Advice for David Campbell, Chief Economist
The province has just announced that it is appointing David W. Campbell it’s “chief economist”. Campbell discusses the appointment here. Regular readers know I have responded to Campbell frequently in…
Stephen Downes
Becoming MOOC
There are two types of MOOCs. On the one hand, there is the xMOOC – this is a formal course created in a site like Coursera or EdX. An xMOOC…
Interview Stephen Downes by Renée Filius
Renée Filius: So what I see at course evaluations is that teachers say: ‘Well, when I teach online I tend to ask brief questions. Or students just give brief answers…
Education Technology Strategies – Day Two
Educational Technology Strategies Conference – Toronto Simon Pugh-JonesTeacherWrithlington School, (UK) David CrellinCreative Director for the Mendip Studio SchoolWrithlington School, UK David Participate – was a 3 million pound, 3 year…
Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals
Honourable Liz SandalsMinister of EducationOntario Ministry of Education This is a paraphrase summary, not direct quotes (though often quoted words are used). Sorry about spelling mistakes. Not an official transcript,…
Education Technology Strategies – Day One
Jonathan TepperExecutive Director of Information TechnologyGreenwood College School BYOD – being able to take your personalized device from homee, and use it at work or school Greenwood – small independent…
I Am Not That Guy
I’ve covered work by Audrey Watters a dozen times or more now and she’s never had a problem with it – at least, none that ever made it into a…
Picking Winners
There’s a standard trope in the government policy arena around the idea of ‘picking winners’. It is based around the argument that government ought not be subsidizing specific companies, because…
The $400M Deficit
The New Brunswick government is looking to cut $400,000,000 to balance the budget. Let’s look at this logically. Cutting Wages Stacy Mowatt In the wage release the other day…so of…
A Year in Photos
Organizations aren’t thinking about the ‘networked individual’ – the networking choices and patterns of individual Internet users. They’re still focused on their own organizational information systems and traditional institutional networks.…
The OOC
I posted this: The conundrum of creating an open course in a closed site – Storyboard OOC updateGabi Witthaus, Art of e-learning, Dec 22, 2014 So this, I think, is…
Open Education, MOOCs, and Opportunities
Reusable Learning Resources The initial development of online learning technology began at scale with the development of the learning management system (LMS) in the mid-1990s. These systems were modeled on…
#OEB14 – Open Educational Resources 2.0
Alan TaitFrom Distance Learning to Open Education – ICT is now normal – we don’t talk about distance learning, but ‘technology enhanced learning’– students learn as much outside the classroom…
#OEB14 – Does Data Corrupt Education
Summary of a debate at Online Educa Berlin. Note that the debate format is not serious and that participants to not necessarily agree with the points that they are making.…
#OEB14 Rheingold, Lewin, Stevenson
These are summary notes of the presentations at Online Educa Berlin, 2014. If the text uses the first person, it is the presenter speaking, not me. Aida Opoku-MensahE-Learning AfricaI’ve seen…
EPortfolios and Badges Workshop – #OEB14
E-Portfolio Workshop, Online Educa Berlin: These are content summaries; if written in the first person it is the speaker speaking, not me. Some comments in parentheses are my own. Launch…
Have a Happy….
Hiya Steve, I’m not religious and I don’t celebrate Christmas. That’s my choice and I don’t expect or require anyone else to do the same. So far as I’m concerned…
Knowledge as Recognition
This is an assignment for a grade 12 philosophy course. Proposition Most theories of knowledge depict knowledge as a type of belief. The idea, for example, of knowledge as ‘justified…
Constructivism and Eliminative Materialism
A few months ago Fred M Beshears and I discussed Constructivism and Materialism. He compiled the conversation and posted it here. ——————————————–Stephen Downes We don’t reason over perceptions or construct…
Positivism and Big Data
This is an outcome of a conversation with Rita Kop regarding the article The View from Nowhere. She writes, data scientists use their quantitative measure, as positivists do, by putting…