3 février 2020

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Is the Role of the Leader in Educational Technology?
I responded to that question in my talk today, stating that a teacher should openly participate in a practice, modeling his or her discipline, and discussing it reflectively with learners. Anyhow, this is the first post from someone joining the edublogging community, and Alec Couros, who appears to have motivate this student, writes, "Could we give this new blogger a warm welcome by responding to her first question?". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Adobe Joins the eLearning Industry
Jay Cross reports, "Adobe's Ellen Wagner, who coordinated the event, made it clear that Adobe intended to be a major player in eLearning." Adobe people have told me that they don't want to own the field, that what they want to do is to enable people to create. Products like Premiere (now reinstalled on the Windows part of my machine) speak in favour of that vision. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 10 Years of Open Content
David Wiley notes, "The 10th anniversary of open content is quickly approaching! The phrase 'open content' was born in the late spring of 1998, and the first open content license was unleashed on the world in July of 1998 (yes, I know this first license was pretty awful - but hey, it was my first attempt!)." He is declaring 2008 to be 'the year of open content'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open Ed - Week 11: OERs Vs Learning Objects
I meant to use this chart, comparing old-style learning objects with new-style open learning resources, in my talk today. But I forgot (not that there would have been time for it). But it is instructive, and a useful addendum. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Free Learning and Control Learning
So I delivered my opening keynote address at SURF Education Days today. It was not the usual Web 2.0 rant people were expecting - instead, I focused on the Kirschner Sweller Clark paper I mentioned yesterday (thank you for the posts and emails - they were extremely helpful) and delivered what amounted to a thorough criticism. This paper, though it has been around for about a year, was relatively new to me. I was rather surprised when I read some summaries a couple of weeks ago, and quite concerned when I read the paper itself, just recently, especially given that it was published in a first-rate journal. The responses, in my mind, missed the heart of the critique, and allowed the authors to walk away relatively unscathed. Not after today. There ought to be a certain standard in our field, especially in that part of it that represents itself as the academic and professional part. Slides are also here. There's audio and video, which will be posted later. Stephen Downes, Slideshare November 13, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Audio, Books, Web 2.0, Video, Academia]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. McGraw-Hill and ETUDES Form Alliance
This is McGraw-Hill hedging its bets. Not sure what ETUDES gets out of it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Personal Network Effect
Reflections on the structure of personal networks. Just one piece of a larger puzzle. "Each connection produces value to the person. But the relative utility of the connection - that is, its value compared to the value that has already been received elsewhere - decreases after a certain point has been reached. The reason for this is that value is derived from semantic relevance." Stephen Downes, Half an Hour November 12, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Networks, Semantic Web]. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Kirschner, Sweller, Clark (2006) - Summary
I have been studying Kirschner, Sweller and Clark's paper Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching. This is in preparation for my talk tomorrow at SURF Education days here in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Hence this short newsletter. Anyhow, this is the summary, and here are some readings (the published responses don't appear at all on Google search and are somewhat expensive). If you have anything to add... I won't be speaking until tomorrow afternoon, your comments would be helpful. Stephen Downes, Half an Hour November 12, 2007 [Link] [Tags: Newsletters, Books, Google]. More...