Stephen Downes

Andy Lane offers his reflections on 20 years of the Open University's OpenLearn project, from its beginnings as a Hewlett-funded initiative influenced by things like Creative Commons and MIT OpenCourseWare through to its current status as a fixture of the university. What stands out to me is how much OpenLearn depended on continued funding and support from the University, and how other initiatives with less consistent and stable support were not able to achieve the same success. That said, what also emerges is the long-term impact sharing learning resources has had on the wider community. I would also like to see him expand on his comment that "the report on OER policies I linked to earlier proposed that the MOOC movement severely hindered the OER movement."

I was never part of Zine culture, though if I had ever been exposed to them I would no doubt have picked up the trend - after all, in grade school, I did write and print my own local newspaper, 'The Eagle Report', which I tried to sell in local stores (I loved eagles and birds generally; still do). Anyhow, Zines are having a moment - Doug Belshaw sold out his first limited print run, and Creative Commons celebrated its 25th anniversary with a 28 pager. In this post Alan Levine also links to one in the classic style from Becky Chambers along with her 8-page single sheet Zine template (I have no idea where I'd find a printer for paper that size).

This is "a persistent, LLM-maintained knowledge base for learning design" containing sections (a.k.a. 'knowledge types') on "principles, elements, patterns, designs, products and programmes, strategies, design processes and methods, research methods, theories, learner variables, and empirical claims." It's in a very raw state: "models wrote this wiki, and no person has yet checked any page." Still, in broad strokes, it reflects the state of the literature, and the literature is messy: 170 principles, 1360 theories, 26495 claims. No doubt a first pass could reduce this number somewhat, but it's no wonder there's no real progress in learning time when just about every paper starts anew with a revision of the basics. 

The DS 106 Daily Create has been running non-stop since 2012. The idea is simple: post a creativity prompt once a day and a hashtag people can use to identify their contributions, aggregate them, and enjoy. It started as a Twitter thing but migrated some time ago to the Fediverse. You can follow it here. In this post Alan Levine reintroduces the Daily Create and talks about how he spent 25 minutes over breakfast making Friday's. What I like is that I can picture it as though it were myself - though I don't contribute at all regularly to the Daily Create (it's more like once in a blue moon) I nonetheless identify with the idea of waking up in the morning and spending the day creating. That is what I do, and it is to me a good way to live my life. 

I think of this often in the sense that I wonder whether people around me can know or understand what I'm thinking about. My conclusion is that they most certainly cannot. But if we don't share thoughts with each other how can we even communicate? This is a good discussion, and I align (more or less) with Kit Fine's suggestion that "communication is not really a matter of thought identity, but thought coordination. What matters is not the intrinsic properties of two people's thoughts or the extent to which those are the same. What matters is how those thoughts are related. For instance, treating our thoughts as if they are about the same things often suffices for understanding and joint behaviour." 

I wouldn't say journalism is for everyone - it takes a certain skill to approach a stranger and ask them to give you information, even if you are backed by press credentials. That said, my experience in student journalism meant the world to me and the fact that I have a career at all is a testament to the skills and attitudes it helped me acquire. And that's what's described here: "In our classroom-turned-newsroom, students analyze information, verify facts and consider different viewpoints for every story they publish. They wrestle with ethical dilemmas, use their own judgement and write their own copy. " There's one big difference, though. My journalism experience was voluntary, not part of a course or class, and not something managed by a teacher or professor. We - the students - ran the newspaper ourselves. This included not only writing and reporting, but layout and design, advertising, financial management, even office supplies and printing contracts. It makes a difference.