Stephen Downes

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Embracing Uncertainty and the strange problem of habituation
Dave Cormier, Dave’s Educational Blog, February 3, 2012.

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Dave Cormier writes about Rhizomes and uncertainty. "The rhizome is uncertainty. That doesn’t mean it ‘isn’t’. It has no start and no ending. It is complex… and as such, it resists definition. As a model for learning, it resists ‘core principles’ or ‘final outcomes’. It is an ongoing process of growing, of surprise and of change." Martin Weller comments on this model in relation to the way experts are able to remember detailed aspects of their experience; "experts don't know they do this, but it's a by-product, or rather a means, of expertise." All very well, but "if it's unintentional, undirectional, informal and accidental then is there much we as educators can say about it other than 'that's interesting'?" I think that's a fallacy - I think that our inability to 'manage' something doesn't mean we have nothing useful to say about it.

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Farewell to the Enterprise LMS, Greetings to the Learning Platform
Phil Hill, e-Literate, February 3, 2012.

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"We are going," writes Phil Hill, "from an enterprise LMS market to a learning platform market." The difference between an LMS and a learning platform is that the latter "does not contain all the features in itself and is based on cloud computing – multi-tenant, software as a service (SaaS)." Definitely have a look at the article for a number of links to examples. "Another trend that is becoming apparent is that many of the new offerings are not attempting to fully replace the legacy LMS, at least all at once."

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Flight 1549: Expertise and how it gets there
Dave Ferguson, Dave's Whiteboard, February 3, 2012.

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A topic that really interests me is expertise. How do we become 'expert' and what does it look like? Dave Ferguson takes a look at what was arguably expert performance, Chesley Sullenberger's "successful ditching" of a passenger aircraft in the Hudson River (which maps to another topic that really interests me, flight). What's interesting is that there was no training specific to low-altitude engine loss and no time to consult the ditching checklest en route to the river. So expertise does not consist of 'training for that' but rather learning that can be applied in rtandom situatrions. Sullenberger says, "one way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."

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2017: RIP, OER?
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, February 3, 2012.

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Before we get a little overly exuberant about the ascendence of OERs, writes David Wiley, we need to look at what's happening in the education technology space. "Can you name a single OER project that does assessment at all (and I don’t mean PDFs of quizzes)? Can you name one that does diagnostic assessment or handles mastery in any meaningful way? ... Open education currently has no response to the coming wave of diagnostic, adaptive products coming from the publishers." The crux, says Wiley, is that if it took $100 million to get to where we are in OER, how much will it take to get to that next level?

Of course, the skill set required to make OERs is completely different from the skill set required to make educational software. Thus were is virtually no overlap between the OER community and, say, projects like OSCATS (Open Source Computerized Adaptive Testing System), Concerto, or even the older IRT-Computerized Adaptive Testing, to name a few. So I think the work is being done in the community, but most such work, it forms its own community, and doesn't evolve out of an existing community. But I don't want to downplay Wiley's point - it is absolutely essential that we look at the next generation of opnline learning, and not merely at replicating textbooks online.

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Let’s make OpenPhilosophy.org!
Jonathan Gray, Weblog, February 3, 2012.

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Jonathan Gray writes, "A little while ago I posted some ideas for a project called OpenPhilosophy.org, which would enable users to transcribe, translate, annotate and create collections of philosophical texts which have entered the public domain... the project has secured some funding from JISC, who champion digital technology for use in higher education in the UK... The project will develop an open source platform called TEXTUS, which will enable users to create, manage and interact with collections of texts." Related: read the full-text comments from Occupy Philosophy: Chad Kautzer, Charles Mills, Darrell Moore, Annika Theim, and Jennifer Uleman.

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Can Humanities Undergrads Learn to Code?
Rebecca Davis, NITLE Logo National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, February 3, 2012.

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I would never have though this would be an issue, but apparently "a recurring motif along the lines that coding (markup and programming) is so difficult that undergraduates trained in the humanities cannot learn it quickly or successfully." I must be a polymath then, having spent time coding pretty much through the whole of my philosophy undergrad. Or maybe the motif is just wrong. "The skills most humanities majors have mastered as part of their academic training, such as formulating research questions and reading critically, carry over easily and naturally into the world of humanities computing." And vice versa.

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Creative Thinking – Joanna Maxwell
Nicola, One Change a Day, February 3, 2012.

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Creative Thinking by Joanna Maxwell is a short but beautifully presented slide show outlining four major steps to cultivating your creativity. It is also sport-on -- these are tips I use on a daily basis and which have served me remarkably well:
- be curious
- make connections
- challenge yourself
- cultivate your ideas

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We Are More Than Algorithms
John T. Spencer, Education Rethink, February 2, 2012.

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When I read a statement like "we are more than algorithms" two things come to my mind:
- it depends on what you mean by "we", and
- it depends on what you mean by "algorithms"
Because, after all, an algorithm is, broadly construed a process or mechanism for doing something. Now if by that you mean 'a set of rules', then I agree, we are more than that. But if you mean by 'we' that there is some aspect of our comprehension that is by definition not representable through some process or mechanism, then I disagree. Simply setting the iPod down and jamming instead is the unthinking response. It's easy and glib to say 'we are more than algorithms' but in fact there are (or are going to be) algorithms that comprehend the innovative, the improvisational and the messy. And we can learn them. And we can become virtuosos - with or without the iPod.

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Links and Resources

(presentations include slides and audio recordings)
Videos: http://www.downes.ca/me/videos.htm
RSS Feed: http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.xml
Podcast: http://www.downes.ca/news/audio.xml

Key Articles

Scholarly Articles

Cites:294 Educational Blogging (Local copy)
264 Learning objects: Resources for distance education worldwide (Local copy)
134 E-learning 2.0 (Local copy)
126 Models for sustainable open educational resources (Local copy)
88 The future of online learning (Local copy
75 Learning networks and connective knowledge (Local copy)
70 Design and reusability of learning objects in an academic context: A new economy of education (Local copy)
59 Resource profiles (Local copy)
40 Learning networks in practice (Local copy)
33 Semantic networks and social networks (Local copy)
35 An introduction to connective knowledge (Local copy)
27 Design, standards and reusability (Local copy)
23 EduSource: Canada's learning object repository network (Local copy)
22 An introduction to RSS for educational designers (Local copy)

(Cites from Google Scholar for an H-Index = 14)

Recent Popular Articles

The Purpose of Learning, February 2, 2011.
The Role of the Educator, December 6, 2010.
Deinstitutionalizing Education, November 5, 2010.
Agents Provocateurs, October 28, 2010.
What Is Democracy In Education, October 22, 2010.
A World To Change, October 19, 2010.
Connectivism and Transculturality, May 16, 2010.
An Operating System for the Mind, September 19, 2009.
The Cloud and Collaboration, June 15, 2009.
Critical Thinking in the Classroom, June 5, 2009.
The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On, November 16, 2008.
Things You Really Need to learn: http://www.downes.ca/post/38502

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Contact: stephen@downes.ca Stephen.Downes@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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About Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes is a senior researcher for Canada's National Research Council and a leading proponent of the use of online media and services in education. As the author of the widely-read OLDaily online newsletter, Downes has earned international recognition for his leading-edge work in the field of online learning. He developed some of Canada's first online courses at Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Manitoba. He also built a learning management system from scratch and authored the now-classic "The Future of Online Learning".

At the University of Alberta he built a learning and research portal for the municipal sector in that province, Munimall, and another for the Engineering and Geology sector, PEGGAsus. He also pioneered the development of learning objects and was one of the first adopters and developers of RSS content syndication in education. Downes introduced the concept of e-learning 2.0 and with George Siemens developed and defined the concept of Connectivism, using the social network approach to deliver open online courses to three thousand participants over two years.

Downes has been offering courses in learning, logic, philosophy both online and off since 1987, has 135 articles published in books, magazines and academic journals, and has presented his unique perspective on learning and technology more than 250 times to audiences in 17 countries on five continents. He is a habitual photographer, plays darts for money, and can be found at home with his wife Andrea and four cats in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Vision Statement

I want and visualize and aspire toward a system of society and learning where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumberance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle.

Where they are able to form networks of meaningful and rewarding relationships with their peers, with people who share the same interests or hobbies, the same political or religious affiliations - or different interests or affiliations, as the case may be.

This to me is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence. This is what I aspire toward, this is what I work toward.

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Canadians who gave their lives in service in Afghanistan

Hundreds of my IAAF Track & Field Photos from Moncton 2010

My calendar

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