Stephen Downes

Subscribe to OLDaily E-Learning News, Opinion, Technology.

New Today

New directions in self-study e-learning: social interactions
Clive Shepherd, Clive on Learning, October 2, 2012.

---

I don't win any of these awards, presumably because I do not enter the contest ;) but the awards entries can offer some indication of what works and what doesn't. In this post Clive Shepherd points to some of the elements of the more recent crop of successful e-learning. Here's his list:

• An acknowledgement that resources matter as much as courses.
• A much more modular approach, with content presented in small chunks.
• A shift in emphasis from knowledge exposition to skill-building using challenging scenarios.
• Better art direction and much more use of video.
• Deployment through much friendlier and more usable platforms than your traditional LMS.

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

Twitter, academics, and the public
Alex Reid, Digital Digs, October 2, 2012.

---

Alex Reid points to a blog post authored by Kathleen Fitzpatrick "offering advice to junior faculty about using blogs, twitter, and related social media." It's generally good advice, but he keys in on one point: "5. If somebody says they’d prefer not to be tweeted or blogged, respect that." Reid replies, "if you have accepted an invitation to present at a conference or to a department then you have agreed to present your work in a public forum." He points out that journalists reporting on the talks don't ask permission, nor should they have to. I don't know where people have gotten the idea that these conferences are closed private events (probably from publishers) but this perception is wrong. If you speak in public, and if you say anything interesting, expect to be tweeted.

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

Library 2.012 Starts Tomorrow
Steve Hargadon, Education, Technology, Social Media, and You!, October 2, 2012.

---

I haven't a hope of being able to cover this event, but if you're interested in libraries and the future, your time is now: "Library 2.012, the "Future of Libraries" conference, starts tomorrow, Wednesday, October 3rd, at 6:30 am US-Pacific Daylight Time and continues for 40 straight hours. The conference is free to attend, and is held virtually in Blackboard Collaborate. We have 150 presentation sessions and 11 keynote addresses from all over the world this year."

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

The Internet Blowhard’s Favorite Phrase
Daniel Engber, Slate, October 2, 2012.

---

This is an engaging read about the phrase "correlation does not imply causation." The phrase, of course, is the conversation-stopper of the internet age, useful any time you want to stop someone from making a claim based on the data. What's missing in the article is consideration of the question of how we do show causation - for after all, if all the data shows is correlation, how do we conclude that any causes exist?

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

Where Does Innovation Fit in Your Business Model?
Tim Kastelle, Innovation Leadership Network, October 1, 2012.

---

I'm running this item mainly for the useful diagram of business models (it goes without saying that everything must have business models today; if your dog does not have a value proposition and clearly defined customers, then your dog-food should be reconsidered). The idea is that innovation generally fits right in the middle, in the value proposition. What is that, exactly? "A value proposition is a positioning statement that describes for whom you do what uniquely well. It describes your target buyer, the problem you solve, and why you’re distinctly better than the alternatives." So what is online learning's value proposition? And why does it need one? And when we are selling education (as entailed by the logic of the value proposition) who are you selling to, and what value do they expect in return? That's what has been occupying me in my day job recently. Or I'll need to brush up my personal value proposition.

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

The global attack on public higher education
Tony Bates, online learning and distance education resources, October 1, 2012.

---

Tony Bates points to the decline in funding that it is making it increasingly difficult to sustain public education. While I have my criticisms of the university system as it exists today, and while I think that professors and administrators have not helped the cause of public education, it should be clear that the cause of the funding crisis lies outside the university system. We all, I think, know exactly what the problem is. "Banks over-extended themselves in silly, unsecured loans that drove mainly the construction industry. Now public servants such as teachers, civil servants, and health workers are being told their salaries and pensions will be cut, and there will be reduced funding for post-secondary education,  in order to pay off the massive debt the government has occurred in bailing out their banks. As Gordon Gekko, the character played by Michael Douglas says in 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps': 'This is the perfect solution: privatize the profits and nationalize the losses.'"

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

To Less Efficient Startups
Anil Dash, A Blog About Making Culture, October 1, 2012.

---

Anil Dash, I think, gets to the heart of what's wrong with today's startup culture: "From an economics standpoint, the hugely successful tech companies of our time are marvels of efficiency because it used to take a company with hundreds of thousands of employees to generate so much market value. Unfortunately, this "progress" in efficiency means a concentration of generated wealth among an even smaller, more exclusive cabal of winners when one of these companies succeeds.

Instead of generating tens of thousands of middle-class jobs as industrial-age titans did, these companies make a few dozen people truly extraordinarily wealthy, and then give generous payouts to a few hundred people who were already on a path to success by having been privileged enough to go to top universities and by having the identities that tech and engineering cultures are biased toward today. There is effectively no blue collar path to success, notwithstanding the much-vaunted stories of tech company chefs entering these companies in the kitchen and exiting as millionaires."

The venture capitalists don't fund ideas, they fund people - and if you look at those people they elect to find, it's people like them, people who, as Dash says, went to the right schools and knew the right people.

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

Field Trip Automatically Alerts You to Local Places of Interest
Various Authors, Google Play, October 1, 2012.

---

I'm sure it's impossible to tour a city without a persopnalized in-person tour guide to help you find all the good stuff, and perform many other roles besides, but for those who neither want nor can afford such high-priced help, an application like this Android: Field Trip app will fit the bill quite nicely. Unfortunately, it won't install in Canada (and I suspect therefore that virtually all of the advice is for US-based sites). Butt you get the idea. Education in the future looks like this.

[Direct Link] [Comment]

---

Links and Resources

(presentations include slides and audio recordings)
Videos: http://www.downes.ca/me/videos.htm
RSS Feed: http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.xml
Podcast: http://www.downes.ca/news/audio.xml

Key Articles

Scholarly Articles

Cites:294 Educational Blogging (Local copy)
264 Learning objects: Resources for distance education worldwide (Local copy)
134 E-learning 2.0 (Local copy)
126 Models for sustainable open educational resources (Local copy)
88 The future of online learning (Local copy
75 Learning networks and connective knowledge (Local copy)
70 Design and reusability of learning objects in an academic context: A new economy of education (Local copy)
59 Resource profiles (Local copy)
40 Learning networks in practice (Local copy)
33 Semantic networks and social networks (Local copy)
35 An introduction to connective knowledge (Local copy)
27 Design, standards and reusability (Local copy)
23 EduSource: Canada's learning object repository network (Local copy)
22 An introduction to RSS for educational designers (Local copy)

(Cites from Google Scholar for an H-Index = 14)

Recent Popular Articles

The Purpose of Learning, February 2, 2011.
The Role of the Educator, December 6, 2010.
Deinstitutionalizing Education, November 5, 2010.
Agents Provocateurs, October 28, 2010.
What Is Democracy In Education, October 22, 2010.
A World To Change, October 19, 2010.
Connectivism and Transculturality, May 16, 2010.
An Operating System for the Mind, September 19, 2009.
The Cloud and Collaboration, June 15, 2009.
Critical Thinking in the Classroom, June 5, 2009.
The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On, November 16, 2008.
Things You Really Need to learn: http://www.downes.ca/post/38502

Social Network

Twitter: http://twitter.com/downes
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/downes
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_downes/
Google: http://www.google.com/profiles/sfdownes
Blip.tv: http://downes.blip.tv/
Contact: stephen@downes.ca Stephen.Downes@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Skype: Downes

---

About Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes is a senior researcher for Canada's National Research Council and a leading proponent of the use of online media and services in education. As the author of the widely-read OLDaily online newsletter, Downes has earned international recognition for his leading-edge work in the field of online learning. He developed some of Canada's first online courses at Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Manitoba. He also built a learning management system from scratch and authored the now-classic "The Future of Online Learning".

At the University of Alberta he built a learning and research portal for the municipal sector in that province, Munimall, and another for the Engineering and Geology sector, PEGGAsus. He also pioneered the development of learning objects and was one of the first adopters and developers of RSS content syndication in education. Downes introduced the concept of e-learning 2.0 and with George Siemens developed and defined the concept of Connectivism, using the social network approach to deliver open online courses to three thousand participants over two years.

Downes has been offering courses in learning, logic, philosophy both online and off since 1987, has 135 articles published in books, magazines and academic journals, and has presented his unique perspective on learning and technology more than 250 times to audiences in 17 countries on five continents. He is a habitual photographer, plays darts for money, and can be found at home with his wife Andrea and four cats in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Biographie

Stephen Downes travaille pour le Conseil national de recherches du Canada, où il a servi en tant que chercheur principal, basé à Moncton, au Nouveau-Brunswick, depuis 2001. Affilié au Groupe des technologies de l'apprentissage et de la collaboration, Institut de technologie de l’information, Downes est spécialisé dans les domaines de l'apprentissage en ligne, les nouveaux médias, la pédagogie et la philosophie.

Downes est peut-être mieux connu pour son bulletin quotidien, OLDaily, qui est distribué par Internet, courriel et RSS à des milliers d'abonnés à travers le monde. Il a publié de nombreux articles à la fois en ligne et sur papier incluant The Future of Online Learning (1998), Learning Objects (2000), Resource Profiles (2003), et E-Learning 2.0 (2005). Il est un conférencier populaire, apparaissant à des centaines de manifestations à travers le monde au cours des quinze dernières années.

Vision Statement

I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.

Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers, with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different interests or affiliations, as the case may be.

This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence. This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward.

---

Canadians who gave their lives in service in Afghanistan

Hundreds of my IAAF Track & Field Photos from Moncton 2010

My calendar

---