By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What You Know, and How It's Different From What You Remember
I have said before that what you know is distinct from what you remember (and therefore that 'learning' is not the same as 'remembering'). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Revolt Against Outsourced Courses
Another instance of the trend toward the separation of teaching and assessment, as colleges are awarding credit for outsourced courses. Not surprisingly, there are people questioning whether a college should be giving credit for a course it does not supervise. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. European Newspapers Find Creative Ways to Thrive in the Internet Age
The internet doesn't necessarily mean death to newspapers publishers, though it seems clear from the European response that they will have to depend on more than subscriptions and advertising. This accords with Marc Canter's breakdown of future internet revenue streams. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pupils to Study Twitter and Blogs in Primary Shake-Up
A few people have mentioned this Guardian article and it was mentioned in our conversation yesterday. The gist is that "Children will no longer have to study the Victorians or the second world war... the draft plans will require children to master Twitter and Wikipedia and give teachers far more freedom to decide what youngsters should be concentrating on in classes." The negative reaction is not surprising (though misguided). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Conversation on Learning
Informal conversation covering the range of learning 2.0 Presentation by Stephen Downes.

Rainbow Lorikeet
 
Another photo from Sydney. Stephen Downes, Flickr, March 31, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Flickr, Australia] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. fMRI of Learning Styles: Confirmation of Visual and Verbal Learners
I have my doubts about brain imaging (it just feels like 21st century phrenology) but I thought I'd pass along this confirmation of differing learning styles. I think that the idea that there are different learning styles feels right to most people, which raises the question, what to do about research saying that educational outcomes are not improved by adapting to differing learning styles. It seems to me that, if learning styles exist, and education cannot adapt to them, so much the worse for education. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Long Live Instructor-Led Learning
For the record, I agree with Saul Carliner: instructor-led training is not on the verge of disappearing, and will still be around in 2019. But not for the reasons he cites. He suggests that informal learning will remain weak because (a) it is sparodic, and (b) it might be inaccurate. So, at best, we'll see a sift to online classrooms, not informal learning. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Don't Boycott Amazon's Over-$9.99 Kindle E-Books!
Claude Almansi writes, "Don't boycott Amazon's over-$9.99 Kindle e-books. Boycott Amazon's Kindle e-book reader." I disagree. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sydney, Australia
I'm in Sydney. If you're trying to reach me, be patient - email is blocked in my hotel, a restriction triggered probably because I use SSH redirect to send email; I can get NRC email using web access, but have to read downes.ca email over my Blackberry. Yesterday I walked from my hotel in Darling Harbour out to Bondi each. I got to see the results of an explosion at Bondi Junction and a big blackout in downtown Sydney. Exciting day. I'll be adding to this photo set for a few days, so b sure to check back. Stephen Downews, Flickr, March 30, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Flickr, Australia] [Comment]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Get Started with Google Wave
My Google Wave invitation finally did arrive - and I dispensed with my additional invites in about five minutes. This site will be useful, providing instructions on how to get started with Wave. More...