By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I <3 DML
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2016/10/11

Long post covering a number of keynote, hands-on and eveen virtual sessions from last week’s Digital Media and Learning conference. It's Alan Levine getting excited about educational technology again, and when that happens, it's always a good read. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why It’s Time to Let Go of ‘Meritocracy’
Doug Belshaw, DMLcentral, 2016/10/11

"Building an education system around ‘meritocracy’ as it is commonly used post-Thatcher may be a function of those in power being so privileged that they are not in a position to see their own privilege," writes Doug Belshaw. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Scaling Up Learning Communities: The Experience of Six Community Colleges
Mary G. Visher, Emily Schneider, Heather Wathington, Herbert Collado, National Center for Postsecondary Research, 2016/10/11

I'm preparing for a talk on Thursday on learning communities and encountered this excellent study from 2010. This is a fairly large study, as the title suggests, and the report (153 page PDF) provides a comprehensive overview, including these observations:

• A paid coordinator and committed college leaders were essential to managing and scaling up learning communities.
• As coordinators clarified expectations and offered support, faculty responded by changing their teaching practices.
• Curricular integration remained difficult to implement widely and deeply.
• Student cohorts led to strong relationships among students, creating both personal and academic support networks. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Inside Peek Into the Education World’s Obsession with Minecraft
Cameron Main, EdSurge, 2016/10/06

My own experience with MUDs served a similar function for me, though of course I was a lot older. The closest equivalent from my childhood is, I guess, the sand pile in our back yard. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Map of the Internet
Quartz, 2016/10/06

I think the presentation is the most interesting part of this series of articles offering an overview of today's internet. The individual articles address things like the undersea cables, the physical infrastructure in pictures, and challenges of censorship and the potential break-up of the internet. More...