By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 10 key facts about SAFE Network
SAFE, 2018/10/03
As I've been suggesting in recent months, the structure of the web is changing at the lowest levels. It's not clear how this will ll shake out yet. On the one hand we have HTTP/2 (criticized by some as "a protocol by Google for Google" - see this interview). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. What does the Top Tools for Learning 2018 list tell us about the future direction of L&D?
Jane Hart, 2018/10/03
I referenced Jane Hart's list of top e-learning tools yesterday and noted how few of the top results were actually e-learning tools. This post from Hart looks at her own views on what the list means. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Comparison of Social Learning Systems: Crochet Alongs and MOOCs
Shirley Williams, E.J. Highwood, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2018/10/03
This is a great paper that introduces us to a type of MOOC that is more like a MOOC than the MOOCs offered by most MOOC providers. The category is the 'Along', as in "Crochet Along', as in'crochet along with me'. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Intro to OER: A Wider Spectrum
Tom Woodward, Bionic Teaching, 2018/10/03
The bulk of this post is a revised outline of an introduction to open educational resources (OER) with a lot of links to sources and resources. This is prefaced with an explanation of that structure. "I try to work from the typical conception of OER towards what I feel like are less considered elements," writes Tom Woodward. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. CC submits proposed Amicus Brief to 9th Circuit on Proper Interpretation of BY-NC-SA 4.0
Diane Peters, Creative Commons Blog, 2018/10/02
I agree with the gist of the brief filed by Creative Commons which says a school should be able to hire a contractor to reproduce copies of an openly licensed non-commercial work. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Cognitive Science
Paul Thagard, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018/10/02
Paul Thagard, the author of this extensively revised encyclopedia article, is an authority in this field in his own right (he's another one of the people I studied during my PhD studies). This article is especially useful for people new to the field because of its breakdown, in section four, of nine 'theoretical approaches' to cognitive science. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Top Tools for Learning 2018
Jane Hart, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, 2018/10/02

What's interesting about this year's list is that none of the top tools are actually e-learning tools. They include YouTube, Google, PowerPoint, LinkedIn, Twitter, Zoom and the like. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Continuing Professional Development: Looking at Old Problems in New Ways
Stephen Downes, Oct 02, 2018, 10th National CPD Accreditation Conference, Mississauga, Ontario

Despite the widespread availability of learning technologies, many of the traditional problems of continuing professional development (CPD) remain with us today. These problems range from managing conflict of interest to identifying learner needs to improving and measuring learning and workplace outcomes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Liberal Radicalism: Formal Rules for a Society Neutral Among Communities
Zoë Hitzig, E. Glen Weyl, Vitalik Buterin, Social Science Research Network, 2018/10/01
This is an important paper for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the authors are deeply involved in blockchain technologies (Vitalik Buterin is the founder of Ethereum) and economics. The principle being advocated is a mechanism whereby members of a society 'vote' for public projects (including, presumably, education) by contributing to that project; the funding ultimately received is a function of that vote designed to maximize efficiency. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Seven Deadly Sins Of Digital Badging In Education
Troy Markowitz, Forbes, 2018/10/01
I've been considering the use of badges in my upcoming MOOC and so this article resonated with me. Some of the key things to avoid: making the issuing of badges a manual process (imagine having to click on a button 3,000 times (let alone fill out 3,000 forms)); don't require students to 'apply' for badges (because the data suggest that they won't); make badges usable (locating them inside an LMS is not 'usable'); and make sure they actually measure something meaningful (which make it doubly hard to issue them automatically; I won't issue a badge for passing a multiple-choice test). More...