By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Education Should Step Away from Apple Devices
Anthony Carabache, Authentic 21st Century Teaching & Learning, 2014/12/26
This is a conclusion I have already reached and is behind my decision to ditch my MacBook Pro, my iPod, and the horde of other knickknacks that go with an Apple purchase (because the spending on these things never ends). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 'If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It': Not True
Liz Ryan, Forbes, 2014/12/26
Of course the sentiment expressed in the title has always been false. It is even somewhat surprising how many people act as though it were true. One thing I like about this article is how easily it transfers to education. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. I Will Not Post This
Dave Pell, Life, Philosophy, 2014/12/26
Subtitled "the coming age of self-censorship" this article discusses the way the internet critics pile on when you tweet or write something inappropriate - or, as in the case of Donald Sterling, get recorded tirading through a racist rant. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Outside the Skinner Box
Gary Stager, Independent School Magazine, 2014/12/26
Gary Stager reprises his restatement of Seymour Papert's educational philosophy in this article touting learning by creating and by programming. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The moos you can moo
Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2014/12/26
This article looks at news reports that anthropomorphize elements of scientific reports and, as a consequence, misrepresent their conclusions. In this case, scientists examine how cows use distinctive calls to communicate with offspring. More...
By Audrey Watters. MOOCs and UnMOOCs*
“Where Ebola Has Closed Schools, A Radio Program Provides A Faint Signal Of Hope” by NPR’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton.
From Daniel Lemire: “MOOCs are closed platforms… and probably doomed.”
* I am hoping that I can retire this category in 2015. More...
By Audrey Watters. As part of his graduate work, B. F. Skinner invented what’s now known as “the Skinner Box.” His “operant conditioning chamber” was used to study and to train animals to perform certain tasks. Do the task correctly; get a reward (namely food).
Skinner was hardly the first to use animals in psychological experiments that sought to understand how the learning process works. More...
By Audrey Watters. As part of my work as an education writer, I research a number of topics in-depth. Below, you'll find links to various projects - past and present.
I am available for paid research projects. (Email me for more information.) Or, alternately, you can fund my research through a donation.
Ongoing Projects
Teaching Machines: My forthcoming book on the cultural history of ed-tech and the long-running drive to automate teaching and learning.
Ed-Tech Trends: My annual review of the 10 most significant trends in education technology.
Ed-Tech Funding: An open data initiative to track education technology companies that receive angel and venture capital investment.
Ed-Tech Guide: What should educators and technologists know about ed-tech. More...
By Audrey Watters. Here is the transcript of my talk tonight at Pepperdine University. Many thanks to Linda Polin for inviting me to speak to her students.
When people ask me how I ended up becoming an education technology writer, I’m never quite sure how to answer. I don’t have a degree in “education” or “technology” or even “writing.” I sometimes joke that I took an aptitude test in junior high that gave me one career option — freelance writer — a result that, truth be told, caused me to panic a bit and dismiss the idea altogether. More...
By Audrey Watters. Here are the notes and the slides from my talk today with Justin Reich's HGSE class "The Future of Learning at Scale." Between the jetlag (I got home from England late last night) and the fact that I've got way more to say about teaching machines than can fit into a 20 minutes talk, I'm not sure I was super coherent. But the students had great questions at the end (I've storified some of their tweets). More...
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