Just as the marketplace and investors are getting comfortable with business models that build products, platforms and services around online learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quietly been redefining the entire market over the last few years. More...
Colleges Need to Build Digital Quads to Support Social Learning for Online Students
As this trend continues, universities risk losing the community of informal, social learning that they were designed to foster. More...
Where Online Learning Goes Next
By harnessing emerging technologies, universities can reach beyond campus walls to empower diverse learners at global scale. More...
Keeping Learners Motivated in Online Courses
Many working adults sign up for online courses to build their skills in their current profession or develop skills for a new profession they wish to pursue. More...
The benefits of online learning
Thanks to a rapid advancement in technology over the last few decades, the world has evolved to ensure maximum convenience in the corporate realm, in the world of leisure, and, of course, within the ever-changing realm of education. More...
A Proposal to Cut Costs and Increase Efficiency in Online Programs
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Proposal to Cut Costs and Increase Efficiency in Online Programs
The suggestions (such as "partner with textbook companies to develop custom texts / workbooks, with a guaranteed edition life of 3 years") aren't really my cup of tea ("more radical" suggestions are promised in future installments) but I think people will find this to be sound and practical advice. More...
CREST+ Model: Writing Effective Online Discussion Questions
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CREST+ Model: Writing Effective Online Discussion Questions
I think the acronym is a bit cutesy, but I like this discussion of question types and methodologies. We don't see a lot on question formation, but a good survey of recent work is provided in the introduction. As for the CREST+ model itself, it is mostly a taxonomy of question types. So far so good, but we want to be more probing. What do we do with different types of questions? What effects do they have? Questions don't merely query, they also frame discussions. They create some possibilities, eliminate others. What happens when these possibilities exceed the bounds of experience. More...
Having Your Cake and Eating It: The E-Framework's Service-Oriented Approach to IT in Higher Education
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Having Your Cake and Eating It: The E-Framework's Service-Oriented Approach to IT in Higher Education
"The soa [service oriented architecture] seeks to separate out the core functionalities needed by a number of different applications into a series of modular components, provided as loosely coupled services." So far so good. But then, "the functions or tasks need to be provided with an agreed-upon open interface, and the wider the agreement is on these tasks, the greater the market for such services and the lower the price." Um, hm. But then, "considerable time and effort of experienced and technically skilled people is needed to establish such agreements." Well, that's really going to favour the entities that can fund such people, isn't it? But I digress. More...
How do you do that online thing?
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How do you do that online thing?
Laura Ritchie, 2019/03/21
You start either with an audience to speak to, or something to say. From there, you either tailor your message to your audience, or (better) you find an audience for what you have to say. Most of this video interview is focused on the latter, and people teaching students how to connect online will find this video, and the post its attached to, to be quite a useful resource. Having watched the video, I now see how I could maybe have been more useful, for example, by referring to something i wrote ages ago, How to be Heard. More...
The Impact of At-Scale and Mega-U Degrees
The landscape of online higher education is changing with the growth of mega-universities and the advent of scores of MOOC-size at-scale degree programs from prestigious universities. More...