By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Strength in numbers
John De Jong, Pearson, 2014/12/23
So what's the link between Pearson and the PISA assessments? I don't know either, but after reading this odd post I begin to suspect there is one. Why is it odd? Well, first, it conflates the emergence of the World Wide Web with a political campaign, saying (erroneously) that they both "show the power of a shared ambition and a collective approach." More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Real talk
Vyvyan Evans, Aeon, 2014/12/23
"For decades," begins this article, "the idea of a language instinct has dominated linguistics. It is simple, powerful and completely wrong." There is no language instinct - yes, we have the capacity to learn a language, but what`s key here is that language is something that is learned, and not the basis for learning. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The conundrum of creating an open course in a closed site – Storyboard OOC update
Gabi Witthaus, Art of e-learning, 2014/12/23
So this, I think, is the opposite of a MOOC: "We chose to use a platform that requires people to have accounts and sign in, in order to be able to set up and manage the groups effectively." Ironically the letter they choose to drop MOOC is not 'O' for 'Open' but 'M' for 'Massive'. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Article at the Open Badges in Education workshop
Hans Põldoja, hanspoldoja.net, 2014/12/24
Post linking to an article on the use of open badges in education. Covers badges briefly and most notably, identifies the following use patterns (quoted from the post):
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How to Write a Resume That Stands Out
Amy Gallo, Harvard Business Review, 2014/12/25
Yes I know, there's a million of these articles out there already. But this is short, clear, and really good. It made me rethink how I wrote my own c.v. (you get to call a resumé a c.v. is you're looking for an academic position). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MOOCs are closed platforms… and probably doomed
Daniel Lemire, 2014/12/25
"Do not be fooled by how savvy MOOC advocates sound," cautions Daniel Lemire. "They do not understand what they are doing." He doesn't me me, of course. "The actual MOOCs that colleges publish are closed platforms, as per Wikipedia’s definition," he writes. Interestingly, you can walk into any university classroom and sit in on a lecture, and nobody will care (if they notice at all). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. If you were to Start a School from Scratch….
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, LangWiches, 2014/12/25
I've actually thought about this question quite a bit. New Brunswick has legislation that makes it comparatively easy to start colleges and even universities, so I've idly scoped out all the buildings in the city, pondering amenities and sitelines, and thinking about the possibilities. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Five Reasons the Conversations Have Moved from Twitter to Voxer
John Spencer, 2014/12/25
I don't know whether Voxer will replace existing social networks, but John Spencer's five reasons were enough to convince me to pay the $2.99 a month (quoted from his post):
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 10 Trends to Personalize Learning in 2015
Barbara Bray, Personalize Learning, 2014/12/25
There are some interesting thoughts in this post. The ten trends are divided into four quadrants: learning culture, learning environments, partnerships, and deeper learning. This allows Barbara Bray to look beyond technology and think about things like belief systems, competencies, advisories, project-based learning and assessment as learning. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Can a Child’s Creativity and Persistence be Assessed by a Game?
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 2014/12/26
A 'stealth assessment' is "seamless and ubiquitous, providing important feedback to the student and creating a model of the learner that can help teachers tap the individual needs of each student." Consider, for example, the Physics Playground, where the laws of physics act as a pervasive force in the background, silently determining whether the scenario has been correctly constructed. More...
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