Stephen Downes

Blockchain looking more and more like a ball and chain?

Donald Clark was a fan of blockchain a couple of years ago but he reports that he has "fallen out of love with this technology" because "I’ve still to see a single implementation in learning that is worth the candle." I think this is true, and I think most of the educational implementations to date have been trivial. But I'm more concerned about this: "In truth education and training does not want to be decentralised and democratised or disintermediated, as almost everyone in the field works in an institutions that will protect themselves to the death." This is also true, and what we might see in education is the educational version of Stellar or Ripple: the big banks creating their own version of the tech and setting up their own centralized network. But I also think there more to the picture than badges and credentials. More to come. Soon.

Today: 160 Total: 160 Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, 2018/10/04 [Direct Link]

American Chemical Society (ACS) and Elsevier File Copyright Infringement Lawsuit in U.S. vs. ResearchGate

The only thing that surprises me about this is that it took this long to happen. The lawsuit alleges that "ResearchGate takes high-quality scientific articles that are written and published by others and makes them freely available via its for-profit platform." There may be examples to the contrary (though I didn't see any) but strictly speaking, this isn't what ResearchGate does. Yes, it does harvest articles - but only open access articles. Otherwise,m what it does is ask authors to upload their personal copies (usually preprints) or (more commonly) posts a link whereby you can email the author asking them to send you a copy (via ResearchGate). All of this is perfectly legal, and will (IMO) constitute the bulk of ResearchGate's defense. This is a developing story and the Library Journal will be updated as new information becomes available. More from Inside Higher Ed

Today: 123 Total: 123 Gary Price, Library Journal, 2018/10/04 [Direct Link]

What Do Edtech and IKEA Have in Common? Persuasive Design.

This is a partial podcast transcript of a discussion with a panel (Sandra Burri Gram-Hansen, Margarita Quihuis and Safiya Noble) discussing behaviour design using educational technology. I like the analogy with the Ikea showroom, though it suggests something a bit pernicious: you cant't go wherever you want in an Ikea store the way you can in a department store, and the design is not for your benefit, it's for Ikea's. There's a slant to the piece (crediting the 'invention' of the field to a Stanford professor in the 90s; telling us that diversity, in this case at least, "isn't because of kumbaya") and the presentation of the (false?) hope that "if they understand the principles of persuasive systems, then that also means that they are able to reject unwanted influence" but it's worth thinking about.

Today: 179 Total: 179 Jeffrey R. Young, Sydney Johnson, EdSurge, 2018/10/04 [Direct Link]

Intro to OER: A Wider Spectrum

The bulk of this post is a revised outline of an introduction to open educational resources (OER) with a lot of links to sources and resources. This is prefaced with an explanation of that structure. "I try to work from the typical conception of OER towards what I feel like are less considered elements," writes Tom Woodward. "That leads to starting with courses/textbooks... I drift a bit farther afield here and start to look at tools for faculty to create OER content... close with social bookmarking."

Today: 135 Total: 243 Tom Woodward, Bionic Teaching, 2018/10/03 [Direct Link]

Why History Matters

Audrey Watters is, as always, interesting, and in this article as in so many there are some great observations. Such as: "much of the pace of change can be accounted for by the fact that many new technologies are built atop – quite literally – pre-existing systems." But there's also this: "[a] key piece to remember about the history of computing technology and the history of education technology: they are deeply intertwined with the military and with technologies of war." And my thought when I read this was: "well sure, in the U.S. maybe, but what about everywhere else?" Despite noting the use of slates for centuries, Watters relates the story of the 'invention' of the blackboard at West Point, but we can read elsewhere that "James Pillans, Headmaster of the Old High School in Edinburgh, Scotland has been credited with the invention.," using it to teach geography. Not war.

Today: 91 Total: 193 Audrey Watters, Hack Education, 2018/10/03 [Direct Link]

A Comparison of Social Learning Systems: Crochet Alongs and MOOCs

This is a great paper that introduces us to a type of MOOC that is more like a MOOC than the MOOCs offered by most MOOC providers. The category is the 'Along', as in "Crochet Along', as in'crochet along with me'. "The term Crochet Alongs (CALs) is used by crocheters (sometimes known as hookers) to describe Internet-based crochet projects whereby participants are working together on their own instantiation of an artefact (such as a blanket), following instructions available online and sharing their experiences across an Internet platform such as Facebook, many participations start as soon as a CAL is launched, but completion times vary." The upshot of the work is a set of amendments to Conole's rather institution-focused classification schema for MOOCs.

Today: 86 Total: 210 Shirley Williams, E.J. Highwood, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2018/10/03 [Direct Link]

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