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by Stephen Downes
Apr 27, 2018
Presentation
How Open Education Can Change the World (Reprise)
Stephen Downes, Apr 26, 2018, Educacion y Technologia en y Para La Diversidad, Medellin, Colombia
I define and explore the application of open education and open educational resources (OER) to peace, reconciliation and development in Colombia. I describe how new technologies have made possible new ways of learning, and how we can work together as a community to teach ourselves, thus allowing each person the voice and opportunity to play a meaningful role in society. This is a more polished version of the talk given in Rionegro.
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Stephen Downes, Apr 26, 2018, ,
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Stephen Downes, Apr 26, 2018, ,
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Presentation
How Open Education Can Change the World
Stephen Downes, Apr 24, 2018, Educación para la Paz, Rionegro, Colombia
In this presentation I explore the application of open education and open educational resources (OER) to peace, reconciliation and development in Colombia. I describe how new technologies have made possible new ways of learning, and how we can work together as a community to teach ourselves, thus allowing each person the voice and opportunity to play a meaningful role in society.
Community Standards
Facebook, 2018/04/26
This document is being depicted as Facebook's "content moderation standard" but it isn't that. It's a document aimed at users and describes what Facebook is calling its "community standards" but is more like a plain-language version of its terms of service. This is an important distinction because the concept of "community standards" is originally (and still!) a representation of what the community thinks is appropriate, not a service provider.
That said, the document is worth a close read because it contains a number of what I might call "head-scratchers". For example, it disallows threats, but only "credible" threats. With some very few limitations, it is fine with guns and gun culture, but promotion of marijuana (soon to be legal in Canada, and already legal in many places) is a violation. Oh, and no swearing. Facebook redefines "spam" as "false advertising, fraud, and security breaches" (as opposed to the original definition, which is "unwanted advertising"). It disallows fake accounts but still won't remove fake news. It resists monetization of its incentives (eg., by requiring people to like, share, or recommend before allowing access to content). hen it receives copyright complaints, it takes down the content instead of simply notifying the person posting it.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Opportunity or Exploitation?
Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/04/26
This the sort of innovation that would be classified as "disruptive" were is accompanied with an app and some Silicon Valley VC funding (which may yet happen; don't rule it out). Southern Illinois University i proposing a "zero-hour adjunct" status, which is essentially a way of appointing alumni to volunteer positions doing things like "service on graduate student thesis, departmental or university committees, along with lectures in graduate or undergraduate courses and collaborating on grant proposals and research projects." The objection from faculty, of course, is that "The issue is that SIU is devaluing a portion of academic labor to $0." But if the university is able to find suitably qualified people willing to do the work for free, why would they continue paying people?
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
A Reality Check on Author Access to Open Access Publishing
Hilda Bastian, PLOS Blogs, Absolutely Maybe, 2018/04/26
I recently wrote an article about critical thinking for educators and I'm thinking that a follow-up on scientific reasoning might be a good idea. The machinations in this email exchange on open access journals is a great case in point. Heather Morrison reports that "73% of fully OA journals (about three quarters) do not charge APCs." In a PLOS blog post Hilda Badtian responds that the 73% represents a disproportionate number of journals that do not publish in English, are not indexed in PubMed, or do not issue DOI for the articles. In particular, says Bastian, Heather Morrison's data is "deeply misleading. And it does harm. As long as people can argue that there are just so many options for fee-free publishing, then there will be less of a sense of urgency about eliminating, or at least drastically reducing, APCs." Now that, to me, is a very bad argument for preferring one data set over another. You don't get to pick your data based on the argument you are trying to win. And doing so undermines the use of data in public discourse generally.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Emoji Are Ruining Grasp of English, Says Dumbest Language Story of the Week
Geoffrey Pullum, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2018/04/25
To put Geoffrey Pullum's cogent argument into a nutshell: " Haven’t these hyperbole-mongers noticed that young people today write to each other more than young people have ever done in all of human history? Their texting, tweeting, WhatsApping, Snapchatting, Facebooking, and Instagramming may have psychological downsides (like cyber-bullying), but dropping the occasional pictographs into their prose is not going to strip them of the capacity to form sentences. Anyone who believes emoji are having even the slightest effect on English syntax is an utter 🤡." Also worth nothing, because this dumb headline came to us courtesy of traditional print media: "it’s survey-takers working for a company that just happens to host thousands of brush-up-your-grammar videos!" Ah, the incorruptible press.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
The State of Innovation in Higher Education: A Survey of Academic Administrators
Andrew J. Magda, Jill Buban, Online Learning Consortium, The Learning House, Inc., 2018/04/25
I'm not sure administrators are the best people to ask about innovation at educational institutions, and they'll say typical things like "Administrators often discuss a top-down approach — the president and provost setting the tone and directive for innovation at the institution — as creating the most success in innovation" (I find that consultants say this sort of thing as well, maybe because they are marketing their services to administrators). But the survey also recognizes "this approach must be carefully balanced and include a bottom-up component in which faculty, staff, and other constituents can drive the innovation process on their own." (44 page PDF)
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
The new geo-politics of higher education
Simon Marginson, Centre for Global Higher Education, 2018/04/24
This paper argues the case for the global network of world class universities (WCUs). "The outcomes of higher education are not confined to, or even primarily, the creation of private economic and status benefits for graduates. Institutions of higher education generate many other individual and collective benefits, on both the local/national and the global planes." Fair enough. But the problem is (in my view) is that the people they most benefit is themselves. To be fair, the authors recognize this. "Networked WCUs are naturally disposed to secure mutual positive sum benefits (but) the contribution of WCUs to the common good is variable... (and) is articulated by two factors. The first is the polarity between social inclusion and exclusion in WCUs, which exclusion mostly wins... The second factor is (where) global practices of WCUs escape national constraints."
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
World-class systems rather than world-class universities
Rajani Naidoo, University World News, 2018/04/24
It's just coincidence that this article appears as I am focusing on much the same sort of question while here in Colombia. But the author makes an argument with which I am largely in agreement. " In highly stratified systems, a major share of national resources is swallowed up by universities identified as world class. These universities are tasked with a research and prestige mission that is often diametrically opposed to enhancing equality." These universities, and the institutions that fund them, should be tasked with developing world class systems with an explicit intent to benefit all the people of a country, not just an elite. See also Jose Manuel Restrepo Abondano onhow universities can help to build lasting peace.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
In “EdTech”, “Ed” comes before “Tech”: A National Louis University/Acrobatiq Case Study
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2018/04/25
Updated with correct link. I'm sure that the series this article introduces will be valuable, but my purpose here is to be a bit pedantic, but in so doing, allow me to illustrate the difference between my perspective and Michael Feldsteins. The pedantic point is that you can draw inferences about what ought to be done on the basis of quirks of language. Yes, 'Ed' comes before 'Tech'. But there isn't some 'Tech Ed' which is about the use of technology first in education. Rather, 'Tech Ed' means something completely different. So it means nothing that 'Ed' comes before 'Tech'.
But it's significant in the sense that the article points out that the university "modeled what universities need to do before they select courseware, from designing a business/sustainability model that enables them to provide appropriate cost of an education to thinking about educational goals to figuring out where courseware does and doesn't fit into that overall model." They did the 'Ed', then they did the 'Tech'. But I see it very differently. I look at 'Tech' and imagine what 'Ed' could be. I don't start with the presumptions of a university. And not surprisingly, where I end up looks very little like one.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Falling Into the Belief Gap
Beth Hawkins, The 74, 2018/04/24
This reads more like a first-person story instead of the piece of advocacy journalism it is, and it's a style I really don't like very much, but it raises a valuable point that should not be overlooked: " The skill of self-advocacy is crucial for everyone, but especially for young people confronted by steep challenges." I've seen some people who can overcome this by themselves, but for most people, the task of believing in themselves requires the help of someone else who believes in them.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Having an audience makes us better at performing
Jill Rosen-Johns Hopkins, Futurity, 2018/04/24
I think we've generally believe that the headline is true, but it's always nice to be able to back our intuitions with research. The open-access paper being discussed is called Neural substrates of social facilitation effects on incentive-based performance. According to the summary, " In essence, the presence of an audience, at least a small one, increased people’s incentive to perform well, Chib says, and the brain scans validated this by showing the neural mechanism for how it happens.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
OER18 Reflections
Laura Ritchie, lauraritchie.com, 2018/04/23
Laura Ritchie and her students hosted a session at OER18 describing how to write a song on a ukelele. This is the sort of session that would challenge me a lot, because my experiences making music are minimal and unpleasant. But the core of the session wasn't about music; it was about teaching and creating. "I will only ever know a small part of any of my students, and somehow I need not only to provide them with skills and tools, but also an open mindset for working. Open for me goes beyond the label." T
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
An Open Education Reader
David Wiley, 2018/04/23
This is David Wiley's resource he has created for hi course on open educational resources. I assume that this is the basis for what Sheila MacNeill called Wiley's "potted" history of OER (I'm not really sure what 'potted' means in this context). As noted in her post, she disagrees with his sources ("predominately white, male, North American, middle class"). I took a quick look through and find I'm not in there either. I wondered which criterion I didn't satisfy. But I think that the basis for Wiley's sources lies more in the very particular story he wants to tell (the one I've argued with him about for 20 years), and not in gender, race, income or geography. My contributions would run counter to his narrative. But still. In a history of OER I would think both Models of Sustainable OERs and Downes vs Wiley would qualify as significant, no?
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Scholars look for ways to restore respect for expertise
Mary Beth Marklein, University World News, 2018/04/23
I find the phrasing of the headline interesting, as though the scholars are trying to figure out how to get the rest of the world to listen to them. This was the focus of the recent AERA conference. The core of the issue, though, emerges in the desire of scholars to see people engage with reason and evidence more than emotion, hopes and fears. Which is fair enough, I guess - after all, I have been the first to argue in favour of correct and clear reasoning. But as the article notes, where are the academics and the researchers in the issues of the day? Why are their cloistered behind tuition barriers and subscription walls? Why don't we see them show what good reasoning and clear thinking looks like? If the only news you see is Fox News, you begin to think that Fox News is news.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
Open Chasms – definitions dividing or uniting the open community? Some thoughts from #oer18
Sheila MacNeill, howsheilaseesIT, 2018/04/23
This is a bit of a natural follow-up to Phl Barker's post of the other day. Sheilla MacNeill addresses what she calls David Wiley's "potted history of open, open source, learning objects" and argues "if we don’t explicitly address diversity, actively seek to include, support and embrace different voices, it’s not the difference between purists and pragmatists that will divide a community – it’s who is included and excluded." That's all very good, but the people who get to make that point are the people who are actually doing it, or better, the people who have been excluded. To presume that you actually have the definitive community to which you are the gatekeepers over who will be invited or (in my case, I guess) disinvited is over the top. Here is the community. Go talk to them.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]
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