MOOCs, Trust, and the Signature Track
Jade E. Davis, The Chronicle: #FutureEd, February 8, 2014
Courser's signature track offers a way for students to verify their identity by taking a photo of themselves and displaying their government-issued ID on camera. Face-recognition technology matches the images. Thegovernment-issued ID information, we are told, is deleted (if you believe that, please look up 'Snowden' on Google). More...
Do you know networks? on leaving the Garden of Eden
Bonnie Stewart, The theoryblog, February 10, 2014
It reads a lot like a TED talk (complete with a "here's the thing" expression near the end, pointing to a conclusion which isn't the main point of the post at all (but would make the people in the audience all feel comfortable ("Maybe it was the best we could do"))) but it has a good point right in the middle. More...
Crowd-Frauding: Why the Internet is Fake
Eric Hellman, Go To Hellman, February 10, 2014
The message for me in this - beyond the obvious, which is that you should take any claims about web traffic with a grain of salt - is that models built on mass will tend to fail over the long run. The reason is described in this post. More...
Thoughts on power discrepancy in #MOOC #eMOOCs2014
Inge de Waard, Ignatia Webs, February 10, 2014
Inge de Waard is having "dark thoughts during a really nice conference." Why? "the video recording studio that Jermann talked about, if the content production is supported by such a big HR team, little universities/non-profits… cannot beat their content creation. Content creation is a content avalanche coming from those institutes that can produce, and those who cannot." The big always overwhelms the little, she says; why shouldn't we expect it in MOOCs. More...
A Personal Learning Framework
Stephen Downes, February 10, 2014, Connecting Online for Instruction and Learning 2014, Online, via EizIQ
In this talk I review two major threads of our work at NRC over the last few years, MOOCs and Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). I describe the gRSShopper project and our Plearn PLE prototype development. Placing these in the context of a network theory of learning, I then outline the new Learning and Performance Support System (LPSS) program being undertaken at NRC. More...
LRMI, Open badges and alignment objects
Phil Barker, CETIS Blog, April 3, 2014
This is interesting. After a talk on the Mozilla Open Badges community call Phil Barker notes that their (Mozilla's) "assertion specification, which includes a pointer from each badge to 'the educational standards this badge aligns to, if any' ... parallels the LRMI alignment object very closely." This naturally leads to the suggestion that the two systems can be, and ought to be, more explicitly aligned. More...
Un cours en ligne ouvert et massif portant sur les Ressources Éducatives Libres
Robert Gregoire, YouTube, February 6, 2014
Vraiment bien fait, Robert. "Une initiative de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, réalisée par l'Université de Moncton (NB, Canada) et le Conseil national de recherches Canada. Chef de projet: Stephen Downes (CNRC). Une présentation de Robert Grégoire au Forum ministériel africain sur l'intégration des TIC dans l'Éducation et la Formation. More...
Innovation, Access, and Open Education: The Business & Policy Case for OER
Jason Rhode, February 6, 2014
From Jason Rhode: "UPCEA has made freely available the recording of Cable Green’s general session presentation titled, 'Innovation, Access, and Open Education: The Business & Policy Case for OER' at the recent Summit for Online Leadership and Strategy. While the slides are available here, the recording is now available here." I hasten to add that the business and policy case is only one dimension of the argument in favour of OERs. More...
When the Times Higher Education Rankings Fail The Fall-Down-Laughing Test
Alex Usher, Higher Education Strategy Associates, February 6, 2014
I'm sympathetic with the "fall down laughing test" and I share the author's scepticism about the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings. But at a certain point the argument stretches the point too far. Alex usher suggests that the THE's assertion that "the THE is saying that places like the University of Ireland, Maynooth, the University of Tasmania, and King Abdulaziz University are more international than Harvard, Yale, and Stanford" is laugably silly. More...
Questions about rhizomatic learning
Jenny Mackness, February 6, 2014
At a certain point, perfectly good theories become nonsense. This may be that point. I am sympathetic with the list of questions Jenny Mackness poses to Keith Hamon about rhizomatic learning (a concept I'm increasingly questioning). More...
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