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9 octobre 2019

Les sportifs seraient plus intelligents que les étudiants

Les athlètes interprêtent plus vite et plus facilement le monde réel en mouvement que les jeunes qui suivent de savantes études si l’on en croit les résultats d’une étude québécoise qui vient d’être publiée. Plus...

9 octobre 2019

Believing in Education As Cure-All

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Believing in Education As Cure-All
Inassailable: "Hotel jobs that pay $20 an hour, with health and pension benefits (rather than $10 an hour without benefits), typically do so because of union organization, not because maids earned bachelor's degrees." And if people are seeking to identify in a country's decreasing competitiveness a 'skills gap', it is worth reflecting that this gap is created by increasing inequity in the country, and that it is this increasing inequity that is the cause of a country's decreasing competitiveness. As Doug Noon says, "I and most teachers, I think, have long observed that many learning difficulties seemed to be linked to domestic home-life problems, and that there are a lot more of them than there used to be. More...

9 octobre 2019

Education'S Hidden Messages

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Education'S Hidden Messages
Good statement of the "hidden messages" parents and students are learning from the education system. "They are leaning that discovering and creating knowledge is beyond the ability of students and is really none of their business." Scott McLeod, in a comment, notes, "Sociologist Phillip Jackson coined the phrase the hidden curriculum to describe the socialization process of schooling." I would argue that these messages are reinforced by other forms of media, and that it is in the interests of certain sectors of society (to the expense of everyone else) to promulgate these messages. More...

9 octobre 2019

BBC Jam... Good News for... Who?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. BBC Jam... Good News for... Who?
The closure of BBC Jam continues to reverberate. John Connell writes sarcastically, citing publisher glee at the announcement, "Good news for British educational publishers' - but sod the kids who will benefit from BBC Jam. Good to know where your priorities lie!" Seb Schmoller wants more usage data... "To see Jam at all you needed to register, so not much can be read into the fact that 170,000 user accounts on Jam had been created." And Connell again looks at the actions that might be taken. More...

8 octobre 2019

Heave Ho, Scallywags, There's Events Listings O'er Thar to Liberate

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Heave Ho, Scallywags, There's Events Listings O'er Thar to Liberate
It's stating the obvious, but it's also something that really needs to be stated, as the collective wisdom of the educational community sits around helpless, unable, it seems, to reason this through. Things like events and job listings (which Scott Leslie covers in a previous post) could be very easily syndicated. It just takes some work to round up the sources and to create a custom feed. A lot like the way I created Edu_RSS (which I really must get going again). Sure, it would be a lot easier if educational institutions actually helped by, say, creating Jobs RSS feeds and Events RSS feeds. But like I say, it's easier to sit around helpless. More...

8 octobre 2019

Myth # 5: The Mind = Computer Myth

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Myth # 5: The Mind = Computer Myth
Norm Friesen wraps up his E-Learning Myth series with an article that looks at the idea that the mind is like a machine. Such a comparison depends a lot on what you think the mind looks like and what you think a machine looks like. In addition, as I point out in my comment, it presupposes that our theory of mind was based on our machines - when in reality, our machines were designed according to our theory of mind. Yes, the theories Friesen outlines - the information-transfer theory of learning and the physical symbol system hypothesis - are both wrong, in my mind. More...

8 octobre 2019

Error Feedback: Theory

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Error Feedback: Theory
The whole post is a but fuzzy but manages to make its way to what I would consider to be the correct conclusion. "Although not innate, expertise takes time to develop." The author cites Anderson and Schunn: "For competences to be displayed over a lifetime, time on task is by far and away the most significant factor." And in particular, "for learning a language, 1. the crucial element is practice rather than some language module [and] 2. the process cannot be accelerated." The article does note that "all practice is not equal" (they mean, "not all practice is equal") and that "'effective time on task' is promoted through... feedback." But they don't mean 'feedback' per se. They mean correction. Which, computationally, is represented by (for example, something like) back propagation. More...

8 octobre 2019

Inside Out

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Inside Out
Jay Cross writes, "An educational institution asked [Teemu Arina] to draw up a one-pager on how to take advantage of informal learning. They were imagining the formal learning at the core, with informal learning glued around the periphery. Teemu gave them an informal-learning centric rendering instead." Great diagram, have a look. More...

8 octobre 2019

Towards Passion-Based Conversations

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Towards Passion-Based Conversations
How do we make e-learning work in today's classroom? I'm listening right now to a conversation devoted to the design of a conferencing system based around small group discussions - that age-old mechanism for ensuring that any dissenting or radical voice is thoroughly expunged before it can possibly surface publicly. On the other hand, "We need to learn how to sustain conversations that are initiated by the students themselves, not conversations that emerge from the official Ministry documents or our own interests and beliefs." It reminds me that we embody our beliefs in our technology. More...

8 octobre 2019

Read, Think, Remix

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Read, Think, Remix
The big question: "At the point when these networks become institutionalized, are they then, by extension, part and parcel of this mission critical - are they in the business of producing a consuming subject for the global market? For I think many of us have been interpreting these tools as an alternative to such a pragmatic logic." And an indication of why the pledge on my home page is an integral part of the work I do in online learning. More...

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