By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Crowd-Sourced Peer Review: Substitute or supplement for the current outdated system?
Peter Suber, London School of Economics, 2014/08/27
Many authors, writes Peter Suber, prefer to have their work reviewed in private. But this may be about to change. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds
Alison Flood, The Guardian, 2014/08/27

So the premise here is that context has an impact on memory, and that eBooks read on the Kindle lack the appropriate context for remembering. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Employers Aren’t Just Whining – the “Skills Gap” Is Real
James Bessen, Harvard Business Review Blogs, 2014/08/27
"The idea of a 'skills gap' as identified in this and other surveys has been widely criticized," writes James Bessen, citing criticism from Peter Cappelli, Paul Krugman and the New York Times. "A worldwide scheme by thousands of business managers to manipulate public opinion seems far-fetched.," he says (naively). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Common sense for some and new and inspiring for others
Barb Brown, Weblog, 2014/08/27
Barb Brown responds to a post I wrote back in 2013. I complained: "Course instructors discuss their approaches to backward instructional design and describe the digital tools used to support collaboration.... Well, this too could have been written in the 1990s, I guess...." She replies, "The topic may not be as timely or important to some audiences, especially those who are expert in teaching online... however, the topic of post secondary instructors collaborating on the design of online courses is relevant to a broad audience." Well maybe - but is content "relevant to a broad audience" really what belongs in an academic journal? More and more, what we are seeing is journal authors writing to an audience consisting of each other - and not keeping up with developments in the field. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Self-Regulation: The Other 21st Century Skills
Jackie Gerstein, User Generated Education, 2014/08/26
The whole character-building thing has been in vogue recently, what with people writing about "grit" and other aspects of successful learners (and people). There is some point to this - you will not become successful at anything (whether work, hobbies or even lifestyle) without putting the effort, which takes motivation and perseverence. But there's also an aspect of this movement whereby these are externally defined. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning Vs. Performance -- The Dichotomy
Sahana Chattopadhyay, ID, Other Reflections, 2014/08/26
This article gets at the difference between learning and performance, identifying aspects distinguishing a focus on one as opposed to the other:

• Growth mindset - Carol Dweck, in her research, differentiated between Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset.
• Limiting beliefs – Related to fixed mindset, limiting beliefs constrain us in many ways.
• Fear of failures – This could directly stem from the organizational culture and environment.

In a follow-up article, Sahana Chattopadhyay makes it clear that training is only one aspect of performance. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Hackers Target Video Games for Fun, Profit and Better Scores
Nicole Perlroth, New York Times, 2014/08/26
I lost interest in commercial online multiplayer games when I discovered people cheating (a game crash was followed by a massive attack on my empire that somehow pinpointed every weakness; the other player admitted seeing my troop disposition). It's the same experience I had in Reno - playing poker in the poker room was fun until the hustler came in and started betting the maximum on every hand. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. At OTF Teaching, Learning & Technology Conference – Hopscotch, Sphero, Social Reading
Doug Peterson, doug - off the record, 2014/08/26
What Doug Peterson describes here is very similar to my own workflow, readingflow, whateverflow. It's a restatement of the "aggregate-remix-repurpose-feed forward" methodology, identifying specific tools that can be used to accomplish it. Does it work? I offer my own career as evidence. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Technology Lab / Information Technology How Twitter’s new "BotMaker" filter flushes spam out of timelines
Lee Hutchinson, Ars, 2014/08/21
I still maintain that it's easier to select for what you do want rather than to filter for what you don't want. But a centralized system, I think, can only attempt the latter. It doesn't help when the business model of the service provider involves sending you unwanted advertising messages. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why The Education Economy Is The Next Big Thing For The American Workforce
Brandon Busteed, Fast Company, 2014/08/21
The author, Brandon Busteed, is executive director of education at Gallup. He argues that there should be a tighter commection between education and the economy to create what we calls the educonomy. The article is largely about how education is failing the economy:

• "no correlation between the grades and test scores of its employees and their success on the job"
• "we’re more likely to see kids with entrepreneurial talent diagnosed as underperforming troublemakers"
• "seven in 10 K-12 teachers are not engaged in their work (69%)"

All very well, but is increased involvement of the commercial sector in education likely to change this. More...