By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 2 Universities Turn to the Cloud for Their LMS
Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology, 2015/10/15

My first experience with Blackboard many years ago involved writing a complete ethics course on the hosted platform. The ethics course is long since lost, sadly. And Blackboard became an application universities installed on their own servers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Writing for Visual Thinkers: Narrative Structures
Andrea Marks, Graphics, 2015/10/15

I'm including this item just to tweak the learning-styles-sceptics out there. This item has nothing to do with learning styles per se but the appeal to 'visual thinkers' comes straight from the same theory. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. (Digital) Identity in a World that No Longer Forgets
Alec Couros, Open Thinking, 2015/10/15

I've been reading a lot (as has everyone else) about how politicians and others with "past transgressions dragged into the spotlight for the purposes of public judgement and shaming." On the one hand, I'm a little ssympathetic. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MacArthur Foundation Launches $25 Million Nonprofit to Inherit Education Projects
Tony Wan, EdSurge, 2015/10/14

The list of projects emcompassed by the foundation's new 'non-profit' is interesting. The first project inherits work from the 'Cities of Learning' project. LRNG  “is creating a 21st century ecosystem of learning that combines in-school, out-of-school, work-based, and online learning opportunities that are visible and accessible to all.” More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. US Department of Education Opens Financial Aid to Students in ‘Bootcamps’ and Non-Institutional Programs
Tony Wan, EdSurge, 2015/10/14

The American government has announced a new program to connect alternative education initiatives such as MOOCs and EdCamps with traditional education providers. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Higher Ed Disruption in Context
Jonathan Blake Huer, EDUCAUSE Review, 2015/10/14

More on the disruption of higher education by technology. In this item Jonathan Blake Huer takes the position that disruptive technology definitely exists, but suggests that higher education may be uniquely resistant to it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Embracing Differentiation and Reclaiming Audacity: An Interview with James Hilton
James Hilton, EDUCAUSE Review, 2015/10/14

According to interviewee James Hilton, "We're going to see growing pressure on higher education to offer increasingly differentiated paths to education." Now it should be noted that this is different from the concept of differentiated instruction. This is about institutions finding unique roles or niches for themselves. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Crypto 2.0 and DAWCs: Dawn of Decentralized Autonomous Workers Councils.
Rob Myers, Humanity+, 2015/10/14

This is related to the case of Colony, which I posted about earlier this week. Colony is one instance of whaat this article calls 'decentralized autonomous workers councils'. More...