By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Images Canada
Good collection of hundreds of images available (mostly) for non-commercial use including education. Sources include government archives, museums and libraries. Content revolves around Canadian themes. More...
Network Theorist Barry Wellman Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Network Theorist Barry Wellman Receives Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute
Unattributed, Oll Awards, 2014/09/29
Worth noting as University of Toronto researcher Barry Wellman receives a significant honour. "The top-cited Canadian sociologist, Wellman’s current work continues to focus on the interplay between information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, social relations and social structure." Here's a sample of his writing, from Connecting Community. More...
The End Of Neighborhood Schools
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The End Of Neighborhood Schools
Anya Kamenetz, NPR, 2014/09/04
So I found this interesting, especially the way the discussion looked at two major aspects of the New Orleans school reform: first, the conversion of the system to public to private charter schools (and consequent firing and de-unionization of the school system), and second, the conversion from neighborhood schools to a city-wide system that offers choice. 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...
Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League
William Deresiewicz, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere, Jul 24, 2014
As I commented on Twitter the other day, I rarely agree with what I read in New Republic, but this article hits much more than it misses. So while you shouldn't consider this post to be a blanket endorsement of everything in the article, it is certainly recommended. More...
CCL Update
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CCL Update
Canada's national organization for educational research, the Canadian Council for Learning, is on the bubble, its future in question. Its mandate was extended a year without additional funding, so the five regional knowledge centres - Aboriginal Learning, Adult Learning, Early Childhood Learning, Health and Learning and Work and Learning - will no longer be funded as of July 6. More...
Adams 50 Skips Grades, Lets Kids Be Pacesetters
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Adams 50 Skips Grades, Lets Kids Be Pacesetters
Now you can level-up at school as a school district in Colorado does away with grades and semesters. More...
Dawn of the Un-Book
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dawn of the Un-Book
Jay Cross writes about the slowness of the publishing industry to respond to change. He cites a study by the Jenkins Group, a custom book publishing firm, that found: -One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. -42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. -80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. -70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the past five years. More...
Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS)
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS)
Human Resources, Skills Development Canada, July 31, 2013
I ran across this yesterday (I guess it's relatively new?) while looking up data for an internal project. "Use this search tool to find projected industrial data used in the development of the COPS projections. Users can search for industrial data such as gross domestic product, employment, retirements, deaths and job openings by industry. Users can view this data in tables or in graphs." It's Canadian data only, but it's sure useful inside Canada. More...
Open SUNY: A Game Changer in the Making
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Open SUNY: A Game Changer in the Making
Phil Hill, e-Literate, April 2, 2013
Overall positive coverage of an effort by the State University of New York (SUNY) to adopt and evaluate various elements of open learning in order to increase access and reduce costs. More...