Presentation
E-Learning: Générations
Stephen Downes, February 14, 2012, Clair 2012, Clair, New Brunswick

Presented in French / Presenté en français

Ces dernières années, j'ai travaillé sur deux grands concepts: d'abord, la théorie de l'apprentissage en ligne connectivist, qui considère l'apprentissage comme un processus de réseau et, deuxièmement, le massif cours ouverts en ligne, ou MOOC, qui est une instanciation de ce processus. Ceux-ci, cependant, ne représentent que la plus récente de ce qui peut être vu comme une série de «générations» de e-learning. Dans cet exposé, je décris ces générations et je discute de la façon dont ils ont conduit à, et sont une partie de, l'œuvre le plus récente dans l'apprentissage en ligne.

(In recent years I have been working on two major concepts: first, the connectivist theory of online learning, which views learning as a network process; and second, the massive open online course, or MOOC, which is an instantiation of that process. These, however, represent only the most recent of what can be seen as a series of 'generations' of e-learning. In this talk I describe these generations and discuss how they led to, and are a part of, the most recent work in online learning.)

- French Version
- English Version
- MS-Word Doc with both versions
- MP3 Audio (French)
- Video recording (French)
- Slides

[Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]

Learning to Fly
Will Richardson, Weblogg-Ed, February 14, 2012.

"As with just about everything, I’ve got to learn more than just making the plane do what I want it to. There’s a lot of math, physics, geography, statistics…all sorts of stuff that I never really liked in school (to put it mildly.) But I don’t mind it much at all because I know why I have to know it. "

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools]

Pragmatism, zeal, laziness, freedom
Brian Lamb, Abject, February 14, 2012.

Some good commentary from Brian Lamb on the whole "zeal before pragmatism" problem. "In this transcript, Moglen certainly fits the role of the relentless zealot, and in posting the transcript Jeffries plays the victim card without shame." But I wonder how much of the 'zeal versus pragmatism' problem is actually a made-up problem. Jeffries complains about banks using Facebook to create cxredit scores, Moglen says she shouldn't use Facebook then - zedal before pragmatism? But this isn't even the real story, the real story is where Moglen says "(Zuckerberg) he has done more harm to the human race than anybody else his age. Because he harnessed Friday night." Quite so, and this is the real story, and we get "zeal versus pragmatism" only because the reporter wants to do nothing more than recite clichés.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Books]

Understanding eLearning in Maritime Job Training and Familiarization
Murray Goldberg, Maritime Professional, February 14, 2012.

So what's Murray Goldberg up to these days? Goldberg was the founder of the wildly successful WebCT learning management system, which was eventually sold to Blackboard, then the founder of the less visibly successful Silicon Chalk. For a while he headed up AssoiCom, a private social network technology for associations. Now, he writes, he is building Marine Learning Systems, "the world's first Learning Management System for the administration, tracking, delivery and maintenance of training and familiarization operations in the Marine Industry.

If you're wondering what's special about marine learning, he outlines it all in this five-part series of articles. "Part 1 of this series introduced eLearning, talking about what it is, and why it is important that anyone involved in maritime training should do their utmost to understand its strengths and limitations. Part 2 of the series discussed what research has shown us about the strengths of eLearning. Part 3 and part 4 of this series covered some of the practical strengths of eLearning." And Part 5 discusses the limitations of e-learning in a maritime context. Taken as a whole, the series is a comprehensive outline of e-learning by a master of the field.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Blackboard Inc., Research, Networks, Online Learning]