By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Civics Teacher Who Turned His Arrest Into A Classroom Lesson
Erika Beras, NPR, 2015/05/08

I have in the past said that "to teach is to model and demonstrate." The aspect of being a role model cannot be underestimated. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Berkeley to Stop Adding Lecture Videos to YouTube, Citing Budget Cuts
Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education | Wired Campus, 2015/05/08
I think the headline should read "Berkeley is seeking a $300K donation". That's what it will save by cutting its long-running program of posting lectures to YouTube. I think it's interesting that most of the cost involved had nothing to do with actually posting the lectures. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. More for-profit colleges to resign the game
Bryan Alexander, 2015/05/11

The for-profit college market continues to slump with reports of additional closures this week. Bryan Alexander summarizes the reaction: "PBS wonders if we’re seeing a massive for-profit post-secondary “slump“. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Knowledge is Not a Tree
overeducated_alligator, Metafilter, 2015/05/07

Short post from Metafilter illustrating how we're advancing conceptually: "Piggydb and Oinker.me: Non-hierarchical information tools from Japanese designer Daisuke Morita. Piggydb is a Java-based open-source personal knowledge manager, similar to a wiki. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. LPSS White Paper
Various authors, National Research Council, 2015/05/07

They're not available on the NRC web site yet but I can share our first LPSS white papers (English, French) describing our system under development in more comprehensive terms in an accessible format. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Path to the Future: Creating Accountability for Personalized Learning
Anne Hyslop, Sara Mead, Bellweather, 2015/05/07
This reflects our experience developing a personal learning environment: "as personalized learning models become more widespread, practitioners are increasingly encountering tensions between personalized learning and state and federal accountability structures." 49 page PDF. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. LMS Is The Minivan of Education (and other thoughts from #LILI15)
Phil Hill, e-Literate, 2015/05/07

I get the analogy. But it's wrong. Phil Hill explains his thinking: "Everyone has them and needs them, but there’s a certain shame having one in the driveway." Well, OK. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Word David Brooks Dare Not Speak
John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, 2015/05/06
This article is useful for exposing, as the author says, the Rosetta Stone of David Brooks's account of character. "We first have an admission that indeed, capitalism is not without flaw, though in classic Brooks dialectic, the problem is not structural, but individual, moral." Whys. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Canada is a Hot Spot for Creative and Imaginative Developments in Online Learning
Unattributed, Contact North, 2015/05/06
As the author says, "Canada is a hot spot for creative and imaginative developments in online learning and open educational resources (OER)." There's a list of names, far from comprehensive - I could easily double it with equally significant contributions. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Hague Declaration
Various authors, Website, 2015/05/06

I've only signed one of these declarations that have come out over the years, and that was the Cluetrain Manifesto, which really did seem to me to represent a new way of looking at the world. Generally, though, the manifestos are too narrow and too parochial to allow me to sign. Such, it seems to me, is the case heret. More...