By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Future Skills Centre awarded to Ryerson-led bid
Ryerson University, 2019/02/15
This is a press release from Ryerson. "Ryerson University, the Conference Board of Canada and Blueprint were selected to partner and operate Canada’s new Future Skills Centre. The Future Skills Centre will operate at arm’s length from the Government of Canada to fund projects across Canada that develop, test and measure new approaches to skills assessment and development. ... The Council will provide advice to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour on emerging skills and workforce trends including national and regional priorities related to skills development for Canadians". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Education. Myth or Reality?
Noureddine Elmqaddem, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 2019/02/15
This paper (9 page PDF) makes the very good point that virtual relaity (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have been around for decades and haven't produced any great revolution in education to date. So why should we believe recent pronouncements about the coming ascendancy of these old technologies. Noureddine Elmqaddem argues (with examples) that recent advances in these technologies will move them from educational myth to reality. "What has been said till now about these technologies does not show their actual potential. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Augmented Reality based Educational Design for Children
Minghui Sun, Xinyu Wu, Zhihua Fan, Liyan Dong, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 2019/02/15
This paper (10 page PDF) considers several aspected of augmented reality (AR) design: the sort of detection needed (which, in this case, does not use depth, but merely focuses on fingertips), and the sort interaction that should be supported (based on interviews with children). This is framed in the context of work with a motion controller called Leap Motion, "which can specifically recognize fingers and interact with gestures." The paper's results should be considered prelimiary only. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Taxonomy of Blockchain Technologies: Principles of Identification and Classification
Paolo Tasca, Claudio J. Tessone, Ledger, 2019/02/15
This paper (39 page PDF) doesn't talk about the applications of Bitcoin or Ethereum, nor even about the specifics of particular currencies. Instead it looks at blockchain (aka 'distributed ledger') technologies in general, identifies major types of features, and creates a taxonomy using them. Features include, for example, identity management, consensus, or fee and reward systems. As such it's a good overview of the underlying technologies, though it will require some familiarity with blockchain to read. The taxonomy looks good to me and accords generally with what I've seen extant. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. NASA's Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End
NASA, 2019/02/14
I want to mark the end of the Opportunity mission on Mars. For the last 18 years I have watched it with a sense of personal attachment. You see, my name is on Mars, and specifically, the Opportunity rover. I was a part of the SpaceKids program where if you wrote in to support the Opportunity mission, they would add your name to a CD-ROM that went to space with the rover. The original website is long gone, but here's the Wayback Machine listing and the actual certificate. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How would you change education if you could choose?
Alastair Creelman, The corridor of uncertainty, 2019/02/14
Nothing really surprising here (ecosystem, inclusion, distance no barrier), except maybe the obligatory bits saying (but I wouldn't change this, and I wouldn't change that - like "but also oases for reflection and perspective" and "the absence of (technology)"). I once did a drawing called 'School 2.0' - view it here - illustrating as most significant th breaking down of the barrier between the school and the community. This it seems to me would be the big change we want to make. It's not about adapting our current institutions (or even in some way insulating them) to technology. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Playing Games Can Build 21st-Century Skills. Research Explains How.
Stephen Noonoo, EdSurge, 2019/02/13
This article is based on a research study (8 page PDF) arguing that unique experiences are more pleasurable. It uses this study to explain the effectiveness of games, in certain circumstances, to teach a range of skills. It then references a private school (called Quest to Learn) to expand on the discussion of gaming in learning; this is the advocacy and marketing part of the article. "The most success (i.e., larger effect sizes) incorporated specific game design elements, including collaboration, competition, role playing, and exploration and discovery. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Elderblog Sutra
Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm, 2019/02/13
Reflecting on my post from the other day, Doug Belshaw suggests that OLDaily might be classified as an 'elderblog'. This term is adapted from gaming, where an elder game  is "a game where most players have completed a full playthrough and are focusing on second-order play." For me, No Man's Sky fits this - I've completed the main quests in 'Next' and have advanced to the next galaxy, where I spend my time leisurely exploring and hunting pirates. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Opportunities vs. Good Ideas
Brett D. Christensen, Workplace Performance Consulting, 2019/02/13
This post marks the beginning of a series of posts on Brett Christensen's Performance Improvement Process model (illustrated). It begins with the distinction outlined in the title, expanded as follows: " The key difference between an opportunity and a good idea is its alignment – or not – to the individual, organizational and societal contributions that your organization exists to produce." This distinction is established by a consideration of the outcomes the idea or opportunity produces. It goes without saying that the desired outcomes vary from place to place, time to time. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Future of Work
Canada Beyond 150, 2019/02/13
This document (11 page PDF) came recommended but I think it misses the mark. It is the report from a committee of Canadian public servants who studies the future of work - how we prepare for it, how we get it, how we benefit from it - and made recommendations on hoiw to adapt. The observations are accurate enough - "the growing skills gap driven by increased automation (and) the weakened social contract between workers, employers, and governments, driven by digital technologies and the constant financialization of business decisions." But the recommendations are not sound: "an Interactive Career Platform that uses technology to help Canadians from all walks of life, and a Workforce Stewardship Policy Suite that uses the unique ability of employers to positively affect their employees’ lives". More...