Author: Stephen Downes

Note: I received a request for responses to some questions in my email. The questions were quite involved and it would take me quite a while to type answers. But also, in relation to a work-related question, I had been looking at AI-based transcription. And also, my new Audio-Technica microphone

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

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

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

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

This is part two of a series. If you haven’t read part one, you should do so now. Click here to read part one. OK them welcome back. Let’s begin by reviewing what we’ve done in part one, because it’s not obvious. First, we created a repository on GitHub. We

This is a really interesting project that allows you to write posts in markdown, MS Word or Jupyter notebooks and publish them in a blog using GitHub pages. No website needed! But the instructions are far from clear, so here’s a step-by-step version. Login to GitHub. If you don’t have

With even the World Economic Forum embracing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) I thought it would be an appropriate time to check my own activity and see whether I’m supporting the goals in what I do. It’s also a good time to review just what they are and

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

https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/more-research-needed/I am broadly sympathetic with the arguments offered by Philip J. Kerr in this recent post, but I have disagreements around the edges, enough that I think more discussion is warranted. Also, while Kerr is more focused on artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) research, I will address my remarks to

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

This is the analysis of the UNESCO OER resolution I provided to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO prior to the discussion and vote on the resolution concerning Open Educational Resources It is now a matter of historical record that the resolution did pass. Here is the final resolution. Here’s an

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’ http://getbadnews.com –         Fake news, trolls, e-influencers http://play. (Read more…).com

Summary of a talk by Ekwow Spio-Garbrah at eLearning Africa. The challenge for everyone is to find out how gto give back before moving to the next level of existence. Mentorship is one very important way to do so. Also to pick up on what Jef said about talent and

Summary of a talk by Linda Nanan Vallee at eLearning Africa. I felt close to something Jef said earlier, about the mission we have on Earth. So I just wanted to share some very personal things, because I fel like we are a family. When I was young I wanted

Summary of a talk by Mahid Abdulkarim at eLearning Africa. I want to tell you a story. We ll learn from stories. I hope it will show why technology means so much for a student like me. My country, Sudan, went through a revolution. We overthrew a president of 30

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. 1. This is a battle of two groups of people. There was an information shortage. So industry started schools. But today everything has

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

Summary of a talk by Efosa Ojomo, Christensen Institute, at eLearning Africa in Abidjan. The four Ps of education: purpose, problem, practicality, promise. The porpose: not simply to get people in a classroom, but to improve the human capital of society so they can be productive. Problem: education is both

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 https://onlinelearningsurveycanada.ca/ One of our main aims is to ensure our work adds