Author: Stephen Downes

We’ve all heard about blockchains, but what are they? It can be a complicated concept. The best way to learn, of course, is to roll up your sleeves and build a blockchain engine. That’s what I did. I followed the example from Daniel van Flymen called Learn Blockchains by Building One

I’m preserving my contributions to this online discussion because other people’s discussion boards tend to disappear over time. Also, the course is (I think) hidden behind a login. A Wider Sense of Polarization, Its Purpose, and Its Resolution  I was disappointed in Tufekci’s Chris Gilliard’s paper. It looks at polarization

Responding to John Reid, Prime Minister Trudeau’s Bad Balance Sheets are Bad News for Canada. As the representative of Canada’s innovation sector you have a responsibility to promote the good of the industry as a whole. This column does not do that, and if the recommendations were followed, would result

I got 64 responses to my survey, which is a response rate of 0.3 percent, which doesn’t seem very high to me, but I’ve read refereed academic publications based on less robust statistics. Here are the basic results: It makes sense that the existing subscribers would be those whose needs

In my email today: As co-leaders of the Educause Openness Constituency Group, we would like to introduce an idea, solicit feedback, and invite you to participate in a planning session for a series of community conversations about openness in higher education.The idea is that each month the Openness CG will

In response to Alex Usher (and in anticipation of future posts in his series): This is an interesting start, though I would have hoped for a more tightly bound definition at least by the end of part one. Each of the four senses of neo-liberalism that you raise can be

1. Access and Pedagogy Let’s take it as a starting point that there are two objectives at play here: – first, the objective of providing access for all, which as I stated, was demonstrably the goal of the vast majority, if not all, people working in OER. – second, the

1. The Goal of Open Access David Wiley says, “The question we must each ask ourselves is – what is the real goal of our OER advocacy?” In this he’s right. It’s time for us to be clear about what we’re working for. The goal of OER is access for

Consciousness seems to be mysterious to most people. How does subjective experience arise? What is the relation between the perception of redness, say, or the thought that “Paris is the capital of France,” and the purely physical mechanisms that Dennett believes – and I believe – constitute human processes of

David Wiley offers a provocative perspective titled If We Talked About the Internet Like We Talk About OER: The Cost Trap and Inclusive Access. Here’s how he sets it up: Imagine that – somehow – you’ve never used the internet before. A good friend and long-time internet user finds this out

This article in a London School of Economic blog touts the benefits of the digital driver’s licence created by the Alannah & Madeline Foundation in Australia, and notes that some 22% of Australian schools have registered for it. Ultimately I thought the article was naive, failing to look at the actual content provided, and simply leaping

Responding to George Couros, Thinking About Research, Innovation, Test-Scores, and Creativity You write (and this is the theme of the whole post, really): “One thing I am still adamant about…know the people you serve and move backward from there.  That is always your best bet.” My experience is that you can’t

This article was created as a response to Dhawal Shah in EdSurge on A Proposal to Put the ‘M’ Back in MOOC. I actually typed the article into the comment form on the article, but it only allows posts from people who are logged into Facebook, which I refuse to

This is pretty speculative, but it makes sense to me and I’d like to get the idea own on (digital) paper in case I don’t get the chance to come back to it. It is well known that we have different types of memory: working memory, short-term memory, and long-term

Phil Hill Summary notes from the presentation at from at the World Conference on Online Learning, Toronto. Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/PhilHill3/hill-slides-world-congress-session-20171018/1 We forget about the perspective of time. Let’s look at 2011-2017. Thrun was saying (2012) 50 years from now there will only be ten institutions delivering higher education. This was the perfect example of hype

I missed the first talk: I have put in some tweets. A full summary of the last two talks is below. Phil Hill and Fiona HollandsTomorrow’s Learning Platform Patrice Torcivia‏ @Profpatrice  First up @PhilOnEdTech discussing the ‘regular and substantive interaction’ Lynn Sutherland‏ @GrokIam  Online Learning is now #Mainstream @PhilOnEdTech and

Don McIntoshAn Old Curmudgeon’s View of Technology in Education I put together a director of vendors of online learning products and services – more than 2000 products there, including hundreds of LMSs. It’s on teachonline.ca I’m inspired by the people at this conference – I don’t want to rain on

John DanielOpen Education in a Closing World The end of WWII marked the emergence of a new world order maked by the universal declaration of human rights. By the end of the 20th century they were more deeply embedded than ever. But today this consensus is breaking down in ‘the

David Porter, Lena Patterson, Chris FernlundeCampus Ontario  – Rethinking eCampus Ontario – owned by 45 universities and colleges in Ontario, funded by the provincial government As we move forward, tech and learning will be forever inter-related. You won’t be able to get away from that idea.  We are focusing a

Opening Plenary Laura CzerniewiczChanging Pedagogies Two short stories about pedagogy: 1. There have been protests recently in South African universities. Interestingly, some of these have been about pedagogy. They demanded, among other things, that all lectures should be recorded, and that a tutoring system should be put in place in