By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Will an EU privacy proposal lead to a more trustworthy or annoying internet?
Ben Rosen, Christian Science Monitor, 2017/01/11µ
Proposed legislation from the European Commission "would require companies to get the consent of users before accessing their digital information." In particular, the law would require web browsers, on installation, to ask users whether they want to allow websites to place cookies on their browser." This seems pretty minor, but the article predicts dire consequences. More...
Directory of Vendors of Online Learning Products and Services
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Directory of Vendors of Online Learning Products and Services
Don McIntosh, TeachOnline.ca, 2017/01/11
This is a "searchable directory of over 2,500 vendors of online learning products and services worldwide... They are part of a the fast growing ed-tech (educational technology) industry with over 8 billion dollars in annual sales of hardware and software with no sign of a slowdown." More...
We’re Thinking About Organizational Culture All Wrong
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. We’re Thinking About Organizational Culture All Wrong
John Traphagan, Harvard Business Review, 2017/01/11
These points apply not only to organizational culture, but to culture in general. More...
Why donate to Downes.ca
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I have maintained OLDaily and the rest of this website at my own expense since 2001. It is not subsidized by my employer or anyone else. I've always been happy to do it, but I need your help.This site gets a lot of traffic - 400K unique viewers and almost a million page views in 2016. 2290.70 gigabytes of traffic. On average, it has cost $125 a month for the last ten years (currently, it's $US 140, or almost $200 Canadian, per month).
Thank you to everyone who helped last year. I raised just over $3000, which paid for the server and the traffic. I am committed to keeping all my services and resources free, and will not add a subscription to any part of my website, ever. That's a promise. So if you help me provide this service, I'd be happy to recognize your contribution, as thanks. More...
Talk
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Talk
Various authors, The Coral Project, 2017/01/06
This is Talk, Mozilla's new open-source comment system. The link takes you to a working Alpha version. Be sure to explore the options in the left-hand menu to see the possibilities in the new system. More...
Norway to become 1st country to switch off FM radio
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Norway to become 1st country to switch off FM radio
Thomson Reuters, CBC News, 2017/01/06
OK, so there's dab, but there's also DAB, which is changing the face of radio. DAB stands for 'Digital Audio Broadcasting' and it's doing to radio what HD did for TV - switching from analog radio signals to video. It's controversial. More...
VRLearn: Virtual Reality and Learning
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. VRLearn: Virtual Reality and Learning
Bobby Carlton, Masie Center, 2017/01/06
Elliott Masie still understands branding as this 'VRLearn' report shows. Do yourself a favour, skip the user-hostile web presentation (unless you like simulated paper (complete with page-turning sounds)) and go straight to the 12-page PDF. More...
Creating cohorts: how to solve the online learning conundrum
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Creating cohorts: how to solve the online learning conundrum
Tim Sarchet, Personnel Today, 2017/01/02
One of the problems of online earning is that it can be a very solitary activity. More...
The Cognitive Science Behind Learning
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Cognitive Science Behind Learning
Clark Quinn, Chief Learning Officer, 2017/01/02
It's not clear who actually authored this article, but it reads like Clark Quinn, so I'll go with that. More...
Facebook’s Instant Articles: damned if you do, damned if you don’t
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Facebook’s Instant Articles: damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Enrique Dans, Medium, 2017/01/02
Maybe things work differently for major news media. Perhaps they still believe they need Facebook. From my perspective, when I stopped posting on Facebook at the end of last summer, my visits increased substantially. More...