International MOOCs Past and Present
OpenLearning.com, a venture born out of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. Starting this week, you can begin taking two of their courses (Observing and Analysing…
Stephen Downes
The Paradox of Democracy
During my days as a student activist studying philosophy in Alberta one wag described me as "a moderate socialist and a radical democrat."That description is probably still apt 20 years…
Predators and Producers: Whither Flat World
In what was probably an unintentional release of the information, Flat World Publishing made the world aware this weekend that it is ceasing distribution of digital textbooks without charge. Readers…
Learning in the Digital Age: The Reality and the Myth
Let me tell you story of the great bear. It’s a story from First Nations People who lived near where I was born in Canada, the Iroquois people. It’s a…
Improving Canadian Postsecondary Education
We can read about ‘five ideas to reform post-secondary education in Canada in a University Affairs article by columnist Léo Charbonneau. The strategies (proposed by a Globe and Mail reporter…
Aggregation Workflow in gRSShopper
A few points: First, on workflow, which is the topic of this post. Here’s how gRSShopper currently works. It’s more detailed than suggested in the post, but contains the same…
The 30 Percent Solution
Let me be clear. If there is a way to reduce the cost of education by 30 percent while keeping the quality the same, I’m all for it. Who wouldn’t…
Downes’s Business Hopelessness Scale
Certain businesses – Down East Coffee on St. George, for example – give you pleasure when you deal with them. Others, however (and the list is long) seem to go…
Whose Connectivism?
I would like to make just one point, that it is not “Siemen’s ‘Connectivism,'” that he gave a name to a theory and approach a number of us had been…
Daniel on MOOCs
I previously posted an item on Sir John Daniel’s discussion of MOOCs, but I have added more extensive comments on Tony Bate’s review – I rather suspect it is much…
The ‘Course’ in MOOC
A discussion taking place on the OER-Forum Discussion List. Posts by other people in italics. Abel Caine wrote, “I have to intervene with the developing country perspective. Millions of smart,…
Being a Philosopher
My response to a comment from Pandora on a post about philosophy > “Isn’t philosophy taught mostly like read this, talk about it, write about it, argue about it.” Yes,…
K-12 MOOCs and Communities
Responding to questions from Paul Genge: > My question is about what tools do you think I should use to connect students with genres or communities of practice based on…
Questions from students at Vancouver Island University
I received a flurry of questions on some articles on my website yesterday, questions from students at Vancouver Island University. Rather than attempt to answer them individually, I’m grouping there…
Critical Thinking and Knowledge Domains
by Stephen Downes Responding to Alex Reid http://www.alex-reid.net/2012/08/critical-thinking-is-bogus.html (posting here in case he doesn’t approve the post in moderation): It would be helpful if we understood what you mean by…
Future Learning Interview
Hiya Peter, Answers to questions follow. 1. What do you think will be the long-term effects of tools like Cousera and Udacity, as well as the online material posted by…
The Robot Teachers
“Can you recommend a good doctor?” This is the final question in an article by Tony Bates about teaching, and it frames the debate nicely. We would be very disinclined…
Computer Use Guidelines
Responding to Alfred Thompson’s Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics: Leaving aside the questionable wisdom of framing generic advice within a construct specific to a certain religion… The commandments say, essentially,…
New Forms of Assessment: measuring what you contribute rather than what you collect
Once again, as we do at the start of every school year, we are hearing about the rampant cheating that goes on, especially online, but in fact, everywhere, and without…
Jobs That I’ve Had
Following up on this post from Blue Skunk blog, here’s a list of the jobs that I’ve had over the years: – 1970-74 – Newspaper carrier – I started with…