Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

An Open Mind

Katie Hafner, NY Times, Apr 19, 2010

I find it fascinating that the NY Times depicts open education almost exclusively in terms of the contributions of Ivy League universities. There's no denying some of the American universities - like MIT - have been major players. But most - like Harvard and Yale - have been laggards, and none of them offers genuine open learning, just access to the materials. The edupunk phenomenon is much wider than some Harvard grad who has offered two open courses online (I had done that in 1996, and many others before me) and the open online education movement is genuinely international in scope. I'm not sure whether the NY Times account is a deliberate misrepresentation of online open learning, or just the usual inward-looking navel-gazing myopia, but one would think they should do better. Via Bill St. Arnaud, who excerpts at length (useful for when the times disappears behind a paywall).

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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