By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Random Thoughts on Passive Learning and Lectures
Karl Kapp, Kapp Notes, 2015/08/12

Let's begin here: “Passivity isn’t wrong because it’s boring; it’s wrong because it doesn’t work.” The post is on lectures and it surveys the evidence. But in an inference like this I tend to ask whether we understand the premise. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Is It Really Possible to Re-do Ed Tech From Scratch?
Matt Crosslin, EduGeek Journal, 2015/08/12

As Matt Crosslin summarizes, "Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris asked an interesting question at Hybrid Pedagogy a couple of days ago: 'Imagine that no educational technologies had yet been invented — no chalkboards, no clickers, no textbooks, no Learning Management Systems, no Coursera MOOC. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Perspective and Empathy
Maggie Hos-McGrane, Tech Transformation, 2015/08/12

This diagram has been making the rounds in social media recently (reminding me that I wish Facebook would remember what I've seen and not show me the same memes over and over). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Future of Morality, at Every Internet User's Fingertips
Tim Hwang, The Atlantic, 2015/08/10

Ethics have always been at the core of education. But now as learning escapes the classroom walls, so do the associated ethical issues. Consider, for example, decisions about whether to link or whether to click. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Web Feels Fine to Me
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2015/08/10
Alan Levine says the web feels fine to him. He cits a pretty impressive list of doom and gloom predictions: " It’s lost. It’s dead. No the same folks say it’s not dead. We have to save it. It’s boring. It’s lost that loving feeling. It needs to be made fun again." And he writes, "I think they are looking at the wrong end of the web donkey. Does anyone not remember the Long Tail? All of the lamenting, hand wringing, crying to the moon is focused completely on the head of the curve. The bag of gold is in the tail." Good point. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. National Post View: Helping students, without burdening everyone else
Editorial, National Post, 2015/08/08

"There’s little doubt," write the editors of the National Post, "that students with some skin in the game — i.e., some financial stake in their own education — will be more apt to ensure they stay the course and complete their degrees." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teach yourself — or be poor
Joanne Jacobs, 2015/08/08

I basically never agree with either Tyler Cowan or Joanne Jacobs. But there's a core of truth in this message. Not the explicit threat of poverty, which should be unacceptable in a developed country (but which is fair retribution according to these two authors, which makes them detestable). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Drawing Energy: Exploring perceptions of the invisible
Flora Bowden, Dan Lockton, Rama Gheerawo, Clare Brass, 2015/08/08
So good. "The drawings clearly show diverse interpretations of energy and most are vastly different from the ways in which energy is regularly communicated by energy companies through the media and the energy infrastructure. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How to do a learning (r)evolution: perspective from Finland
Teemu Leinonen, 2015/08/08

Education has to do more than adapt to change, write the authors of the SITRA’s New Education Forum (20 page PDF). We insist that education must not settle for adapting to change, but also act as a driver. More...