By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web.There's no such thing as 'Formal Learning'
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, March 20, 2013
"There is no such thing as formal learning," writes nick shackleton-jones. "Don't mourn its passing - it never existed." The case is pretty good. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Twitter users forming tribes with own language, tweet analysis shows
Jason Rodrigues, The Guardian, March 16, 2013
I have read and written variously over the years about people using artifacts as words to create their own languae of discourse within a community, such as the community of geologists or the community of tax lawyers. This articl in te Guardian reinforces that idea, describing community-specific jargon that emerges in Twitter communities. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The MORU as Precursor to the MOOC
Darin Hayton, March 17, 2013
So, "MOOCs are all the rage right now," writes Darin Hayton. "Academics [are] generally upset or unimpressed and disruptors generally optimistic. What intrigues me is how familiar the kook-aid tastes." I have always tried to be clear that the phenomenon of mass education was well established before MOOCs, and therefore that what makes MOOCs different, at least the way we do them, isn't the massiveness, but the network structure, which permits both scaling and interactivity. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Learners Are People, Not Isolated Test-Taking Brains: Why MOOCs Both Work and Fail
Susan D. Blum, Huffington Post, March 17, 2013
Those readers who know my history know that I began online with MUDs a type on MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game). I saw in them what Nick Yee saw: "achievement, social, and immersion factors." Fast-forward some twenty years and here I am working on MOOCs, which for me are based on many of the same principles as MUDs. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Professors Who Make the MOOCs
Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 18, 2013
Survey of 103 people (probably most of them professors) who have designed and offered a MOOC. Interestingly, most of them who participated did so for altruistic reasons (which makes a mash of Coursera's business model) while a few - such as those who had written textbooks - did it to "protect their roost." Many of them see a positive outcome for MOOCs. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. It’s Not Just Reader: Google Kills Chrome RSS Add-On Too
Scott Gilbertson, WebMonkey, March 18, 2013
Those of you who were using Chrome because it was new and cool - well, you may want to rethink. "The company has also killed off its RSS extension for Chrome, and marked a longstanding bug requestingthat the extension become a native part of Chrome as 'Won’t Fix.' Add it all up and it certainly looks like Google wants to not just shut down an unprofitable service, but to kill off its support for RSS entirely." Why would this be, you might ask. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. RIP Google Reader: Don’t Scream Who Moved My Cheese, Pivot Your Reading
Beth Kanter, Beth's Blog, March 18, 2013
A lot of people have been expressing this sentiment over the last few days - Google Reader is over, it was a nice free service while it lasted, but it's done, so let's move on. Which is fair enough and quite right: non of us had any right to expect Google Reader to continue forever. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. French scholars say ‘oui’ to open access
Paul Jump, Times Higher Education, March 28, 2013
The Times Higher Education reports "Sixty senior figures from the humanities and social sciences in France have published a statement in national newspaper Le Monde in support of open access." It adds that the statement Who Is Afraid of Open Access? has received more than 2,000 endorsements from individuals and (mostly) organizations. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. POERUP elevator pitch: 26 countries in 26 minutes
Paul Bacsich, Slideshare, March 28, 2013
Interesting presentation surveying 26 open educational resource (OER) initiatives in 26 countries, including Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle East Gulf region (conspicuously missing are reports from South America, India and China). More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MOOC Manifesto
Conecta13, March 28, 2013
This 'MOOC manifesto' came to me via Twitter and while I am sympathetic with the intent, the manifesto is almost point for point opposed to my own view of MOOCs. "In every teaching design," it begins falsely, "the learner is the centre." And then, "MOOCs must be an element within the digital strategy of an institution," and "Institutions may consider MOOCs basically as a branding instrument," and "Institutions may need to consider the prerequisites to enter a MOOC" seem to place MOOCs well within the institutional context, which is probably (in the longer run) not where they belong. More...
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