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Reflections on the Futures of Education
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 24, 2020
On the Futures This post is a series of short comments on the just-released document from the Canadian UNESCO chairs on the future of education.
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
A Personal Learning Platform
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
DECEMBER 11, 2020
This is an unedited auto-generated transcript from my talk today to Creative Commons Lightning Talks. Hi everyone, it's Stephen Downes here from Casselman Ontario Canada.
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What's Next for MOOCs
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
DECEMBER 12, 2020
Hi, I'm Stephen Downes videoing in from Casselman in Ontario, Canada. My talk today is called What's Next for MOOCs. Now that might be a bit of a surprise for you because you probably read last year or maybe the year before or five years ago, that moocs are dead.
Being Online: Facing the Digital Future Together
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 28, 2020
This is an unedited auto-generated transcript of my talk for LINC home learning professional development, November 28, 2020.
The Future of Online Learning 2020
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 31, 2020
This is an edited text transcript from my presentation from April 27, 2020. Presentation page (audio, video, slides): [link] This talk is about change. It's about the change we see individually in our homes and in our workplaces and it's about the larger changes sweeping through society.
Lessons From the Pandemic
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
DECEMBER 8, 2020
Introduction There were times when no one would have expected this, but as we enter the 2040s the school remains the centre of education and development in the community. In retrospect, we should have expected no other outcome.
How to Help Students Succeed by Taking Ownership of Their Learning Online Through Personal Learning
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JULY 30, 2020
This is an unedited transcript created by the Google Sound Recording on the Pixel 4 (the main reason I bought this phone in fact) of the webinar I gave July 30, 2020. Thank you very much Sarah and I'm still waiting for that invitation to speak in Antarctica. Any time you're ready? I'm on a plane.
Institutional Support for Personal Learning
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
DECEMBER 14, 2020
Unedited Automated Transcript, December 14,2020 All right, um, so hello everyone.
Reimaging Open Educational Resources
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 10, 2020
This is an edited transcript of my presentation 'Reimaging Open Educational Resources' presented November 10 2020 to the Open Education 2020 Conferemce. link] So what I want to talk to you today talked about with you today is open education resources.
Personal Learning: Taking Ownership of Learning Online: Part One
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
AUGUST 31, 2020
Note: this is an unedited audio transcript generated by the Google sound recorder app on my Pixel 4. In the future I may edit it (or if you want to, feel free). For now, I provide it as is for your enjoyment.
What Is Online Learning?
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 5, 2020
I have a lot of sympathy for those working in educational technology positions at schools and universities today because they have been thrust into the unenviable position of converting a recalcitrant faculty of teachers and professors into overnight online instructors. Such a conversion would never have happened without an external force such as Covid-19.
Flying to Conferences
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
FEBRUARY 9, 2020
I just want to take a few moments to consider Bryan Alexander's comments about flying to conferences. As most readers know, I have flown to hundreds of academic conferences over the years. So I guess I would be considered a prime offender in this regard. Except - I don't see myself as an 'offender' per se. Flying to conferences is just one of the things I've done over the years.
Open Learning, Open Networks - Online Learning in 2020
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 3, 2020
This is an unedited auto-transcript of the talk delivered November 3, 2020. Hello. Hello everyone pleasure to be here today. This presentation will be in English. I'm going to be talking about open learning open networks and. Just a few just a few notes to begin our presentation.
Being There: What Presence Means in a Digital World.
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
This is an unedited automated transcript produced by my Pixel 4 from this presentation: [link] Hi everyone. I'm Stephen Downs and I bring you greetings from my home office in Castleman, Ontario, Canada. Thank you for taking the time to watch my presentation today.
Cruft
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 19, 2020
Responding to Donald Clark's excellent article, Let's move on from 'Unintelligible Intelligences' - IQ, Multiple Intelligences, Emotional Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence. Let’s take this idea further. Koch (2014) claimed that ALL networks are, to some degree ‘intelligent’." Not just Koch.
Boxing gRSShopper
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 17, 2020
What, again? Yes, again. Today I'm working on creating and saving a reusable Docker image of gRSShopper. I have the benefit of some previous work on this set-up, and so it might work today, so I'm documenting my process. Note : I'm doing all this so you don't have to.
How to Learn Using Technology
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
FEBRUARY 13, 2020
Learning with technology is different from learning with textbooks or learning with classroom instruction. In these, the focus is on understanding and remembering. It is content based. The learning objective is defined as mastery of this body of knowledge. Learning with technology, by contrast, is outcome based. It is defined in terms of skills or competencies, as how to achieve a certain outcome using technology as a tool. There’s a distinctive way to learn using technology. Here are the steps.
Educational Research in Learning Technology
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
FEBRUARY 11, 2020
In this post I discuss the nature (and weaknesses) of research in our field. I am broadly sympathetic with the arguments offered by Philip J. Kerr in this recent post , about how research in educational technology could be improved, but I have disagreements around the edges, enough that I think more discussion is warranted. Kerr begins with a discussion of systematic reviews of research and comments that they "did not paint a very pretty picture of the current state of AIEd research."
Feedback to Feedly
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 8, 2020
Just a quite note I sent to Feedly about it's AI tool Leo and my OLDaily workflow. I've been a Feedly Pro user for many years and moved to Pro+ for the AI and Twitter support. I have two major comments: - first, it's too expensive.
12 Degrees of Freedom
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 7, 2020
I just read a post from Mitch Resnick on the seeds that Seymour Papert sowed, and highlighted for myself this most important statement: "Seymour rejected the computer-aided instruction approach in which 'the computer is being used to program the child' and argued for an alternative approach in which 'the child programs the computer.'"
My 25 Years of Ed Tech
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
MARCH 1, 2020
Martin Weller has released his book 25 Years of Ed Tech today. It's a nice read; you are encouraged to check it out. But I have to confess, on having looked at the table of contents, I thought that it captured my career pretty well. Of course, that was not Weller's objective. But this is my lived history. So I thought I'd quickly summarize those 25 years from my perspective. Headings in bold are Weller's; subheadings in italics are mine.
Where Do Blog Post Ideas Come From?
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JUNE 1, 2020
Someone asked me by email, do you have any advice on how to come up with blog post ideas? I recently launched an informational website, so far I have around 40 articles and I'm already finding it difficult to come up with ideas that aren't just a regurgitation of something else I already discussed in another article. Almost all of what I do is in response to something I see, read or hear. So I read and gather information widely.
On Pandemic Politics, Pedagogies and Practices
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
MAY 27, 2020
"We have no wish to denigrate or criticize online distance education," write the authors of Pandemic politics, pedagogies and practice , "but rather, the aim of this brief editorial is twofold: First, we want to raise a series of critical cautions, based on previous papers and special issues published in the journal, against simplistic and opportunistic claims that educational technologies are a ready-made remedy for the current crisis.
Whence the Virtue of Open
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JUNE 19, 2019
The word 'whence' means " from what place, source, or cause", and that is the question I would like to address with respect to the virtue of 'open'. The question is raised in the context of Heather Morrison's recent comments on The Dialectic of Open. Unfortunately I don't have the full text of the remarks, but I have a detailed abstract and slides, which is enough to work from. Morrison's argument is straightforward and effective. Not all instances of 'open' are virtuous.
Digital Learning 4.0: How to Guarantee Measurable Learner Impact Where Others Have Failed
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 9, 2019
Summary of: Digital Learning 4.0: How to Guarantee Measurable Learner Impact Where Others Have Failed Paul Hunter Director Digital Learning, IMD Business School IMD is a business school based in Switzerland. Table discussions - what are you doing in digital learning, what have been your biggest successes and challenges). Table summary: Successes: one was using different modalities. Challenge: making sure students have complted all of the personal study before they attend the face-to-face session.
The Electricity of Learning
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 25, 2019
Summary of a talk at eLearning Africa given by Jef Staes. I'm going to tell a story of why education is failing. We have a design error. This is a battle of two groups of people. There was an information shortage. So industry started schools. But today everything has changed. But today we have an information glut. If we are passionate about something we can learn. This information flow changes the world from 2D flat to a world that is changing. Changing all the time.
Approaching E-Learning 3.0
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
Who is this course for? If you're reading this, then this course is for you. You've demonstrated the main criterion: some degree of interest in the subject matter of the course. You might be thinking: this course looks too difficult, too technical, or too high level. This will be true for everyone, even me. But the course is structured so you can focus on what's interesting and accessible for you, and you can ignore the rest. Read on. you'll see what I mean. What's the Course About?
The Problem With 'A National Effort in Online Education'
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 7, 2020
Alex Usher points out quite correctly that universities will need to be online by the fall. We're not likely to be out of the Covid woods by then, and in-person classes will likely be limited and few. So he proposes this: for each of the (say) 100 courses with the highest enrolment taught across Canadian universities is to create, in common, a large basket of very good online resources which each institution could then incorporate into its own learning platforms.
On Connectivism and Scale
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 26, 2019
Image: Sui Fai John Mak - [link] Martin Weller makes some excellent points in his recent post on connectivism and scale, and they merit a short response. Weller is writing in response to a specific statement I made in a recent post on another topic, which I'll quote here: One of the major objectives of our original MOOCs was to enable MOOC participants to create interaction and facilitation for each other.
Notes On "Global Guidelines: Ethics in Learning Analytics"
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
MARCH 13, 2019
In my post referencing the ICDE's Global Guidelines: Ethics in Learning Analytics yesterday I said: This document summarizes the considerations of an ICDE working group on learning analytics.
The Gen Z Learning Journey From Higher Education To The Workplace
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 9, 2019
Summary of a presentation: The Gen Z Learning Journey From Higher Education To The Workplace Giselle Kovary, M.A., President n-gen People Performance Inc. I want to cover research on Gen Z, especially from a Canadian context. They're more 1996 than 2012. But we can't make a statement about an individual person based on their age; this work applies only to the macro level. Used slido.com code #genz ) 'Entitled' and 'creative' are the most popular terms.
Connectivism and Language Learning
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 26, 2018
This is in response to the following question from a student in Iran: I am going to start an academic project on the application of connectivism in the context of foreign language acquisition. I was just wondering that since learning a foreign language is basically mastering some language skills practically rather than acquiring knowledge, to what extent it can be taught and learnt in a connectivistic manner.
Responses to Pew on the Future and Ethics in AI
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JULY 5, 2020
If you expect change, what do you think the “new normal” will be for the average person in 2025? What will have changed most? What will not change much at all? Despite the economic turmoil that resulted from the pandemic, the net result will be an increased recognition of the role of governance and civil society. This will be seen in an increased level of support for social and economic support, including for example the need for public health care and the need for income support.
Value
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 14, 2019
You sometimes hear me stumble over the word 'value', the way I did in a recent interview. Let me explain why. The word 'value' is widely used in our field and elsewhere. It is intended to represent a measurement of the 'benefit' something might produce - so 'economic value' might refer to the economic benefit., social value' might refer to the social benefit', and so on. I often want to say things like this: each person has value in and of themselves. Or: each person has inherent value.
The 2019 National Survey of Online Learning in Canadian Post-secondary Education: Preliminary Results and Implications
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 9, 2019
Summary of the presentation The 2019 National Survey of Online Learning in Canadian Post-secondary Education: Preliminary Results and Implications. Moderated by Tony Bates. This is a follow-up from the first survey from 2017. Results are now available at [link] One of our main aims is to ensure our work adds value to responding institutions. Obligatory thanking of sponsors) Team: Nicole Johnson, Tricia Donovan, Jeff Seaman, Tony Bates Also a panel of executive consultants.
Learning Electron - Part 2
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JANUARY 15, 2019
Continuing from Part 1 The story so far In Part 1 I covered the basics of Electron up to and including building executable applications from the Node.js application. In particular I looked at the fundamental role played by the package.json file in defining the application requirements, defining start and build scripts, and giving Electron a script to begin running, which we called bootstrap.js. In turn, bootstrap.js
What is Digital Literacy?
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
JANUARY 4, 2019
Short response to a questionnaire. What is Digital Literacy Digital literacy is a type of literacy, specifically, the type of literacy that arises in the digital context. By 'the digital context' we mean the multimedia and inter-networked context enabled by digital technology. What's significant is how it advances beyond traditional literacy, which is essentially the ability to read and write well.
On the Creative Commons Certificate Course
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 23, 2019
A week ago, by way of a post in the Creative Commons Open Education Platform discussion list, I became aware of the Creative Commons Certificate course, "an in-depth course about CC licenses, open practices and the ethos of the Commons." I did't know that it had been offered previously , but no matter. What really caught my attention was the $500 USD price tag.
Hearables
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 8, 2019
Summary of the talk "Hearables" by Rory McGreal Photo: Nobuko Fujita - What are they – Hunn 2014 – speaker-microphone in-ear with AI - Progressive development from earphones, hearing aids, etc - Can monitor: Blood pressure – stress, excitement Etc.
Martin Dougiamas, e_learning Africa
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 24, 2019
Summary of talk by Martin Dougiamas at e_learning Africa. I'm just going to focus on open ed-tech. We had a conference about Moodle in this room yesterday. Our mission at Moodle is to improve the world, and we're doing this by making an open source platform. The values drive the project. The way to have thousands of people contribute, the values are needed. Education, openness, integrity, respect and innovation are these values.
Questions on Assessment
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
APRIL 17, 2020
Responding to an enquiry about assessment. what about the practical work that must be done in the laboratory? It depends on the laboratory, but mostly, students will not be able to reproduce the laboratory at home. During our current crisis, both practice and assessment in the laboratory will have to be postponed. For the future, I have argued that laboratory facilities should be distributed across the community.
The impacts of Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence on Learning and Development
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
OCTOBER 8, 2019
Summary of a talk by Alan Bostakian, Senior Analyst, TD Bank - Future Ready project Why? The field is moving extremely fast and very soon all professionals will need to have some level of understanding about them. These areas help is in upskilling, instructional design, instructon, coaching, more. The Basics Data science touches on artificial intelligence, machine learning learning, deep learning. Data science: methodologies, tools (statistical, algebra, programming, etc.),
Game Learning Analytcs for Evidence=Based Serious Games
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
NOVEMBER 7, 2019
Summary of a talk by Baltasar Fernandex Manjon at CELDA 2019 ie.ft.com/uber-game Serious games - Have been used successfully in many domains – medicine, military - But low adoption in mainstream education - So we say we’re working in ‘game-like simulation’ [link] - Fake news, trolls, e-influencers [link] [link] [link] - Has been formally evaluated Citizen science - Uses games for crowdsourcing Also: - Educational versions of commercial games Do serious games actually work?
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