That Old Canard
In yesterday's New York Times the Arthur C. Brooks argues that there is systemic bias against conservatives in academia. This is my response. It must be coming around to election…
Stephen Downes
That Old Canard
In yesterday’s New York Times the Arthur C. Brooks argues that there is systemic bias against conservatives in academia. This is my response. It must be coming around to election…
Scaling the Heights of Language, its Learning, and its Teaching
This is a summary of a talk by Diane Larsen-Freeman at TESL 2015. It was a treat to listen to. Errors and omissions are entirely my own.This is a beautiful…
Why I’m Voting NDP
I am voting for the NDP in the upcoming federal election and I think you should too. In this post I’d like to offer some reasons why. Why I support…
Experts and Authority
In an article last year (and soon-to-be book) Tom Nichols complained about the new relativism brought about by Wikipedia and Google and bemoaning the declining authority of the expert. I…
What I’ve Learned From Philosophy
I posted an item in OLDaily today from Forbes touting the benefits of formerly ‘useless’ liberal arts degrees. In this item Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is quoted: “Studying philosophy taught…
The Exodus
We are now reading that the exodus of people from New Brunswick through the winter was the largest it has been since 1976. It’s the 17th quarter in a row…
Mother Canada and Mother Russia
The current government plans to deface some pristine Cape Breton wilderness with a ‘Mother Canada’ monument. Here’s the proposal. Here’s some coverage of opposition. A photo below: What I find…
The Study, and Other Stuff
There are three separate threads in Siemens’s response to my last post, all of which are fascinating: The thread concerning whether or not the study he published was bad, The…
Research and Evidence
I wrote the other day that the study released by George Siemens and others on the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning was a bad study.…
Non-Research Citations in the Siemens Research Study
Defending himself against my criticism of his recently released research study on distance and online learning, George Siemens tweets: Au contraire mon frère. There are many non-research articles cites, with…
Mark Surman on Open Eduction and the Open Internet
Article and photo by Stephen Downes This is a summary of Mozilla CEO Mark Surman’s talk at Open Education Global in Banff April 24 (today). It is a paraphrase with…
Johns Hopkins Academic Freedom Statement – An Analytical Representation
Drafted in January and just released, the Johns Hopkins statement on academic freedom will no doubt be widely cited.I cite the full text below. This post is a version of…
My Viva
Patrick Dunleavy offers this list of ten typical questions that might be asked on your PhD oral exam. I always felt I would have aced my oral exam, but I…
The Power of Reuse: Wikipedia in Action
Summary of a panel at the Hewlette Grantees’ Conference. Errors are again my own. Pete Forsyth, Wiki Strategies(See also his blog post with resources for this panel at http://wikistrategies.net/oer-wikipedia-getting-started/ )…
OER Business Models – A Debate
This is a summary of a debate including four participants, listed below, at OER2014. Errors and omissions are still my own. What is your mission in OER and what is…
A Lexicon of Sustainability
This is a summary of a talk at the Hewlett Grantees’ Meeting, San Francisco, March 25, 2015. Errors (and typos, etc) are my own. Douglas GayetonLexicon of Sustainabilityhttp://lexiconofsustainability.com Our food…
Design Elements in a Personal Learning Environment
In this paper I would like to address the core design elements in the development of a personal learning architecture being developed in the National Research Council’s Learning and Performance…
Notes from ELI 2015 Riyadh – Day One
Rob KadelThe Untapped Potential for eLearningPearson Research & Innovation Network / University of Colorado Denver– learning to think laterally, or to think divergently (think outside the box) – instead of…
Ten Key Takeaways from Tony Bates
Like pretty much everyone else in the field I’ve been immensely enjoying Tony Bates’s work-in-progress, an online open textbook called Teaching in a Digital Age. Having said that, I think…