By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Future is Open
Various authors, Creative Commons, Jul 03, 2014
Creative Commons has released their annual report as a picture book. I'm not sure what to think of that. Sure, there's text, but the presentation is mostly visual. The main highlight is the release of version 4.0 of the licenses - we are told they are "global licenses" that don't need to be adapted to each jurisdiction. More...
Jobs Charted by State and Salary
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Jobs Charted by State and Salary
Nathan Yau, Flowing Data, Jul 03, 2014
Interesting presentation, sadly using U.S. data only, of every major job category, the size of the population employed in it, and the average salary. What I find noteworthy is that the slider only needs to move between $20K to $180K. More...
Demoting Social Silos to Syndication Endpoints
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Demoting Social Silos to Syndication Endpoints
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, Jul 03, 2014
David Wiley discovers Known and the result is magical. "Known is a publication platform that uses the “POSSE” publication model, where POSSE stands for “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere”. More...
EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. EU's right to be forgotten: Guardian articles have been hidden by Google
James Ball, The Guardian, Jul 03, 2014
I'm sympathetic with both sides here. As "the result of a European court ruling that individuals had the right to remove material about themselves from search engine results," the Guardian newspaper reports that various stories about people it covers have been removed from search engine results. More...
Building Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for Academia and Industry, Onlea promotes economic diversity in Alberta
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Building Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for Academia and Industry, Onlea promotes economic diversity in Alberta
Jim Armstrong, TEC Edmonton, Jul 02, 2014
My longtime colleague Jennifer Chesney has joined up with two others at the University of Alberta to launch "a not-for-profit spin-off from the University of Alberta producing flexible, mobile-friendly, interactive learning courses, educational experiences, and assessment solutions that can be distributed across the wide variety of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms". More...
Facebook psychology experiment raises ire
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Facebook psychology experiment raises ire
Staff, Globe, Mail, Jul 02, 2014
There has been quite a bit of negative reaction to the revelation that Facebook has been experimenting on its users (this, of course, won't stop Facebook from experimenting like this, but it will stop them from publishing the results). Here's what you need to know, according to GigaOm, about the experiments. Here's Facebook's defense. Still, some people (including Audrey Watters) wand to de-Facebook. More...
The digital degree
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The digital degree
Unattributed, The Economist, Jul 01, 2014
If the Economist says something is good, I begin to worry. And so too with this article touting the destruction of the universities at the hands of the MOOC. More...
Microsoft joins key industry groups to deliver on promise of the Internet of Things
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Microsoft joins key industry groups to deliver on promise of the Internet of Things
Kevin Dallas, The Official Microsoft Blog, Jul 04, 2014
If you're not watching developments in this arena, you should be. How do we "get the benefit out of the more than 212 billion 'connected things' IDC predicted we’ll see by the end of 2020?" The time is now to think about (say) how things will help us learn and how we'll interact with them. More...
How to Create Your Own Illustrated Characters in PowerPoint
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How to Create Your Own Illustrated Characters in PowerPoint
Tom, The Rapid eLearning Blog, Jul 04, 2014
I wonder what the 'completion rate' is for this bit of learning. Does it even matter? It help my attention right to the end, and I think I might try creating animated characters using PowerPoint some time in the future. More...
Rhizomatic Learning – a somewhat curious introduction
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Rhizomatic Learning – a somewhat curious introduction
Dave Cormier, Dave’s Educational Blog, 2018/12/28
This is an introduction from Dave Cormier on Rhizomatic Learning. It's mostly a history of the development of the concept from his perspective. More...