By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Who are the founding fathers of distance education?
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, 2016/09/19
Let's just use the phrase "founders of distance education". Tony Bates offers several alternatives to the three suggested by Steve Wheeler (Bates, John Daniel, and Michael Moore) including Isaac Pitman, the University of London External Programme, Chuck Wedemeyer, Harold Wilson, Jennie Lee, and Walter Perry. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Seoul Man speaks: The Fourth Industrial Revolution Meets the Fourth E-Learning Revolution
Curtis J. Bonk, TravelinEdMan, 2016/09/23
Curt Bonk "gave the keynote speech at E-learning Week at Coex," in Seoul Korea. He writes, "I was asked to speak about the Fourth Industrial Age (more info on it; see the Davos Reader). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Do Forbes, NYT, And Sotheby’s Have In Common? They Make Online Courses
Anuar Lequerica, Class Central, 2016/09/26
There's virtually no content in this article (would it be too much to do an interview or get a point of view?) but the author points to an important trend. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What's the Future of Jobs?
John Hagel, Edge Perspectives, 2016/09/06

The interesting thing about the meeting I was at in Capri was that there were people from Udacity, EdX, Coursera, and other MOOC initiatives, and how much of the discussion focused around preparing people for jobs. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Online Classes Get a Missing Piece: Teamwork
Marguerite McNeal, EdSurge, 2016/09/30

Audrey Watters gasps, "Can you believe no one has ever thought about adding 'social' to online education until now?!" It boggles the mind, to be sure. But Carolyn Rosé's project is a bit more interesting than that. More...