By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. All Things in Modulation
Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed, Aug 09, 2014
It's hard not to be a bit cynical about the University of Wisconsin's strategy to reduce MOOC dropouts by making courses more locally focused and a lot shorter. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. From Open To Connected
Gardner Campbell, Gardner Writes, Aug 10, 2014
One of the points I've tried to make over the years is that open learning requires commented learning, and vice versa. That's why the drive to trivialize the 'open' in MOOC isn't just an accessibility problem, it's a pedagogical problem. Campbell writes, "we may well have missed the greater and more important aims that “open” strives toward. And while there’s no way to protect words from being twisted or co-opted, the phenomena of “openwashing” and the long long O in MOOC are troubling indicators that what initially seemed to be the language of openness may have fought shy of the question of what the openness was for. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blogphilosophy: does #peace, pacifist education exist in #MOOC?
Inge de Waard, Ignatia Webs, Aug 07, 2014
In the last week I have sadly deleted dozens of Facebook contacts, all of whom have in one way or another promoted the war effort of one or another side through the posting of graphic images, propaganda, or justifications. With Inge de Waard I ask, is there nobody who will promote peace. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why MOOCs are only part of the answer for higher education
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, 2014/12/01
For the record, I have never thought of Tony Bates as a critic of MOOCs, particularly, though he has certainly weighed in with his opinions on how they could be improved (which is what we would hope for and expect). here is a case in point. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Will SOOCs eat MOOCs for breakfast?
Unattributed, Pearson, Jul 16, 2014
You can almost hear the disbelief in Audrey Watters's voice as she says "wow" on reading this article from Pearson advocating a form of online learning that removes "unwanted diversity" from open online courses. Yes, you read that correctly, and it's not out of context. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Peer Assessment for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Hoi K. Suen, International Review of Research in Open, Distance Learning (IRRODL), Jul 14, 2014
This article examines the application of peer assessment in massive open online courses (MOOCs). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Bill Gates Talks Performance Funding and MOOCs in Conference Keynote
Don Troop, Chronicle of Higher Education, Jul 23, 2014
Bill Gates talks about education and everyone listens (one of these days I'd like to go to Redmond to talk to MS face-to-face about these topics). Still, some good bits: like this: "My key message today is that that model will be under challenge. And so, instead of tuning it to find 3 percent here or 4 percent there, which has been the story in the past, there will be dramatic changes." See also IHE coverage. More...