Intellectual Stimulation
Interesting point of view - it makes sense to encourage participation in non-work-related communities of practice because skills and aptitudes from these hobbies transfer themselves to the work environment - an "intellectual osmosis across organizational structures and hierarchies." What's interesting is that this article thereby also provides a good argument for a broader education as opposed to a narrow education focused on job training. More...

NewsFuture
The Media Center at the American Press Institute has published the first edition of NewsFuture, a monthly e-mail newsletter focused on the future of Internet and multi-platform convergence publishing. Looks like it will be a good read. More...

Too Much Quality is Bad
It's just a tiny short article but it's caused a storm of controversy on the WWWDEV list. The premise of the article is that too great a focus on quality can actually be bad. More...

Why College Radio Fears the DMCA
College radio stations may be on the air, but because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they may not be on the web. More...

KIDS Brings News to School
Is this online learning? As far as I'm concerned, it it. Sure, it's not a bunch of prepackaged classes over the internet - it's a group of elementary school students producing their own news broadcast. But the students are as tuned into technology as it's possible to get. More...

General Approaches Respecting the Ongoing Development of The Learning Manager (TLM)
This item is a 17 page PDF download that captures in a nutshell the justification for moving from traditional learning management system (LMS) solutions for e-learning to learning content management systems (LCMS). More...

The Downes Prize 2017
Stephen Downes, 2017/12/29

Every year at this time I award the Downes Prize to the most-read post of those I've posted some time in the previous 365 days. This year that means any one of 1246 total posts from hundreds of authors around the world. The award is intended to be an objective measure, not based on popularity contests, campaigns, or any other such thing, but reflective of actual interest in the item on the part of OLDaily readers..

Without further ado,

This year's Downes Prize is awarded to:

MOOCs and Open Educational Resources: A Handbook for Educators

Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television, Feb 09, 2017.

Two major stories dominated the interests of OLDaily readers in 2017: the impact of fake news, and the continuing ascendancy of the MOOC. While last year's winner looked at the former, this year's winner looks at the latter. Peter Kaufman covers two major areas on MOOC production: first of all, how to create MOOC videos, and secondly, open licensing for MOOC contents. This practical guide spoke to people interested in how to make open online education work for the betterment of humanity, which makes 2017's choice a fitting winner. More...

The New Media Consortium: updates and next steps
Bryan Alexander, 2017/12/28
It's a few days old, but readers may be interested in the process of the dissolution of the New Media Consortium. I still find it somewhat odd that it could go from business-as-usual to bankruptcy proceedings in just a few days. More...

From Good Intentions to Real Shortcomings: An Edtech Reckoning
Mimi Ito, EdSurge, 2017/12/28
"In 2017," writes Mimi Ito, "reality took a massive swipe at the wobbly optimism of technology progressives." How so? Well, despite things like MOOCs and YouTube we still see digital inequality and gender discrimination. More...

eLearning Program with Natural Language Processing
IBM, 2017/12/28
This is the sort of thing that's coming (though I'm not sure I would trust IBM with a major infrastructure project). According to this website, "Artificial Intelligence allows us to develop advanced learning products that can analyze the learners’ actions and make intelligent choices in order to help you meet your training goals." The site points to a business use case where the AI grades or responds to freeform text input. More...