By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wade Roush[Edit][Delete]: Marvin Minsky on Common Sense and Computers That Emote, Technology Review [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
Marvin Minsky gets at what is in my view the core problem with most mechanistic (and virtually all rule-based) theories of learning: " the kinds of AI projects that have been happening for the last 30 or 40 years have had almost no reflective thinking at all." Right. You can practice all you want, but if there is no means to allow this to actually change your understanding, the practice is of no use. But what does 'reflection' amount to in a rule-based system? Especially one where rules are 'innate' or hard-wired in the mind? If you are told what to do, or told what is true, where is the mechanism for changing this. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jeremy Hiebert[Edit][Delete]: Jere Brophy, HeadsPaceJ [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
As Jeremy Hiebert writes, "most educational research on motivation implies coersion -- basically trying to answer the question: 'how do we get people to do something they otherwise would not?'" This is because, as Jere Brophy states, "Schools are established for the benefit of students, but from students' point of view, time spent in the classroom is devoted to enforced attempts to meet externally imposed demands." But what would students learn if simply left to their own devices. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. David Maister[Edit][Delete]: Why (Most) Training is Useless, July 17, 2006
I'm going to modify the presentation (which is overly business centric) to allow the author to make the point more generally: "Bringing about change is immensely difficult. It requires that managers schools address questions in four key areas:

• Systems: Does the company society actually monitor, encourage, and reward this (new) behavior knowledge?
• Attitude: Do people want to do this? Do they buy in to its importance?"

He concludes, "that's what I focus on - primarily trying to get people excited about the topic, so they will leave the session school actively seeking out the new learning for themselves. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Kathleen Fitzpatrick[Edit][Delete]: Introducing MediaCommons, Institute for the Future of the Book [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
"We imagine MediaCommons as a wide-ranging network with a relatively static point of entry that brings the participant into the MediaCommons community and makes apparent the wealth of different resources at his or her disposal." The commen ts are supportive, which is niced, but I would ask along with cel4145, "Installing and configuring a content management system website is the easy part. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MCM[Edit][Delete]: The Pig and the Box, Push the Third Button Twice [Edit][Delete] July 17, 2006
Direct response to the recent 'Captain Copyright' cartoon released by Access Copyright recently. The author writes, "I made the book after hearing how the entertainment industry in Canada is keen on teaching young kids about how to 'respect' copyright. That was a bit heavy-handed, I thought, and otherwise despicable. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Christopher D. Sessums[Edit][Delete]: Teacher Professional Development and the Learning Organization, Christopher D. Sessums : Weblog [Edit][Delete] July 13, 2006
This paper asks, "How can the notion of communities of practice support an inquiry stance by teachers?" By an "inquiry stance," he means "examination and reflection on their teaching practices with an eye towards improving or changing them." Communities of practice provide connections to other practitioners, argues the author, and they "provide the cognitive tools - ideas, feedback, models, and concepts - that educators can adopt." Maybe so, but it should be clear there's a lot more to it than this. More...