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24 octobre 2019

Oh Canada...10 E-Learning Memories From 9 Trips in 2 Years

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Oh Canada...10 E-Learning Memories From 9 Trips in 2 Years
Curt Bonk has some very nice things to say about Canada (and about me... *blush*) in this retrospective of 9 different trips here over the last two years. Good observations, goofy photos, and a fun sense of humour ("they made me wear the Calgary Flames shirt for my journey up to Edmonton..."). Perhaps the Conference Board of Canada (see below) should review this list. More...

24 octobre 2019

A Systemic Scandal

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Systemic Scandal
I guess I'll just say I'm not surprised. Indeed, why wouldn't we expect widespread abuses in the student loan system? Students have utterly nobody representing their interests at the corporate or political level, and have long been a ripe target for exploitation. When you wonder why students receive loans, and not grants, as financial aid, ask yourself who really benefits. More...

24 octobre 2019

Crossing the Chasm: Reflections On the Future of Education and Participatory Culture

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Crossing the Chasm: Reflections On the Future of Education and Participatory Culture
I always wonder about statements like this: "None of us really knows how to live in this era of media convergence, collective intelligence, and participatory culture. These changes are producing anxieties and uncertainties, even panic, as people imagine a world without gatekeepers..." Is this true? Can this be true? I saw the founder of YouTube in a restaurant a few days ago - he seems to know how to live in this era. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates - they don't seem to be struggling. For that matter, without too immodest, I seem to be hanging in there reasonably well. I'm not challenged by convergence, I'm not threatened by collective intelligence. When someone writes, ""None of us really knows..." what they realy mean is "You don't know, but I do, and let me tell you..." Don't let writers tell you that you are stupid, that you cannot cope, and the rest. More...

24 octobre 2019

New Ed.D. in Distance Education

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. New Ed.D. in Distance Education
Hm. I think if you're 'balancing' the virtual and the physical then you're understanding at least one of them incorrectly. The virtual and the physical aren't some kind of opposing realities or competing realms that need in some way to be 'balanced'. The difference between the physical and the virtual is illusory - it is a distinction that has been marketed hard by companies that want to keep sellig you paper. But the virtual is the physical - the people online are real, the computers are real, the impact of your words is real, and it all happens in the physical world to people with physical bodies. More...

24 octobre 2019

BAM! You'Re There! NECC Feeds for Every Session: Blogs, Flickr, Slides

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. BAM! You'Re There! NECC Feeds for Every Session: Blogs, Flickr, Slides
OK, I'm glad that the NECC conference has full feeds and all that. But I think the latest push has taken taging to a new level of abstraction. Here's a tag, for example, for one of the sessions: n07s643. This is exactly the sort of thing I predicted would happen. OK, so, what now? The way it should have been done in the first place: each event has an associated URL. Blog posts, etc., can link to (or 'refer to') that URL. In the metadata (ie., the RSS) for an event URL (which now has the same status as a blog post, right?) you can add some event data ('start','finish','location') and indicate event structure ('parent'). Of course, we have to wait for somebody down south to 'invent' it so we can have such a system; when it's just a voice from the north proposing it, the idea doesn't exist. More...

24 octobre 2019

Professional Development and Corporate Training: The Webinar Weakness

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Professional Development and Corporate Training: The Webinar Weakness
I'm in an airport in Toronto waiting for my connection to Moncton. No time to dither, as they'll be calling my flight shortly. So without further ado, today's newsletter, beginning with this useful post on how to improve webinars. More...

24 octobre 2019

How the World Was Populated

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How the World Was Populated
This is a very nice animation, displaying the spread of the human population across the globe through history, connecting the story with the artifacts and artwork that documents the history. More...

24 octobre 2019

PLEs Are Power Tools

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. PLEs Are Power Tools
A couple of nice posts from Tom Haskins. In the first, he suggests that "PLE's are power tools. They empower the powerless to break out of their boxes. PLE's invites self-directed learning." Then, in the second, he draws a distinction between 'fortunate' and 'unfortunate' learners, drawn roughly along the level of power, or amount of learning independence, the person has. Depending on our position as a fortunate or unfortunate learner, we will view PLEs differently. More...

24 octobre 2019

Intel .V. OLPC?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Intel .V. OLPC?
The undercurrent of discussion around the conflict between Inter and the OLPC project just won't go away. And the more I see of this, the more I think that the design changes which could allow the OLPC to run Windows are a response to the competition. I'm sympathetic with Negroponte - but to a point. Because, in a way, what Intel is doing to him, he did to the Simputer project. More...

24 octobre 2019

The Radical Impossibility of Teaching

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Radical Impossibility of Teaching
I take thi as a serious question: "Is the whole process of teaching a paradox? When teachers teach and learners learn, what is the nature of the causal link between the two, if any? How does teaching produce learning? Does teaching produce learning?" I think the causal relationship between teaching and learning is much less direct than popular wisdom suggests. More...

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