Opinions

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Do We Get Middle School Students Excited About Science? Make It Hands-On
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 2019/04/15
I don't understand why parents have to send children to 'alternate schools' for this. I studied science and technology at a public school in Ontario several decades ago and had plenty of hands-on experience (though admittedly, despite my best efforts, I never blew up a chem lab). We did physics experiments, biosphere studies, industrial design - a whole host of things. And it wasn't just Activity Day stuff - we made scientific notebooks and presented our results. It's not hard to make science and technology hands-on, it doesn't require special schools, and I think it's something most students (at least, those around here) are still doing. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How $5 Billion Could Provide a Great Education for Every Kid on Earth
Tom Vander Ark, Getting Smart, 2019/04/15
The program outlined in this article - community conversations, new school models, dual enrollment, private schools, competency systems, etc. - is just a good way to waste $5 billion (or $30 billion, or whatever). The problem isn't quality. The problem is access.
How would I spend $5 billion? I'd put into the hands of educators and communities, mostly in Africa. Maybe a million $5000 projects. Something like that. Ask them to form linkages with each other. Ask them to source locally where they can. Digital is important; there should be last-mile and community access projects. Owned locally, managed locally. No money for Harvard or Stanford or MIT, no money for consulting companies or think tanks - indeed, just the opposite, I'd be asking all those wealthy education reformers to match that money, without tying strings to it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 8 reasons why my students lead their own conferences
Rayna Freedman, eSchool News, 2019/04/15
This is an example of what I would call good online learning - indeed, just good learning in general. The setting is parent-teacher conferences for fifth-graders. The only people not there are the students! So this teacher had the student manage their own conference, presenting their work and interacting with both parent and teacher (and sharing their portfolio with caregivers who cannot attend). I would expand this as much as I could, having students manage their own learning activities as much as possible. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When Workplace Training Goes Very, Very Wrong
Jon Hyman, Chief Learning Officer, 2019/04/10
There are all kinds of wrong with this story. "An Indiana school district, however, had a different idea of how to train its employees to prepare for an active shooter. This employer had its employees shot in the back, execution style, with plastic pellets." I'm tempted to say I'm "so glad we don't have active shooter drills here" but then I realize that it would not surprise me at all were our management to require one. The folly of a fully weaponized population should be obvious, I think - if not from statistics, then from the culture of fear that such an environment creates, and how education for such environments crosses the line from learning into propaganda. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Kevin Carey is (mostly but not entirely) wrong (again)
Steven D. Krause, 2019/04/10
This post responds to a recent article by Kevin Carey, summarized here. The points where Carey was right: tuition costs too much, and online program management (OPM) is not helping things. So where is he wrong? In three places, says Steven Krause: first, in the idea that MOOCs can cut costs. Second, in the idea that students are not 'repeat customers'. And third, the very idea that corporations are "devouring" education (which may be more Carey-wish-fulfillment than fact). Maybe Krause is right. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Systematic Review of the EQuiv Theory
Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck, 2019/04/09
Terry Anderson's Equiv Theory is essentially the idea that "though interaction is critically important in distance education, it can take many forms and further that one form can substitute for another." It's the sort of theory that's difficult to quantify and evaluate - what is it for one sort of interaction to have the same outcome as another? And how do you apply it when the outcomes are complex - for example, as I read this article I couldn't help thinking that the purpose of a PhD program is as much to socialize or enculturate prospective professors as it is to advance knowledge. Anyhow, this post is a summary and review of Constance D. Graham and Liezel Massyn's review of the Equiv Theory (30 page PDF). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. When Leaving Academe, Which Research Projects Do You Leave Unfinished?
Erin Bartram, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2019/04/11
The question being considered by the author is one best considered while still working in a college or university environment, I would say. And it should be thought of in this sense: if I left academe today, would I still be working on this work? If the answer is 'no', stop doing the work and start working on something you're actually interested in. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Runaway
Wendy M. Grossman, net.wars, 2019/12/27
This is a good article despite the garish formatting (if you use Firefox you'll want to use the Just Read extension for this one). The main point of the article is that "we don't really know which patterns machine learning algorithms identify as significant." That's because the patterns aren't expressed as rules, and differences that have no meaning to us - changing a few pixels, say - may have a significant impact on the outcome. More...