By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google, Mozilla Team Up for Skype-Killing Video Call Demo
Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, February 6, 2013
What's interesting about this post is not "Skype-killing video calls" but rather the technology behind it (which I might add could just as easily be used by Skype as anyone). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MOOCs and OERs
Stephen Downes, February 6, 2013, Conference Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, via Hangout
Overview of some of the early MOOCs we created, along with some more extended duscussion of the design principles we employed in creating MOOCs.

[Slides] [Audio]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Complexity Explorer
Portland State University, Santa Fe Institute, February 5, 2013
This looks like an interesting MOOC, and I've signed up: "The topics you'll learn about include dynamics, chaos, fractals, information theory, self-organization, agent-based modeling, and networks. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Knowledge Workers Learn Judgment
Nancy Dixon, Conversation Matters, February 5, 2013
Interesting post discussing how people who are knowledge workers learn how to make judgements "that require much more that simply following a predetermined step by step procedure." Lawyers, nurses, platoon leaders - all of these are examples of knowledge workers. The post reflects many of the principles we follow in MOOC design. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Surviving the Media Aggregation Economy
Brian Morrissey, Digiday, February 5, 2013
I have since the beginning of the web been an aggregator as much as I have been a producer of original content and ideas. It's hard to say which approach has been more successful (and really, it's a bit like meat and potatoes - you need both). So I both sympathize and don't sympathize with Brian Morrissey who in Digiday laments the economics of original content publishers as compared to aggregators. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MOOC et REL
Stephen Downes, February 5, 2013, Atelier REL, Moncton
Presentation in French on the subject of MOOCs, their design and intent, and their relation to open educational resources (REL).

[Slides] [Audio]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. American Council on Education Recommends 5 MOOCs for Credit
Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog, February 7, 2013
Today's big MOOC news (is there any day these days without big MOOC news?) is that the American Council on Education has recommended five MOOCs for credit, all offered through the Coursera platform. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Analyzing MOOCs – A SWOT Analysis
Andrew Spinner, February 7, 2013

The article pretty much delivers on what the title promises - a straightforward SWOT analysis of MOOCs. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Free Course, Inexpensive Exam
Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, February 4, 2013
More on the same story, with a few new players. "students can use free course content from providers like the Saylor Foundation and Education Portal to study for “challenge exams,” probably the fastest and most inexpensive way to earn credits. The examinations, like those offered by Excelsior College and the College Board’s College Level Examination Program (CLEP), are designed to test whether students grasp the concepts that would be taught in a conventional classroom version." What's important is that the tests are accepted as rigorous. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How NOT to Design a MOOC: The Disaster at Coursera and How to Fix it
Debbie Morrison, online learning insights, February 4, 2013
As I've told people in the past, what makes a MOOC a MOOC is that it i set up to use distributed resources, not centralized resources. More...