Connectivism and Connective Knowledge
Stephen Downes,
Stephen's Web, May 21, 2012.
I am very pleased to be able to announce the (self-) publication of my latest eBook, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. It is a collection of blog posts, essays and transcripts from my talks covering all major con tributions to the field I have made in the last eight years. It is posted here to give people a single source and common point... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:09pm
The Future of Education Is Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed
Michael Geist,
Weblog, May 21, 2012.
It's with no small irony I read Michael Geist writing about the revolution in education, citing examples like Stanford and MIT, and saying "there are serious doubts whether Canada is ready for these changes." And he says "no one seems ready to confront the emerging reality of competition from top tier schools from around the world offering online courses at low cost to Canadian students." He should not confuse Canada with Canadian institutions. Canada is the home of open access. And this country has contributed more than a little to open education. Don't be dazzled by big dollars at big name institutions. That's just the way they do things when they think they've... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 3:02pm
DIY learning: Schoolers, Edupunks, and Makers challenge education as we know it
Marie Bjerede,
O'Reilly Radar, May 21, 2012.
Another article depicting the rise of do-it-yourself education. The use of the term 'schoolers' is new. "Schoolers are applying new tools to traditional goals to crack open the case on the traditional schoolhouse. With laptops, tablets, and cell phones, students no longer wait to be spoon-fed information, but reach out beyond the walls of the classroom for images, information, and insights at the moment the question arises for them." I think it might be derived from the term 'home schoolers' - there was no obvious search result on Google. Maybe O'Reilly is going for a brand, like they did with web 2.0. Maybe they just want to avoid the irrelevant... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:48pm
bootlegMIC Is a Tiny But High Quality DIY Microphone
Jason Fitzpatrick,
How-to-Geek, May 21, 2012.
I'm not sure we'll ever enter an era where it's commonplace for people to just build their own gear - like this concert microphone you can just plug into your iPhone to record concerts without all that distortion - but we've definitely entered an era where you can. Another post from Ho-to-Geek, a useful publication I've been reading more of lately.
[ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 2:39pm
Microsoft silently launches So.cl, its attempt at a social networking site
Sean Ludwig,
VentureBeat, May 21, 2012.
So I spent a little time inside Microsoft's new so.cl social networking site - you can sign in with a Windows Live ID or a Facebook ID. It's an effort to combine search with social. It's not a bad first attempt - it has some interesting concepts, such as 'riffing' on a post, video parties, privatew search and more. It also suffers a bit from Microsoft Web... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, Yesterday, 11:55am
Scholarship and the 'Tyranny' of Openness
Jenny Mackness,
Jenny Connected, May 18, 2012.
Now I'm not sure how a course you don't have to take and can leave at any time could be called a "tyranny" but I'll deal with the question raised in this post head on: "Are we are attempting to impose our values (of openness, sharing, online learning as the future of education, etc) without a critical examination of what that means for practice and for individuals who are part of social organizations?" And the short answer is: no. For two reasons. First, nobody's imposing anything here; if you want to go back to your structured formal education, where you pay a substantial fee, there are thousands of institutions who would be happy to... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:47pm
And So It Begins…
David Wiley,
iterating toward openness, May 18, 2012.
As david Wiley reports Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is facing bankruptcy "as it faces a lagging textbook market due to drops in educational funding." And he asks, "Why are we surprised this bankruptcy is happening? Anyone who’ s been paying attention isn’ t. The shake up in educational publishing we’ ve long anticipated is beginning… and students will be the benefactors." Of course, one bankruptcy isn't a trend. But my thinking is with Wiley's. It's the beginning of the end for these guys.
[ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:41pm
S3 Storage for WordPress Blogs
Joe Brockmeier,
ReadWriteCloud, May 18, 2012.
I have been thinking of setting up a hosted version of gRSShopper but things like storage pose daunting challenges once you get into large numbers of sites. A solution like this, though, points to an innovative way of solving the problem. One one site, you provide access to the software - WordPress, an LMS, gRSShoppper, whatever. And the actual storage is handled by a service -... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:36pm
Ready or Not, Adaptive-Image Solution Is Now Part of HTML
Scott Gilbertson,
WebMonkey, May 18, 2012.
One of the (few) really neat things about OpenPublish on Drupal is the image system. Here, you upload an image once, and the system creates several versions of the image, which can be used by a device-aware system (which OpenPublish isn't) to put small images on small screens and bigger images on the large screens. As Webmonkey says, "web... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:33pm
Here's The TED Presentation About Rich People That TED Doesn't Want You To See
Grace Wyler,
Business Insider, May 18, 2012.
Normally people with these sorts of views would never be allowed near a TED stage. But a millionaire slipped through the cracks and as the National Journal reports, TED's Chris Anderson is refusing to publish a talk given on its stage by venture... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:28pm
OAuth is your future
Dan Hon,
Flickr, May 18, 2012.
OK, this doesn't exist, but it is imaginable that we could read something like this in the near future: "Klout is trialling a beta program with the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to provide fast-track entrepreneur visa entry to individuals with high Klout scores in specific areas." Now - I know the first reaction is to say how bad this is. But is it unreasonable for government to have as much... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 2:07pm
Justice Dept. defends public’s constitutional ‘right to record’ cops
Kim Zetter,
Ars Technica, May 18, 2012.
Via Metafilter: "In a surprising letter (PDF) sent on Monday to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department, the Justice Department also strongly asserted that officers... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 1:58pm
“I will never stop learning”
Harold Jarche,
Weblog, May 18, 2012.
The Automattic (WordPress) company creed is funny - it starts out really strong, weakens through the middle, and by the end relies on a tired old clich as though the author ran out od ideas even as he or she was typing it out. Also on the same page, some strong words from Lawrence Lessig: "We’ ve lost a decade of competitive innovation in ways to spur and spread content in ways that would ultimately benefit creators, because the dinosaurs owned the lobbyists."
[Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 1:54pm
Learning Networks
Stephen Downes,
Stephen's Web, May 18, 2012.
I somehow lost the first version of this eBook (and I think I might never have actually posted it online) but as all the individual papers will exist it was pretty easy to recreate in more or less its original form. Hence, reposted (possibly for the first time) an eBook containing the papers and talks leading to the development of the concept of learning networks in 2004. It's the latest addition to my eBooks page (and I'm in the final stages of a preparing a major new eBook for release possibly next week).
[Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 18, 1:50pm
Foundations of Strategy, Part 3: Technology
Margaret Andrews,
Inside Higher Ed, May 17, 2012.
If you're watching closely, what you're seeing is a concerted attack on the traditional university model, from thinly disguised advocacy journalism calling on the government to end student support to overt proposals for the Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 17, 11:16am
#fslt12 MOOC – Week zero – discussion has started
Jenny Mackness,
Jenny Connected, May 17, 2012.
The Change MOOC has come to an end, but if you need your weekly MOOC experience you may want to check out #fslt12 which has just started. "We have set up an Arrivals Lounge where people can introduce themselves. And there is also a... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 17, 11:09am
(lif)e-portfolio
Lee D. Ballantyne,
leelearning, May 17, 2012.
"I finally finished my research study," writes Lee D. Ballantyne. "This is a summary of the outcomes: a framework for e-portfolio implementation. Full pdf paper here. The result is a good 52-page study of the subject. "Fundamental to these ideas of digital identity and a personal... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 17, 11:05am
No One Reads Online
Linda Rening,
e-Learning Leadership Blog , May 17, 2012.
I supposed I should say something about the irony of a 960 word column expressing the proposition that nobody reads online, especially as I read through to the end of it (to make sure there wasn't some trick ending that would prove I hadn't read the piece - there wasn't). But the point is well-taken: "You read what you are interested in and, further, only when you are interested in... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 17, 6:31am
Online presence maintenance
Deleted Google Web Search History (https://www.google.com/history/). I've had a lot of the privacy features on for months, but why not start a new privacy policy with a clear slate?
Downloaded SRWare's Iron Browser, a browser based on the same code as Google's Chrome, but without Google's presence attached. So far, it's worked just like Chrome and will install Chrome plugins from the Chrome webstore. My only peeve is that the "import bookmark" feature wouldn't import from Chrome, which has been my main home browser for some time.
Debating what to do with Facebook Timeline. Do I just 'Get Timeline' and get it over with now? Do I go and reset all my past posts to higher privacy levels? What should I use as my 'cover' picture, something that can go with my current Online Librarian photo?
Liking the look of Timeline on the Read more...
Frequently Questioned Answers, May 17, 1:18am
Frequently Questioned Answers
As you've undoubtedly noticed (anyone who is still following my blog) I've not been posting much. I always said that this was an experiment in distance learning communication, and I think so much has changed that I need to change the parameters of my experiment. Or maybe that's scrapping the whole thing and starting new. Read more...
Frequently Questioned Answers, May 17, 1:18am
Love Letter to Plywood
Tom Sachs,
YouTube, May 16, 2012.
This short video, a tribute to plywood, is getting rave reviews. It's an educational video, but one that leaves one viewer "weeping in the building materials aisle at Home Depot." Me, I've spent a lot of time with plywood, and so I get that.
[ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 16, 2:45pm
Research Sidebar in Google Docs
Alex Chitu,
Google Operating System, May 16, 2012.
Microsoft recently introduced online research support in its office suite and Google has announced a similar service in its 'Research Sidebar'. This post from Google Operating System (not an official Google weblog) covers the basics. "The sidebar includes the top Google search results, image search results, facts, maps, reviews and famous quotes. Click the icon from the search box to restrict the results to images and quotes." My question is, do we really want pages and pages of 'hotel deals' listings in the sidebar of our Google documents?
[Link]... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 16, 2:37pm
Educational Technology and Education Conferences, June to December 2012
Clayton R. Wright,
Stephen's Web Document, May 16, 2012.
Clayton R. Wright has once again gifted the community with his massive listing of conferences. It can be downloaded here as an MS Word document. He writes, "The 27th version of the conference list provides over 1,000 events that may be of interest to educators. The rationale and format of the list is described (here). Readers are encouraged to cut and paste a selection of events for their colleagues. Through this... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 16, 2:30pm
How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit
Yoni Appelbaum,
The Atlantic, May 16, 2012.
Good story about T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past. The idea here is to engage students by having them create a fabricated hostory and attempt to fool a community with it. Their first attempt succeeded in planting a false Wikipedia article.... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 16, 10:30am
Advancing Culturally-Aware Information Technology: Intercultural Agents and Cultural Signposts
Elaine Raybourn,
ADL Newsletter, May 16, 2012.
Elaine Raybourn discusses early efforts to create a system that would place people in proximity according to their interests and activities. But in the development of such a system in ADL's Personal Assistant for Learning (PAL) she notes that such a system needs to be culturally aware and act as a mediating agent, 'introducing' people based on context (you may be interested in the U.S. procurement request for research on what are essentially... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 16, 10:03am
How to Keynote an Unconference
Michael Feldstein,
e-Literate, May 15, 2012.
When we tried it our unkeynote was less than a success. But to judge from comments after the event, says Michael Feldstein, his effort at an unkeynote went reasonable well. So what worked? "The point of an unkeynote should be to prime the conversational pump," he writes. But how? He considers some of the creativity exercises in Julia Cameron’ s book The Artist’ s Way. The idea is to have yourself (or your audience) create something, anything - a collage from a magazine, or a solution... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 2:10pm
Open Clip Art Gallery
Doug Peterson,
doug -- off the record, May 15, 2012.
"It always seems to me," says Doug Peterson, "that the 'perfect' piece of clipart is so elusive!" So the Open Clipart Gallery is probably not going to solve all your image issues, but based on the review here it looks like it would be a good addition to the Flickr Creative Commons search and (if you have the money) commercial image DVDs you may have purchased.
[ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 2:00pm
Edshelf: An Educational App Directory for Teachers
Audrey Watters,
Hack Education, May 15, 2012.
As Watters writes, "Edshelf hopes to become a go-to site where teachers can recommend to one another what’ s worked for them, and it’ s building a directory of educational materials that have been reviewed for educators by educators." In this Edshelf addresses the age-old problem attempted by learning objects, repositories, Dewey Decimal, and Good Housekeeping: how to find the good stuff in a sea of dross.... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 1:54pm
DIY U: Interview with Anya Kamenetz
Howard Rheingold,
DMLcentral, May 15, 2012.
Howard Rheingold searches for the new in Anya Kamenetz's Edupunk's Guide, suggesting that what has been added is the idea of the personal learning plan to the personal learning network. "Making a public commitment to something is going to increase your accountability," says... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 1:45pm
Empowerment and Expertise
David Wiley,
iterating toward openness, May 15, 2012.
I wrote about reducing our dependence on experts, David Wiley wondered what I meant, I responded, and David Wiley now mostly gets what I mean. Except for this: "There’ s a traveling-back-in-time-to-kill-your-own-grandfather quality to this thinking... can we say that we never needed teachers in the first place after a teacher helps them develop their expertise?" There is not an undifferentiated whole called... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 1:32pm
Qualified Self and Learning Analytics: from Quantification to Qualification
Teemu Leinonen,
FLOSSE Posse, May 15, 2012.
"I think the learning analytic research should move from the current practice of doing quantitative data analyses to include in it qualitative analyses," says Teemu Leinonen. "The quantified self should be expanded to be qualified self." But what does that mean, particularly given to be swayed by the philosophy "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Take Leinonen's example: "Most of us do not have a clue about the amount of calories we eat, but most of us know whatever our diet is healthy or not." We can represent the healthiness of the diet as qualitative, but... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 1:20pm
Thoughts on Google+ and the "Google LMS"
I've been on Google+ for about a week now, and I want to document my thoughts on it. I also want to consider what Google+ might do to my consideration of using only Google products to run a course. Like the first post, this is mostly a thought experiment about what goes into a 'course' and what sorts of products and services might be cobbled together. It also gives me a concrete model to compare features and helps me think about what else I might do with something like Plus. (And if Google would like to take any of this as a suggestion, I'm happy to be of service.) Read more...
Frequently Questioned Answers, May 15, 1:18pm
Welcome to Life
Tom Scott,
Website, May 15, 2012.
Don't miss this. "A science fiction story about what you see when you die. Or: the Singularity, ruined by lawyers."
[Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 15, 11:10am
...But we'll never turn back
Mike Klonsky,
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog, May 14, 2012.
Remembering the old Civil Rights Movement freedom song:
We've been 'buked and we've been scorned, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 2:29pm
The ivory tower is showing cracks
Daniel Woolf,
Ottawa Citizen, May 14, 2012.
With protests in the street in Montreal, rising student loan debts, and increasing government austerity, the university is under more pressure than ever to do the impossible: deliver a quality education to all at a price that will neither bankrupt students nor bankrupt nations. "Universities will inevitably adapt and modify, as they have for the past 800 years, because they will have to do so to survive. The trick will be to do so without destroying all the good things they have achieved for Canadians, and the world, over the last half century."
[Link] [ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 2:27pm
The nature of digital influence
Ryan Tracey,
E-Learning provocateur, May 14, 2012.
Personally I don't hold much truck for the idea of hit counts and the like being equated with 'influence'. Still, this is a decent post describing the concept. Ryan Tracey writes, "I find digital influence intriguing because of its scalability. For example, an expert from Shanghai could influence many thousands of practitioners in China, but is he or she influential in the Asia-Pacific region? Or is the spirit of lists like Bob’ s meant to highlight people who are influential across the region? Social media can facilitate that." How does one increase... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 2:22pm
Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work #turnitin #edtech Source / Read more: Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work
David Hopkinds,
eLearning Blog Dont Waste Your Time, May 14, 2012.
Cute graphic of 20 types of unoriginal content created by TurnItIn. "From a survey of nearly 900 educators (Plagiarism Today) Turnitin are trying to 'understand what kinds of plagiarism were the most common in academia and, equally importantly, which were viewed as being the most problematic.'" I'd show you the graphic here but I've somehow broken my image upload script (*sigh*).
[ Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 2:19pm
How Bottlenose Can Help Turn Twitter into a High Signal Channel
Brian Kelly,
UK Web Focus, May 14, 2012.
Bottlenose is an application that will convert Twitter into a personalized dashboard and newspaper. "The Bottlenose name was inspired by the dolphin, which is reflected in its primary feature known as Sonar – a visual representation of your online conversation." To be sure, more and more people are using such services to aggregated the news - as Brian Kelly says, who needs Rupert Murdoch? On the other hand, it's better to get some perspective and comment on your forwarded link (as in this newsletter), isn't it? "it has been... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 2:02pm
Why the University System, as We Know It, Won’t Last …. and What’s Coming Next
Dan Colman,
Open Culture, May 14, 2012.
Dan Colman points to two trends that, to him, signal the end of the university system as we know it:
First, Silicon Valley is finally focusing on e-learning. Udacity, Coursera, Kahn Academy, Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 14, 11:22am
Password post
So much has changed that I thought I should do a fresh password post. Read more...
Frequently Questioned Answers, May 12, 1:20pm
Synthnet
Toni Westbrook,
Weblog, May 11, 2012.
How could I not post this item? "The ultimate goal is a true, functional model of the biological neural network in software grown using virtual DNA. While this is an incredibly lofty goal, the project serves as more of a learning opportunity for me (and anyone else interested)." You can watch Synthnet in action here. "In the first clip, I demonstrate growing a brain from... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 11, 2:29pm
What My 11 Year Old's Stanford Course Taught Me About Online Education
Joshua Gans,
Forbes, May 11, 2012.
Good article that gives the reader an observer-level feel of what it was like to take the Stanford AI massive online course. The author watches as his 11-year old son tool the course. I think we can ignore the author's conclusions ("online education is more of a complement than a substitute for offline experiences") and focus on the details ("the most important button for video lectures is not 'play' but 'pause'"). It was interesting to me to see that while the son learned about decision theory his application of it in practice was so ethically lacking. Context does matter, I suppose.
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Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 11, 2:23pm
1200 TED Talks Listed in a Neat Spreadsheet — And More Stellar Culture Links on the Web
Dan Colman,
Open Culture, May 11, 2012.
I'm no great fan of TED talks, but I am a great fan of great gobs of useful bibliographical data arranged in handy online tables, so this presentation of 1200 TED talks in an open spreadsheet format speaks to me.
[Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 11, 2:12pm
Emotive Vocabulary in MOOCs: Context & Participant Retention
Apostolos Koutropoulos, et.al.,
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, May 11, 2012.
Well, it's a reasonable theory, the idea that you could examine the emotions expressed by people toward an open online course at the start of the course as a way to determine whether they will be one of those who succeeds in the course of one of those who drops out. There is a precedent for this sort of research, but directed toward social construction of knowledge, not social engagement as is being considered here. The MOOC is perfect for this sort of study; after all, some people participate a lot, some people lurk, and some people just disappear. So is there... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 11, 2:09pm
Why Is Mathalicious Raising Money on Kickstarter?
Audrey Watters,
Hack Education, May 11, 2012.
I suppose it was inevitable that as the popularity of online learning resources increased there would be more and more of an association between making money and making resources. Hence the latest trend to use Kickstarter to fund the development of things like Mathalicious, a project to create 52 math videos in 52 weeks. They're asking for $164,000 Audrey... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 11, 2:03pm
Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies
Diana G. Oblinger, Editor,
EDUCAUSE, May 10, 2012.
EDUCAUSE has released another major eBook, this one "a collection of chapters and case studies contributed by college and university presidents, provosts, faculty, and other stakeholders. Institutions are finding new ways of achieving higher education’ s mission without being crippled by constraints or overpowered by greater expectations." Most of the chapters and case studies (they are short, but there's a lot of them) are based on American examples, but ther's a selection from the world at large: on Royal Roads... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 10, 1:36pm
Themeefy
Titash Niogi,
Website, May 10, 2012.
I played around with Themeefy for a bit this morning and things it's a good start to an interesting product (though it reallyneeds RSS feed input to support content creation). I'd also like to see a nicer web-based version (the current version wastes way too much screen space). Here's their blurb: "Themeefy is a curation and self-publishing platform, that lets people do four things Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 10, 8:21am
Lync in education site
Rosanna Clarke,
The UK Schools Blog, May 10, 2012.
Microsoft has developed software that embeds a social network into Sharepoint and Microsoft Office products. It's being marketed as a way to improve enterprise communications, and in education, "with its many opportunities to improve communication in schools, colleges and universities." You can try it by downloading... Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 10, 6:06am
University violated charter disciplining students for ripping instructor on Facebook
Daryl Slade,
Postmedia News, May 10, 2012.
I think this is a correct ruling. "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to the disciplinary proceedings undertaken by the university." That's not a blanket assertion that students can say whatever they want. But it is a requirement that in disciplinary hearings the university must take into account the freedoms granted to students - in particular, the freedom of expression - under the Canadian Charter of Rights.
[Link] [Comment] Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 10, 5:48am
WebKit Offers Early Preview of ‘Web Intents’
Scott Gilbertson,
Webmonkey, May 9, 2012.
This is really interesting. The Webkit 'intent' tag is supposed to accomplish basically the same objective as Learning Tools Interoperability. Instead of linking directly to a specific online application, such as a photo editor, it makes clear the intent of the tag, to (say) 'enable photo editing'. The browser software then inserts a link to your preferred application, or to a list of applications, as the case may be. This is better than LTI, of course, because the work is done by the individual browser, not the learning management system, which allows for genuinely personalized tools. Read more...
Stephen's Web ~ OLDaily, May 9, 2:45pm