By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Montreal Declaration for a responsible development of artificial intelligence
Université de Montréal, 2018/12/06
This is a surprisingly well-thought-out set of principles. The principles themselves are very simple - and in my view would be good principles for governance generally even without being addressed toward AI specifically. But surrounding the principles is an informed discussion of the context and conditions for the application of the principles. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Oath Agrees to $5 Million Settlement Over Children’s Privacy Online
Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times, 2018/12/06
While we shouldn't stop criticizing Facebook, let's also take a moment to note that Verizon, through it's subsidiary Oath (Yahoo and AOL) just "agreed to pay about $5 million to settle charges from the New York attorney general that the media company’s online advertising business was violating a federal children’s privacy law." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can we have shared professional meaning in teaching?
Michael Fordham, Clio et cetera, 2018/11/28
The answer to the question in the headline is "no, maybe not" (a conclusion I reached a long time ago) but it comes only after much discussion of how the creation of shared meaning is so central to so much discussion in educational research. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The three best arguments against a knowledge rich curriculum, (and why I think they’re wrong).
Jon Hutchinson, PedFed, 2018/11/28
The third of the three arguments is a straw man and I'll set it aside. The remaining two are as follows:

• Children need skills, not knowledge.
• Enquiry based learning is a more effective, motivating and natural way for children to learn. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Front-End Developers Have to Manage the Loading Experience
Chris Coyier, CSS_Tricks, 2018/11/28
One of the reasons it makes so much sense to work on an application like gRSShopper even though I know it will never be a commercial product (or even widely used) is that it exposes me to the deep technical issues that are so important (and so often overlooked) in educational technology. This article describes one of them: the loading experience. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Not a campus but a storefront: A new concept for higher education delivery
ICEF Monitor, 2018/11/28
Back in what now feels like pre-history I remember writing about and advocating the triad model of learning support. The idea is that in addition to the education provider and the student there would be a third, local, institution where students could access resources and support. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Future of the Public Mission of Universities
Robin DeRosa, actualham, 2018/11/23
This is a transcript, with slides, from a teriffic talk given by Robin DeRosa  on the privatization of public infrastructure and the outsourcing of core educational functions - like online course design and hosting - to commercial entities. The first half of the talk looks at the impact of privatization in other areas and some of the problems it can cause. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Study: It only takes a few seconds for bots to spread misinformation
Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 2018/11/23
According to a new study, it can take seconds for Twitter to spread false news across the internet. But in addition, the study also examined "the critical role played by so-called 'influencers:' celebrities and others with large Twitter followings who can contribute to the spread of bad information via retweets." The bots get the ball rolling, but the influencers finish the job. More...