Wearable tech expands new horizons in schools
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wearable tech expands new horizons in schools
Alison DeNisco, District Adminisstration, 2015/10/26
The headline is misleading - the article is mostly about Google's Cardboard, a $16 set of cardboard goggles you can use with your mobile phone to see 3Dish scenes and videos using specially designed applications. More...
Leader-less ants make super efficient networks
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Leader-less ants make super efficient networks
Phys.org, 2015/10/23
We actually see this sort of phenomenon fairly frequently. It's yet another example of simple low-level processes working over time to create order and efficiency without management or leadership. More...
It's Never That Simple
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. It's Never That Simple
Dave Snowden, Cignitive Edge, 2015/10/23
This article raises three reasons to question "evidence-based policy." The first two are versions of the same thing, and a common problem. More...
Slides and Resources from My Keynote at The Allen Experience
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Slides and Resources from My Keynote at The Allen Experience
Karl Kapp, Kapp Notes, 2015/10/23
Here's a slide presentation that reflects some of the themes I talked about in my own presentation this week. "Don't think like an instructional designer," he advises. More...
Edinburgh University’s updated Manifesto for Teaching Online – 2015
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Edinburgh University’s updated Manifesto for Teaching Online – 2015
Jenny Mackness, 2015/10/23
I'm not particularly enamoured of the Edinburgh University's manifesto for teaching online in and of itself, but I really appreciated Jenny Mackness's commentary, which either raises questions about the individual points or, more usefully, offers support and annotations from the literature. More...
Learning -agogy Overload
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning -agogy Overload
Matt Crosslin, EduGeek Journal, 2015/10/23
I sort of rolled my eyes when I first heard the term 'androgogy' (this would be back in the early 90s) not so much because I couldn't see how teaching adults might be different from teaching children but because I couldn't see why the term 'pedagogy' couldn't just be expanded to include all forms of teaching. More...
Beyond Instructional Design: Open Spaces and Learning Places
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Beyond Instructional Design: Open Spaces and Learning Places
Stephen Downes, Oct 22, 2015, American Distance Education Consortium, Online, via GoToMeeting
This presentation focuses on the differences between a program and an environment, instructional design approaches through multi-year games, and the pedagogy of spaces and places that lend themselves to connectivist learning environment designs. More...
Learning and the World of “Apps”
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning and the World of “Apps”
TeachOnline.ca, 2015/10/22
The focus of this post is a report published last March from McGraw-Hill Education, The Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits, which "found that 81% of US college students use mobile devices to study." You can see their video, "SmartBook Made Success Possible". More...
Social Media Listening: Essential Tool for Both PR & Marketing (and Competitive Intelligence Too)
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Social Media Listening: Essential Tool for Both PR & Marketing (and Competitive Intelligence Too)
CyberAlert, 2015/10/22
OK, this is a marketing piece for CyberAlert - they don't post their prices so you can't afford it. I certainly can't afford it. But the idea of the service is that it scans various forms of media and returns you results relevant to your business or industry. More...
MIT discovers the location of memories: Individual neurons
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MIT discovers the location of memories: Individual neurons
Sebastian Anthony, Extreme Tech, 2015/10/22
This is reported with all the breathless urgency of an MIT press release announcing something discovered for the first time, but though it's a significant finding it restates what others have been saying for a long time (and just for fun, the headline also gets it wrong). More...
