Opinions

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Let me Listen to Poetry, Let me See Emotions
Diana Arellano, Cristina Manresa-Yee, Volker Helzle, Journal of Universal Computer Science, 2014/09/15
In a nutshell, this paper described the devlopment of avatars that read poetry. That may sound simple, but the system analyzes the lines being read and then calculates the appropriate emotional response, then indicates this emotional response using facial characteristics. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Reflecting on reflection
Harold Jarche, 2014/09/02
I have often described the 'Downes Theory of Education' (which is not original to me, and which is too simple to be called a theory) as follows: "To teach is to model and demonstrate; to learn is to practice and reflect." So much writing focuses on the first pair of activities; the bulk of educational literature is focused on how to teach. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Mute the Messenger
Jason Stanford, Texas Observer, 2014/09/10
Walter Stroup offered evidence to show that standardized tests measure test-taking ability more than they measure knowledge, and that the teacher has only a small impact on the final assessment. "According to Stroup’s initial calculations, that constancy accounted for about 72 percent of everyone’s test score." A later recalculation suggests it's more like 50%. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why can't you comment on this post? #indieweb
Ben Werdmuller, Benwerd, 2014/09/10
OK, so I've played around with this a bit and think I've figured it out. It's what I think my Referrer System, which I built in 2002, would have become had it grown up (it peaked at 800K hits per day, and I didn't have the resources to sustain that). The idea here is that, if you read something and you want to comment, you comment on your own page, not the page you're reading. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Are Laptops Really Bad For Learning?
Darren Kuropatwa, A Difference, 2014/09/10
In this good summary of the results of the recent study comparing note-taking with pen and laptop Darren Kuropatwa also points to the underlying reason to be sceptical about the conclusion. In the three studies  students performed better on tests after taking notes with the pen, rather than the laptop. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Reflections on community in #rhizo14 – more questions than answers
Frances Bell, Francesbell's Blog, 2014/09/09
A lot of people continue to value community in courses without, I think, comprehending what community is. It's really hard to understand the nature of a community from within. "How can we know about all of the flowers that bloomed? And some of the ones that failed to thrive or died?" Most people, I think, participate in community from their own frame of reference. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. School Should Be More Like Camp
Jackie Gerstein, User Generated Education, 2014/09/03
This seems so intuitive, and my own experiences at camp were deeply influential on me. So I want to be more like Jackie Gerstein and say "promote the idea that school should be more like camp." And there's so much about camp I love. But.... but.... at camp, relationships are primary (says the chart) but at the camps I went to, relationships were sometimes abusive and occasionally violent. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning Analytics and Ethics: A Framework beyond Utilitarianism
James E. Willis, III, EDUCAUSE Review, 2014/09/03
This is an unfortunately superficial treatment of ethics as it relates to big data analysis. The title itself ("Beyond utilitarianism...") treats an entire family of theories as though they were one - but there is a world of difference between (say) act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism (it's like the author never read Mill on the subject). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why Psychologists’ Food Fight Matters
Michelle N. Meyer, Christopher Chabris, Slate, 2014/09/03
"Kids are spending more time than ever in front of screens, and it may be inhibiting their ability to recognize emotions." Oh Noes! But it says so in a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. Should we even take note of this? Probably not. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Using Webb's Depth of Knowledge to Increase Rigor
Gerald Aungst, Edutopia, 2014/09/11
Just another example of a case in education research where a pointless taxonomy is developed and named after someone (one wonders how far education would advance if this practice were no longer allowed). More...