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23 octobre 2019

The No. 1 Graduate School of Education?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The No. 1 Graduate School of Education?
Without a whole lot of fanfare, online institutions like Capella University and Nova Southeastern have taken over the lead role in the production of education PhDs, easily outdistancing the Teachers College at Columbia University and other traditional institutions with large programs. Which goes mostly to show, I would say, that online learning scales where traditional learning doesn't. People, of course, will just assume that the method that products he fewest graduates will produce the highest quality; eventually, their quirks will be taken as definitive of higher quality, the way flaws in hand-woven fabrics denote higher quality in textiles. More...

23 octobre 2019

Content Mixing Desk: WOOT!

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Content Mixing Desk: WOOT!
Oh this is interesting - a 'slider' type control that allows users to control the amount of types of stories that are presented to them. Of course, like any slider, it allows only for a very rough characterization - you can't really work with more than a dozen sliders, which means I can choose more or les 'sports' but not more or less 'hockey' (not that this lets you chose for sports at all - it is devoted completely (and interestingly) to stories about your friends - their calendars, their notes, their photos, etc. More...

23 octobre 2019

The Ignorance of Crowds

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Ignorance of Crowds
Well I'm not sure I agree with this but it's a message that I think will resonate with many readers. In a nutshell, the argument is that while open source programming methodology works well with small, predefined tasks (such as bug-checking) it is not as appropriate for innovative projects - which generally develop from the mind of a 'lone wizard' - or for major development work - which generally requires coordination, teams and hierarchies. Open source projects themselves recognize this, argues the author, from Linux - which is top-down from Linus Torvalds - to Wikipedia - which is slowly building a contact management hierarchy. More...

23 octobre 2019

How to Prevent Another Leonardo Da Vinci

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How to Prevent Another Leonardo Da Vinci
Ah I like this. Listing through the seven ideas featured in the book "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci", Kris ("Coffee-addicted, wanderlust-afflicted, existential teen writer/debater seeks an intellectual escape and the complete works of Voltaire. Static characters and stilted dialogue need not apply. Ratpack fan a plus.") demonstrates how to kill each one of them in contenporary classrooms, thus ensuring we never suffer through such insufferable genius again. More...

23 octobre 2019

Making Assessment Personally Relevant

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Making Assessment Personally Relevant
There are many things I like about this post, but I'll highlight two: first, assessments are conducted by the students themselves, not some arbiter of learning achievement. Second, the scales use no numbers. They're not needed, not unless you want to portray (inaccurately) learning as some sort of contest. More...

23 octobre 2019

Is a Network a Community?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Is a Network a Community?
Dave Snowden writes, "All communities are networks, but not all networks are communities." And also, importantly, "Systems thinking has reached the limits of its contribution to our understanding of human systems, it is now inhibiting development and the confusion with complexity theory is dangerous." Meanwhile, Terry Anderson contributes this to the groups vs networks discussion: "one could also argue that an educational experience is not complete unless it exploits the affordances of groups, networks and collectives." One could. More...

23 octobre 2019

Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Nine Propositions Towards a Cultural Theory of YouTube
Hm. I have a general scepticism of attempts to create a cultural theory of anything, much less of something so ephemeral (and branded) as YouTube. The article says, in essence, that youTube is a hybrid media space that serves as a meeting place for amateur curators and creators. YouTube is valuable because you can embed and distribute videos in social networking sites. With Flikr, it allows people to record the world using devices they carry around with them; this transforms them from passive observers at an event to active participants. Users capture media, remix media, and exchange media in social networks (the nature of which, unfortunately, resists diversity). More...

23 octobre 2019

Dangerous Assumptions

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dangerous Assumptions
The point of Wayne Hodgins's post (which as a happy side-effect introduces Erik Duval's blog (Erik, who is based at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, is president of the ARIADNE Foundation, technical editor for the (IEEE) standard on Learning Object Metadata, and coordinator of the work on learning objects, metadata and interoperability within the ProLearn Network of Excellence)) is this: "for the foreseeable future, I hope that we remain very aware of just how limited online searching is and that we continue to check our assumptions that 'everyone and everything is available online, otherwise they don't exist.'" I don't think anyone actually makes that assumption - the assertion that "if you're not online, you don't exist" is metaphorical. But also, there's a credibility issue. If you aren't online, how credible are you? If, especially, your domain is, say, online learning, and you're not online, how credible are you. Yes, as Hodgins says, a great deal of the world's information is not online. But that information - that is not instantly and freely available online - is increasingly and increasingly irrelevant. More...

23 octobre 2019

What Is Weighing Down Learning?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Is Weighing Down Learning?
This post is worth visiting for the diagram alone of the factors that are "weighing down" educational change. I would want to add the word 'outcomes' to 'Bureaucratic Weight'. But as for the question of systemic change, there remains this question: change to what? I have my own views as to where education should go, but my views are by no means consensus - nor either is there any view that even approaches consensus. It's not just the things weighing education down, but also, the different people pulling in different directions: industry pulling one way, religious and spiritual organizations pulling another way, activists pulling yet another way - everybody, it seems, has a stake in the education system, with the result that no philosophy can ever gain the upper hand. More...

23 octobre 2019

How to Make Your Personal Opinion Seem Popular

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How to Make Your Personal Opinion Seem Popular
Now you know why I return to the same subjects over and over - so you'll believe me! More seriously, this item shows why diversity is important in networks: because humans are not good at distinguishing between many opinions, and one opinion repeated frequently. "Even though they realize that they're just listening to one voice, the incessant repetition of key talking points makes it seem like it's more representative of the population at large". More...

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