By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Learning Machine, pecking pigeons and the Sending of Being
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2014/09/29
When people interact with each other, the social learning produced is not the replication of content from one mind to the next to the next. It's not even contained in any individual mind at all. Rather, society as a whole develops new learning. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A National Look at Student Data Privacy Legislation
Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education, 2014/09/25
This underscores the importance of data privacy in education: in the United States, "state policymakers introduced 110 bills on student data privacy in 36 states this session, with 30 of them passing both houses and 24 being signed into law, according to an analysis by the Data Quality Campaign.". More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014
Matt Saccaro, Salon, 2014/09/25
I don't know what's so shocking about this. Adjunct and sessional instructors have been abysmally underpaid since the days in the 1990s when I was caught up in that racket. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 16 reasons why this research will change how you look at news consumption
Paul Bradshaw, Onloine Journalism Blog, 2014/09/25
This is not a listicle (list-based article) even though the headline suggests it is. The '16' in the title refers to 16 different ways of using news media, and the report compares them across different dimensions: engagement, amount remembered, and the like. So we get suggestions like: "Reading is about depth; listening is barely remembered." Which may be true, but I still love the audio podcasts, because it's not about memory. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Shrinking Numbers, Changing Values
Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed, 2014/09/24
In this [post it becomes clear that the values represented by university ranking initiatives count against universities reaching out to recruit the poor and disenfranchised. Which (in my view) was exactly the purpose of these rankings in the first place: not to measure the quality of universities, but to skew them toward the values espoused by the rankers. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Task Force on Flexible Education publishes its interim report
Report, Simon Fraser University, 2014/09/24
I found this item after following an item noting that David Porter is leaving his position as Executive Director of BC Campus, a position he has held since 2003. He is also involved with the Task Force on Flexible Education at Simon Fraser University. That's the organization that released this interim report (25 page MS Word document). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Creepiest New Corner Of Instagram: Role-Playing With Stolen Baby Photos
Blake Miller, Fast Company, 2014/09/24
I'm, not so sure it's as creepy as Fast Company makes it out to be, because it's really nothing more than fantasy families, but it's noteworthy enough to mention here because of the obvious overlap that is possible with learning and technology. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The MOOC Misstep and the Open Education Infrastructure
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2014/09/23
Useful and interesting article by David Wiley saying some of the things that needed to be said without pulling any punches: "The horrific corruption perpetrated by the Udacity, Coursera, and other copycat MOOCs is to pretend that the last forty years never happened. Their modus operandi has been to copy and paste the 1969 idea of open entry into online courses in 2014." More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A shift toward efficacy
John Watson, Keeping Pace, 2014/09/23
Discussion of the Pearson report published in 2013 The Incomplete Guide to Delivering Learning Outcomes, which “outlines Pearson’s own efficacy programme and shares the company’s strategy and initiatives in its first phase.” I think 'efficacy' is a nice non-threatening way of saying 'outcomes' (it's like they have writers or something). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Our open Geography textbook is alive!
Clint Lalonde, ClintLalonde.net, 2014/09/22
In many ways, British Columbia is leading the way in Canada in the support of open content and open learning. Here we have the launch of a Creative Commons licensed geography textbook. More...
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