By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Learning From Mistakes Is Overrated
Stephen J. Meyer, Forbes, 2014/09/01
I'm not sure exactly how I want to respond to this - and after several minutes thinkibg about it decised that this fact makes it work passing along. Here's the author's main point: "Maybe failure is really interesting to explore only after success has been achieved." Before success, people haven't found out what they're good at - and this is what they should focus on. More...
Bookless library opened by new US university
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bookless library opened by new US university
Alison Flood, The Guardian, 2014/09/01
Although purists might think of a bookless library as a contradiction in terms, I think that something like this is the only way forward for librarians (and books, like scrolls and tablets, may continue to be kept in museums and archives). More...
Learning technology through generations – Paper Summary
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning technology through generations – Paper Summary
Anne Strethewey, Even Elmo's Got a Mobile, Aug 01, 2014
Overview of the development of e-learning through three 'generations' summarizing Terry Anderson and Jon Dron’s 2012 EURODL article, ‘Learning technology through three generations of technology enhanced distance education pedagogy’. My own take on the same idea is in my e-Learning Generations article, presented originally in Clare, New Brunswick. More...
Racy frosh event video angers Ottawa student federation
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Racy frosh event video angers Ottawa student federation
Umnattributed, CBC News, Aug 01, 2014
Every once in a while, you get a photo of a person enjoying a university social activity (such as binge drinking) with the caption "you can't do this in online learning." The implication of course is that the physical and social presence of an in-person class creates an experience that can't be duplicated off-campus. More...
Disentangling The Effects Of Student Attitudes and Behaviors On Academic Performance
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Disentangling The Effects Of Student Attitudes and Behaviors On Academic Performance
I commented the other day that a study was misleading because it didn't take into account motivation. This paper documents that effect. More...
The Ethics of Big Data in Higher Education
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Ethics of Big Data in Higher Education
Jeffrey Alan Johnson, International Review of Information Ethics, Jul 31, 2014
Interesting look at the effect of data mining in education (8 page PDF). The author makes the point that research based in data mining works quite differently from traditional research. I quote:
- Data mining eschews the hypothetico-deductive process, relying instead on a strictly inductive process in which the model is developed a posteriori from the data itself.
- Data mining relies heavily on machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches, taking advantage of vastly increased computing power to use brute-force methods to evaluate possible solutions.
- Data mining characterizes specific cases, generating a predicted value or classification of each case without regard to the utility of the model for understanding the underlying structure of the data.
- Data mining aims strictly at identifying previously unseen data relationships rather than ascribing causality to variables in those relationships.
The author surveys the ethical implications of this. More...
Reclaim & Rethink
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Reclaim & Rethink
Tim Klapdor, Tim Klapdor, Jul 31, 2014
Tim Klapdor explores the concept of self, paticu;arly with respect to identity and learning. It's a complex issue. At first blush we think we have one self, but then everyone can think of an instance when we were (if you will) "not ourselves". Klapdor explores "Jung... the anima/animus (male/female). This underlying unconscious mind helped balance and maintain the persona..." Except that's too simple as well. More...
Campus Tech 2014: Reinventing Higher Education
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Campus Tech 2014: Reinventing Higher Education
Tara E. Buck, Ed Tech, Jul 30, 2014
I like data as much as the next person. Probably more. But I'm fussy. And while I'm impressed by 3 billion data points in EdX, I first of all know that this is a relatively small amount of data, only a fraction of the actual reading and learning that happens online, and that it is a terribly unrepresentative sample, coming from only one platform representing only one approach. But based on the Universal Theory of the Social Sciences ("every person is like the students taking my class") we obtain some generalizations. More...
Early Review of Google Classroom
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Early Review of Google Classroom
Phil Hill, e-Literate, Jul 29, 2014
The fade-to-black transition in the slide show was so distracting I couldn't finish (yes, it's that bad). And that's the main problem I can see with Google Classroom - tight integration with Google tools. More...
http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/27/why-lectures-are-dead-or-soon-will-be/
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/27/why-lectures-are-dead-or-soon-will-be/
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, Jul 29, 2014
As a test of Tony Bates's assertion, go to Codeacademy and try it out for an hour, and then come back. OK, back? Now ask yourself, could you even stand having the same content delivered to you by lecture? Keep in mind that you would have to do another hour's worth of work to practice it and actually learn it. And that's why the lecture is dead as a learning device. More...