By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 4 Reasons You Don’t Have an E-Learning Portfolio
Nicole Legault, Flirting W/ Elearning, 2015/03/05
Interesting perspective on why people don't have or use e-learning technology like e-learning portfolios. So why wouldn't you post your best work online? Here are the four reasons:

• You're too busy
• You don't have any experience
• You don't have any e-learning software
• You signed an NDA. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Journal of Online Learning Research
2015/03/04
The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)  has published the premiere issue of an open journal called the Journal of Online Learning Research (JOLR), "a peer-reviewed, international journal devoted to the theoretical, empirical, and pragmatic understanding of technologies and their impact on primary and secondary pedagogy and policy in primary and secondary (K-12) online and blended environments." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The troubling psychology behind how we decide who’s a scientific “expert” — and who isn’t
Chris Mooney, Washington Post, 2015/03/04
The trouble with experts, according to this article, is that they're unreliable (and our choice of who counts as an expert is unreliable as well). So we should let the wisdom of crowds prevail. Real scientific knowledge is emergent knowledge. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Disruptive Innovation in Universities
Stephen Downes, Mar 04, 2015, 4th International Conference e-Learning and Distance Education, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Panel discussion on the nature of disruptive innovations, MOOCs and disruptive innovation, and how and whether universities should adapt. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Design Elements in a Personal Learning Environment
Stephen Downes, Mar 04, 2015, 4th International Conference e-Learning and Distance Education, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

In this talk I address the core design elements in the development of a personal learning architecture being developed in the National Research Council's Learning and Performance Support Systems program. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. If You Love Something, Set It Free
Tim Sweeney, Unreal, 2015/03/03

The 'Unreal Engine' is a gaming system that has been available by subscription for some time, but as the headline suggests, it has now been made available for free. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Book of Life
Various authors, 2015/03/02

Another find from Doug Belshaw is this absolutely fascinating Book of Life. It's organized into Capitalism, Work, Relationships, and Self, each one with a number of subtopics. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What Necessary Adult Skills Were You Never Taught Growing Up?
Eric Ravenscraft, LifeHacker, 2015/03/02

Doug Belshaw flags this article in LifeHacker asking people to comment on the life skills they never learned growing up. As one commenter says, "I just realized, this entire article boils down to 'give Lifehacker ideas for future articles'." But hey, why not? In any case, the comments section is filled with ideas for good life lessons. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Voodoo That MOOCs Do
Ryan Craig, Inside Higher Ed, 2015/03/02
When friends at the University of Alberta told me about their upcoming Dino 101 MOOC, I was enthusiastic. "It's going to draw a million people," I said. It went on to draw considerably fewer, still a success, but nothing like what it could have been. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Silicon Valley likes to promise ‘digital socialism’ – but it is selling a fairytale
Evgeny Morozov, The Guardian, 2015/03/02
One of the things I've learned over the years is to resist letting positions I hold be defined by their opponents. One of those positions happens to be socialism, and while it is true it has evolved over the years, it nonetheless resembles nothing like what is discussed by Evgeny Morozov in this column for the Guardian, or by Kevin Kelly in the 2009 article Morozov is responding to. More...