By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. US Mooc platforms’ openness questioned
Chris Parr, Times Higher Education, April 4, 2013
The Times Higher Education supplement is now asking the questions we've all been asking. Patrick McAndrew, professor of open education at The Open University, praised the work of platforms such as Peer to Peer University and the OpenCourseWare Consortium for 'really being careful to do everything in a way that truly meets criteria of open'. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Rate Rule, MOOCs drool
Mike Caulfield, April 4, 2013
Mike Caulfield picks up on the new terminology I've been hearing over the last few days: "The 'wrapped MOOC' has gained attention over the past year as a way to integrate MOOCs into traditional education. ... in practice most educators are not 'wrapping' the cohort experience, but are instead using the MOOC as robust OER." yes, from what I've been hearing, people are using the term 'MOOC' interchangeably with 'online course materialks'. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learning and the Massive Open Online Course
Stephen Downes, April 4, 2013.
Notes from ELI Online Spring Focus Session,
April 3-4, 2013
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Online Courses or Long Form Journalism? Communicating How the World Works…
Tony Hirst, OUseful Info, April 4, 2013
This is an interesting thought: "wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody put together a Coursera course on Bitcoin, covering whole range: crypto, ops, economics, politics?" The idea, as Tony Hirst correctly summarizes, is that an online course, or even a MOOC, could be offered instead of a long-from news article on a topic of economic or political importance. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Hidden Biases in Big Data
Kate Crawford, Harvard Business Review Blogs, April 1, 2013
Norwood Russell Hanson authored one of the most significant attacks on traditional empiricism with ther argument that all data is 'theory-laden', that is, that what counts as data depends on how we interpret what we perceive. The figures in the image above, for example, may resemble antelopes, but in a different context, the same figures may be interpreted as pelicans. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. You didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral—corporations did
Kevin Ashton, Quartz, April 1, 2013
You are probably aware of the Harlem Shake, which I was told the other day has replaced Gangnam Style (and to which I responded "no-o-o-o..."). We are supposed to believe it's a grassroots meme (and not a product of the K-Pop industry, etc). But according to this article, it's manufactured hype. And they make a good case. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Cetis 2013 Keynote - Digital Citizenship: Underpinning Open Education
Josie Fraser, SocialTech, April 1, 2013
Keynote from the recent zombie!Cetis "on digital literacy and in particular, digital citizenship, as critical agendas in terms of supporting access and protecting gains in open education, and enabling participation in society." Speaker Josie Fraser addresses the question of how we ensure people are best able to take advantage of all that the internet and web web offer. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Rockefeller University Press: CC-BY is not essential for Open Access
Richard Poynder, April 1, 2013
I've been arguing this for years and won't belabour it here. But I will quote Richard Poynder: "CC-BY is not essential for OA, or even for text and data mining, and will alienate some of OA’s friends. So why insist on it?" Yes, this aligns me with some commercial publishers such as Mike Rossne who would much rather publish open content under an NC (non-commercial) license. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thoughts on To Save Everything, Click Here (and Higher Education)
Michael Caulfield, Hapgood, April 1, 2013
A couple good reviews of Evgeny Morozov's To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, one from Mike Caulfield, the other from Audrey Watters. I don't have a whole lot to add, except to insist that I'm not a solutionist, that it is reasonable to aergue that the education system (amonbg other things) is broken, and to point to evidence that it is, without at the same time arguing tha 'tech will save everything. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Break a Few Eggs - Stepping Away from Google
Miguel Guhlin, Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org, April 3, 2013
Miguel Guhlin reviews what he would have to part with to eliminate his dependence on Google. He depends on the search-engine giant a lot more than I do (I tend not to rely on one provider). I don't really use GMail at all (because if I did, all notifications would by default be sent to GMail, which I don't want). Nor do I use Picassa. More...
/https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
