By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blogging is a Choral Act
2016/11/02

Bonnie Stewart: "Blogging is a choral act. Posts are commented on; ties are formed. Stories and backstories become known. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Extraction of Relevant Terms and Learning Outcomes from Online Courses
Isabel Guitart, Jordi Conesa, David Baneres, Joaquim Moré, Jordi Duran, David Gañan, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET), 2016/11/01

This approach is a natural, and something I would have liked to have seen in LPSS. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web.Micro-Barriers Loom Large for First-Generation Students
Eric Johnson, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2016/11/01
I can attest from personal experience that the microbarriers described in this article existed in my university days and exist in my life to this day. It's true, in my experience, that "a relatively tiny difference in culture can make a huge difference in access." There are numerous opaque systems and unwritten rule sets. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Top 10 Higher Ed IT Issues of 2017
Tanya Roscorla, ConVerge, 2016/11/01

There's a table comparing the top IT issues in higher ed over the last three years and this is probably the most interesting bit of the article. We see that IT security is the top issue for the second year in a row. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Rural Malawians About to Go Online
Charity Chimungu Phiri, Inter Press Service, 2016/11/01
My colleague from Assibiboine Community College, Dinah Ceplis, sent me this item describing the launch of rural internet access in Malawi. This is significant as Ceplis has spend the last two decades or so working in rural Africa supporting agriculture and distance education. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving
Bill LeFurgy, Library of Congress, 2016/11/01

I've been tending to my own archives lately and I echo this sentiment from this Library of Congress publication (79 page PDF): "One of the still unfolding impacts of the computer age is that everyone now must be their own digital archivist. Without some focused attention, any personal collection is at high risk of loss – and quick loss at that." Here are some resources to underline this important effort:

• Library of Congress Personal Archiving website
• Kit to hold your own PDA day event
• Columbia University Digital Humanities Center – PDA online resources
• Guide from Cornell University is based on the workshop Personal Digital Archiving
• Paradigm Project - guidelines for the creators of personal digital archives
• The Digital Beyond is a blog about your digital existence and what happens to it after your death -
• PDA Conference archives. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Deep Learning is Revolutionary
Oliver Cameron, Medium, 2016/11/03

Yes, this article is pretty superficial (and a "ten reasons" listicle) but if you haven't been looking at some of the things neural networks are doing you may want to take a look. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 3 Types of College Friendships That Matter For Student Success
Anya Kamenetz, NPR | Mind/Shift, 2016/11/03

Interesting summary of a new book from by Janice McCabe, a researcher at Dartmouth College, on the different types of networks students form in college or university. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Happy Beta Release Day, Omeka S!!
Sharon Leon, Omeka, 2016/11/03
Via Digital Humanities Now, "Omeka S is the next-generation, open source web-publishing platform that is fully integrated into the scholarly communications ecosystem and designed to serve the needs of medium to large institutional users who wish to launch, monitor, and upgrade many sites from a single installation." The source (PHP and Javascript) is available on GitHub. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teaching and Learning in a “Post-truth” World
Andrew Campbell, Canadian Education Association (CEA), 2016/11/03

The idea that we are living in a "post-truth world" has become fashionable. More...