn’t Science Class More Like Learning to Play Baseball?
Alison Gopnik, Mind/Shift, 2016/10/12

I like the argument. And I think it's more right than wrong. More...