By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web.Open education and the Unenlightenment
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, 2016/09/23
"This desire for knowledge, the very belief that acquiring knowledge was a worthwhile pursuit, underpinned much of cultural development through to the 20th century. And although it started out as a privileged pursuit, the basic premise, which we can summarise as 'knowing stuff is good'... " writes Martin Weller. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Choral Explanations and OER: A Summary of Thinking to Date
Michael Caulfield, Hapgood, 2016/09/16
I missed this when it came out in July but happily quality bubbles to the surface more than once. This is a terrific article from Michael Caulfield on the topic of 'choral explanations'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What is Open Learning Analytics?
Mohamed Amine Chatti, Mohamed Amine Chatti's ongoing research on Knowledge, Learning, 2016/09/16

This is a short post that could benefit from much more detail. After describing various aspects of open learning (open practice, open access, open standards, open participation, etc.) the author says "the concept of open learning analytics covers all the aspects of ”openness” outlined above. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Virtue Epistemologist
Richard Marshall, 3:AM, 2016/09/16
Longish interview with the philosopher Ernest Sosa, well known for his work in epistemology (that is, the philosophy of knowledge). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How Visually Intelligent Are You? Take Amy Herman’s Perception Test
Amy Herman, 2016/09/14
I don't usually link to Big Think because the articles are generally plugs for books, and the books (of course) are not open access and so I can't read them (because I have nowhere near the budget it would take). The same is the case with this post. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. New York cracks down on toymakers tracking children online
Michael Virtanen, Christian Science Monitor, 2016/09/14
The challenge of private investment in education is that companies see children primarily as potential markets and they seek to maximize that even if it's against the law. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Discover the APIs
Microsoft Cognitive Services, 2016/09/14

This is just one of several services available form various companies around the web, but I'm linking to it because it's illustrative. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. ALT2016 Presentation – EdShare & OER Discoverability
Kelly Terrell, 2016/09/14
Kelly Terrell shares her Alt-C presentation, which took place last week in Britain, and in so doing shares the "latest information on my work with the open source OER repository platform 'EdShare' as well as some of the key findings from my MSc thesis "Discoverability Strategies for Open Educational Resources". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Overselling of Open
Jim Groom, bavatuesdays, 2016/09/14
Jim Groom revisits a post from Michael Caulfield and points to "that first sentence 'but institutions, they are what make these things last” that I deeply question." He asks, "who, when all was said and done, saved more than a decade of web history in the form of Geocities from deletion at the hands of Yahoo! in 2010? Was it other corporations? Higher ed? The government. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google’s creepy Allo assistant and our rocky relationship so far
Paul Bradshaw, Online Journalism Blog, 2016/09/26
I actually admire Google's efforts to make Allo work. Allo has a greater range than Siri, even if it does listen in to your conversations and act like a friend that's trying too hard to be liked. Eventually we'll all use an assistant like this, but they'll have to work out some of the glitches and get past the 'creepiness' factor. More...