By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An e-textbook scandal rocks Antigua
GEM Report, World Education Blog, 2019/02/08
There's no shortage of e-textbook companies willing to prey on the smaller and poorer nations of the world, it seems. Here we have a case where e-textbooks were bought from FortunaPix for $9 million, but where they levied "an additional licensing fee of US$250 for every eBook user per year." That is a lot of money for textbooks. The UNESCO authors note that "the 2017/8 GEM Report on accountability dedicated a whole chapter to the need to hold private actors to account in education". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. State of Learning in Canada: No Time for Complacency
OK, I'll give them their concerns about literacy - I've seen enough evidence myself to believe the assertion that literacy rates are not what they should be in Canada (and probably elsewhere). Sure, people can read, but - as the announcement says - literacy is not an on-off switch. People need to be able to read more than a McDonald's advertisement. But this assertion puzzles me: "One in four children enters kindergarten with a learning or behavioural problem." How can this be? Are they all malnourished? We need to look at the full report (hint to CLC: if you're going to distribute 4.3 megabyte PDF files, your website needs to support better than dial-up speeds).
OK, they get this bit right (and it's really important, and a lot of people don't get this): "Human development is not a matter of nature versus nurture, but of nature and nurture working together. In response to stimuli from the environment, the nerve cells of the brain form physical connections and pathways. This brain wiring process, which begins before birth and continues through life, is most intensive during the first three years of development." yep. I'm rewiring my brain as I read. More...