Business

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Micropub Rocks
Chris Aldrich, Google Slides, 2019/04/08
This is a slide presentation describing (and promoting) the micropub specification. Micropub "is an open API standard (W3C Recommendation) for creating, editing, and deleting posts on websites and is supported by numerous third-party clients and CMSs." The idea is that you pick one application and then post anywhere. It's a great idea that needs to become a bit more intuitive in order to work. But I definitely endorse the principle. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Glossary Items
Training Industry, 2019/12/23
I was looking for something else (specifically - pre-2015 references to 'learning experience platform' - why is Google's date-based search so unreliable?) when I encountered this glossaty of training industry terms. Useful. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The War for Corporate Learning Platforms Gets Hotter
Josh Bersin, 2019/12/23
This is a pretty good overview of the shifting market in corporate e-learning technology (I wouldn't classify it as a "war" since as far as I know no violence has occurred, happily). One point of focus is the learning experience platform (LXP), "intelligent learning portals that use a variety of approaches to making all forms of learning content (articles, videos, courses, podcasts) easy to find for employees." These need to be linked with (or merged with) 'systems of record' in the corporate environment. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Disruption’s legacy
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, 2020/01/28
The core idea of 'disruption' is this: existing companies over time spend more and more time and money building features for and supporting a minority (and often premium) portion of their client base, thus creating an opportunity for a new company without this overhead to come along and build a streamlined product serving the majority who don't need these special features and services. Hence, say, discount airlines. Because these companies are focused on lowering costs, they often underpaid staff, undercut unions, and flouted regulations. But all that is a product of capitalism, not disruption. All that is why I think Martin Weller's criticism of Christensen is not only a poorly-timed attack, it is also wrong. Christensen didn't undermine labour, conservative governments did. Christensen didn't undermine experience, the intransigence of incumbent companies did. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Soros gives $1bn to fund universities 'and stop drift towards authoritarianism'
Larry Elliott, The Guardian, 2020/01/24
So I guess the big news today is the announcement by George Soros that he will build "a new global network of universities designed to promote liberal values and his vision of an open society." Here is the full text of his speech. How fortunate we are to have billionaires who define public policy for us. What would make me happier? Billionaires paying their taxes. More *sigh* coverage: Fortune (naturally), Bloomberg, Financial Times, Business Insider, Times of India. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google Classroom rubrics and originality reports exit beta
Abner Li, 9to5 Google, 2020/01/24
According to this report, "After entering beta last year, Google is launching new rubric and originality report tools for all G Suite for Education customers." The display shows up automatically at the side of the page while you're marking the paper. It makes me think - why can't I have a tool that just reads what I type, and lets me know who has said the same (or similar thing) before, automatically finds and inserts references, and alerts me of any reports or studies that contradict what I'm saying? Anyhow. If you don't like the way TurnItIn uses student work, and you don't want to depend on the machine, there's also Urkund's anti-plagiarism system. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow
Tony Wan, EdSurge, 2020/01/22
The lede is about Pearson's acquisition of Sparrow, an adaptive learning company, but the bulk of this article provides a lot of useful background about boat Sparrow's approach and into Pearson's activities in the ed tech space, and in particular, the Global Learning Platform, which is the adaptive-learning engine of the company. More...