By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The myths about Canada’s skills gap
Chris Sorensen, 2014/10/02
Reasonably coherent article about the skills shortage in Canada. Here's the first major data point: “There are increasing calls by employers for educators to do more job-ready training. But these calls have been increasing at the same time employers’ spending on training has been dropping.” Why would this be. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Employers Aren’t Just Whining – the “Skills Gap” Is Real
James Bessen, Harvard Business Review Blogs, 2014/08/27
"The idea of a 'skills gap' as identified in this and other surveys has been widely criticized," writes James Bessen, citing criticism from Peter Cappelli, Paul Krugman and the New York Times. "A worldwide scheme by thousands of business managers to manipulate public opinion seems far-fetched.," he says (naively). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Self-Regulation: The Other 21st Century Skills
Jackie Gerstein, User Generated Education, 2014/08/26
The whole character-building thing has been in vogue recently, what with people writing about "grit" and other aspects of successful learners (and people). There is some point to this - you will not become successful at anything (whether work, hobbies or even lifestyle) without putting the effort, which takes motivation and perseverence. But there's also an aspect of this movement whereby these are externally defined. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Dialogue and discussion: critical for 21st century skills development
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, Aug 05, 2014

According to Tony Bates, conversation is essential in learning as students (and people generally) struggle consciously to find meaning in the phenomena they experience, and this will change the structure on online learning in the future. More...