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…
Stephen Downes
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…
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…
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…