By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The peer review drugs don’t work
Richard Smith, Times Higher Education, 2015/06/01
This is an interesting way to put it: "If peer review was a drug it would never be allowed onto the market." I'm not a great Cochrane Report supporter but I think they're right here. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.
John Bohannon, i09, 2015/06/01
When you hear me grumbling about the state of educational research, it is because education is second only after weight loss as the source of conflicting data, contradictory conclusions, and outright bad research. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Being more human at work
Leisa Reichelt, disambiguity, 2015/05/29
Here's a good rule: "If the process insists that humans act more like machines/robots/spreadsheets than real human beings, challenge that process." I approach design that way. Designers often want people to adapt data to pre-existing categories, to follow prescribed procedures, etc. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web.Learning's blind spot
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/05/29
This is a very nice diagram that (coincidentally) compares traditional education with what we're doing with performance support. Nick Shackleton-Jones isn't writing about LPSS but he may as well be. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Towards a taxonomy of Open Badges for City & Guilds
Doug Belshaw, 2015/05/29
There is nothing that is every created that somebody won't classify and order shortly thereafter. So too with badges. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Decolonizing Critical Participation and Writing: A Year of Open Access Publishing on the Margins
Marlana Eck, Hybrid Pedagogy, 2015/05/29
I don't know if there is necessarily a right answer here but on one hand we have the imperative of writing and publishing about what is being taught in class, and on the other hand we have the imperative of preserving student privacy. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Future Twitter Full of Bots
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2015/05/29
At the rate we're going, 99 percent of Twitter traffic will be robots retweeting each other. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The cMOOC That Would Not Die
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2015/05/29
Alan Levine tells the story of the #etmooc (Educational Technology & Media massive open online course) that continues to run on its own long after it finished (it's like one of those 70s cars, I guess, with run-on). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The mass university is good for equity, but must it also be bad for learning?
Hannah Forsyth, The Conversation, 2015/05/27
This article drifts a bit but is nonetheless an insightful look at the relation between mass learning, the academic tradition of informal learning, and class or background. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Setting the PACE: Teacher Assessment Practices in a Competency-based Education System
Jonathan VanderEls, Connected Principals, 2015/05/27
Good though overly pandering discussion of the application of an accountability strategy called PACE (Performance Assessment for Competency Education) in competency-based classrooms. More...
