By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A bug in fMRI software could invalidate 15 years of brain research
Bec Crew, Science Alert, 2016/07/08

I haven't reported on fMRI research here over the years nog because I magically knew that it was flawed - obviously I didn't - but because I don't trust it. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 10 Steps to a Blended Learning Classroom
Miguel Guhlin, Around the Corner, 2016/07/08

I don't really cover blended learning but I found this article quite useful from the perspective of understanding what's happening in the world of education according to Microsoft (Google and Apple also have similar programs). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Sequential requirements
Matthias Melcher, x28’s new Blog, 2016/07/08
Discussion of some of my recent comments on whether a neural network needs domain knowledge in order to learn. As Matthias Melcher suggests, many artificial neural networks will have the benefit of training by human experts. But what of human neural networks? And how does this play into the idea that learning is sequential. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Don’t Teach Grit. Embed It.
Michael B. Horn, Education Next, 2016/07/20

Ah, this post takes me back to the days of correcting student writing. Commentary requires clarity of thought, which is revealed only in clarity of expression. This piece displays neither, and serves as a good example of the standard to which pundits and academics alike ought to be held. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Khanty-Mansiysk Declaration
UNESCO, 2016/07/20
The The Khanty-Mansiysk Declaration Media and Information Literacy for Building Culture of Open Government (3 page PDF) has been released in English and Russian. It is the outcome of a recent conference on the topic, held in June, and asserts the importance of related competencies such as "reliable information access and retrieval; information assessment and utilization; information and knowledge creation and preservation; and information sharing and exchange using various channels, formats and platforms." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Digital Device Choices Could Impact Common-Core Test Results, Studies Finding
Benjamin Herold, Education Week, 2016/07/20
I'm not sure what to make of this except to agree that "much remains uncertain". The suggestion is that "some test questions are likely harder to answer on tablets than on laptop and desktop computers." I expect that if they included pen and pencil answers in the survey they'd find more of the same sort of result. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Hunting for Good WIL: Put quality before quantity
Harvey P. Weingarten, Fiona Deller, Martin Hicks, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2016/07/20
Meetings on work integrated learning (WIL) are "are beginning to resemble discussions of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin," according to this article from HEQCO. "we need to refocus the WIL and EE conversation from counting to the far more fundamental question of why we are promoting these experiences in the first place," write the authors. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists
Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, Brian Resnick, Vox, 2016/07/18
These problems are nothing we haven't seen before, but this article makes a good case for each, plus some good discussion on proposed remedies (quoted):

• Academia has a huge money problem
• Too many studies are poorly designed. Blame bad incentives.
• Replicating results is crucial. But scientists rarely do it.
• Peer review is broken
• Too much science is locked behind paywalls
• Science is poorly communicated to the public
• Life as a young academic is incredibly stressful

Science, they say, is "ripe for disruption". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Positive, Negative or Neutral? Crucial Conversations on Digital Citizenship
George Couros, Connected Principals, 2016/07/18

Me: Have you been told not to do bad things online?
Student: Yes.
Me: How about good things?
Student: Never. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Does Our Social Contract for Education Need a Reboot?
Lindsey Tepe, Pacific Standard, 2016/07/22
The idea of the social contract was introduced by Thomas Hobbes in the 1600s as a means of justifying the continued rule of the monarchy. Without the stern rule of the monarch, he wrote, we would return to the state of nature where the lives of men were "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short." The myth of the social contract persists to this day, and is used for the same purpose. More...