By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Kathy Sierra[Edit][Delete]: Become the Thing That Replaces You, Creating Passionate Users [Edit][Delete] December 15, 2006
Some good advice, especially with respect to the design of games in learning (and note that I did not say 'learning games'). The 'meta level' that Kathy Sierra, of course, is the nuggin - the thing that people are actually buying when they buy something. People buy heat, not coal or oil. Transportation or status, not cars or trucks. What do they buy when they pay tuition? What do people looking for when they sign up for OLDaily? Good questions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Natasha Gilbert[Edit][Delete]: The Death of Peer Review, The Guardian [Edit][Delete] December 14, 2006
I have never been a big supporter of peer review, including that undertaken to evaluate approve publicly funded programs. I am not, though, particularly keen on the touted replacement, "statistical indicators, such as the number of postgraduate students in a department and the amount of money a department brings in through its research." I don't think human judgment should be replaced by statistics - but I do want to increase the number and broaden the range of the humans doing the judging. In fairness, I will note that Steven Harnad, who posted this item to the JISC list, criticizes the RAE process as "re-review" and argues in favour of metrics, as evidenced here and here.. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Atanu Dey[Edit][Delete]: Who Actually Paid For My Education?, [Edit][Delete] December 14, 2006
I commented not long ago on an article from the NY Times on education in India. Here's an Indian perspective: "It is the poor rural children, thousands of them, who paid for my education by losing their opportunity to become semi-literate. The system is tilted against them and unless there is a radical change in the way that education is funded, they will continue to pay the price for subsidizing the US for decades to come." Be sure to see the rest of the blog for commentary on the false bottom of the pyramid, scepticism about the OLPC (0ne laptop per child) project, and the high cost of connectivity in India. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Various authors[Edit][Delete]: Meet the Editors, ascilite 2006 conference podcasts [Edit][Delete] December 14, 2006
From the Ascilite conference: "Roger Atkinson, Catherine McLoughlin, Grainne Conole and John Hedberg pointed aspiring researchers-looking-to-be published in the right direction to get published and to gain those all important DEST points, citations, and all the other measurables..." Of course. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Kruse[Edit][Delete]: New Rules, Gangrey [Edit][Delete] December 13, 2006
This is a neat idea. "If you got to blow up your newspaper, effectively immediately, meaning even the potential elimination of the traditional, nuts-and-bolts beats - cops, city hall, school board - and if you then got to rethink completely how we harvest stories... WHAT? What would the 'beats' be?" Some great suggestions, including: "People who keep their baby teeth in tiny boxes. People in their 30s and 40s who work for minimum wage. People who wear sweatsuits." And some better ones, too. Imagine we rewrote the curriculum from scratch. Ditched math, geography, science, music. What would we study? Piezoelectronics? Ecosystems. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Katy Campbell, Richard A. Schwier and Richard F. Kenny[Edit][Delete]: Agency of the instructional Designer: Moral Coherence and Transformative Social Practice, AJET [Edit][Delete] December 13, 2006
Today the moderator of ITForum linked to an interesting and informative set of posts. First, she linked to Katy Campbell, Richard A. Schwier and Richard F. Kenny, who write, "designers have not necessarily recognised their agency in the development of a knowledge economy that reflects culturally biased views of teaching, learning, and the construction of knowledge." She also linked to a lecture by Clare Brant on the topic of Mi'kmaq Ethics and Principles, interesting to me because his document reflects very closely my own attitudes and beliefs. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Stephen Downes[Edit][Delete]: Rough Crossing, Google Video [Edit][Delete] December 12, 2006
My latest video, this time footage of crossing south from New Zealand's South island to Stewart Island in seas that were described to me as "choppy". Enjoy.

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