Stephen Downes

According to this article, "The Compass provides a method for thinking about governance and implementation of technologies holistically to help education systems navigate technological change while keeping human rights, democracy and the rule of law at the centre." The 'compass' has two major axes: "the governance of people and the governance of processes"; and "education with AI and education about AI." There are four layers: exploration, integration, implementation, and transformation. Around the outside are eight interconnected systems. The intent is fir the compass to be a guide, not a destination, and it's a nice metaphor, but I'm not sure it advances discourse in any particular way.

This article takes a problem of coordination, translates it into a problem of ownership, and recommends a centralized solution in the form of a Chief Online Learning Officer (COLO). It sounds great, but it seems to me that it just pushes the problem deeper (and more intractably) into the different departments. Jeremiah Grabowski references decisions about online learning being made in academic affairs, instructional design, admissions, and marketing, among others. Is the COLO now going to tell marketing how to market? Admissions who to admit? This simply creates contradictions in each of those departments, where they no longer have the mandate to manage what they have the putative mandate to manage. 

This is the book-length version of the much briefer manifesto (64 page PDF) released last year. It's available in Pressbooks format or 197 page PDF. It is composed of 30 essays from various authors organized around the three major themes: rethinking teaching and learning; responsibility, ethics and power; and imagination, humanity and the future. I have mixed feelings about both the messaging and the purplish prose, but I do like the structure. And we don't have to fret silently if we disagree; there's an interactive website where you can respond to each of the essays (and it's nice to see people actually interacting on it). My favourite comment so far, on the section called "Curiosity surpasses completion": "I interpret this as learning is in the process, not in the product. In which case I agree. Could be made plainer English." The same (?) anonymous poster reaction to another chapter: "This is a bit abstracty as it stands."

At first, based on the title, I thought this was a great new way to help people attending a conference to experience different sessions virtually, so they didn't miss out on multiple simultaneous sessions that are the norm for a conference experience. Alas, no, it's just a standard presentation on how do design a self-paced module for a course, and looks at such standards as chunking, flexible resources, and keeping the cohort connected. But it would be a good idea to convert conference sessions into virtual experiences - not just a video recording of someone talking and showing slides, but something engaging and interactive. 

This paper (28 page PDF) is not only fascinating, it is well worth reading for those charged with expressing land acknowledgements. The paper serves three objectives: to describe the history of land acknowledgements in the Coast Salish region of British Columbia, specifically, the ch'ech'itsul code; to identify how traditional acknowledgements are being "culturally misappropriated" to contain references to "stolen land", to express personal feelings, and to describe remorse or regret; and to describe the correct form of a land acknowledgement for the region, consisting of three parts: to introduce and situate the speaker, to acknowledge the stewards of the territory, and to explain the intent behind the event. Where I live, some 3500 kilometres away, my home sits on land where the traditional territories of four distinct nations overlap: the Omàmìwininìwag (Algonquin), Wendake-Nionwentsïo, Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga (Haudenosaunee), and Anishinabewaki, and is acknowledged in a treaty called the Crawford Purchase (1783). 

Good article on the emerging practice of learning and development (L&D) building their own tools, using AI, rather than buying from vendors. There are good reasons for this: it's fast, it's cheap, and you can get exactly the tool you want instead of settling for whatever the vendor has available The bulk of the article lists types of tools L&D teams are building, and the variety tells the story, everything from problem statement bots to job aid bots.