May 7, 2012
Presentation
Patterns of Progress
Stephen Downes, May 7, 2012,
Comment survivre au progrès, Hearst, Ontario, via Skype
I gave a talk today on the subject of progress for students in the Comment survivre au progrès? course being offered in Hearst, Ontario - a talk I would have liked to have given in French but decided out of caution to offer in English. In the first part, I survey the various ways of describing and looking at change, and in the send part, I look at these patterns as they cross our discussions of and conception of progress. I had Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress in mind, which I read over the week-end, as well as David Wiley's latest effort to understand me.
What Are Ed Tech Entrepreneurs Good For?
Michael Feldstein,
e-Literate, May 7, 2012.
Markets are something we create, argues Michael Feldstein, and tech companies are just following the markets we give them, doing what they do as though guided by the law of gravity. "The LMS market is a good case in point. Want to know why the LMS industry has a reputation for building crappy, expensive products? ... College LMS procurement processes are long and complex." And they tend toward large companies with big products that have lots of features. I have a less sanguine view of these companies than does Feldstein. I think they have played a significant role in shaping these markets. "The recent evolution toward learning platforms are partly a direct consequence of the fact colleges are getting more sophisticated in their approach to the product category," he says. No thanks to the LMS companies and the publishers and the rest, in my view. What has really forced a change? As Mark Oehlert says, "our ecosystem is commodified."
Elsevier: The beginning of the end?
Nassif Ghoussoub,
Weblog, May 7, 2012.
Nassif Ghoussoub muses on the Elsevier boycott and the rising numbers of mathematicians and other academics turning instead to free and open online publication. "I wish more academic editors of Elsevier journals would, and let’s face it, the campaign would have led to reform more quickly, had many of the editorial boards proceeded to resign, or only threaten to resign en masse." Still - there are signs things are changing. I will be speaking at the Learneds in Waterloo in a few weeks at the Canadian Association of Learned Journals conference - if journal publishers are willing to listen to me, then it's either a sign of the apocalypse, or a sign that thinsg are really changing.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Books, Canada, Academia, Academic Publications]
Open-access articles on the "Digital Campus" about open access
Curt Bonk,
TravelinEdMan, May 7, 2012.
I think that what has happened is that the traditional media has discovered our world. Curt Bonk writes, "each day there is something pressing to read from Education Week, the NY Times, the Washington Post, the USA Today, Time, eSchool News or eCampus News, Chief Learning Officer, Wired, or the Chronicle of Higher Education." And now, he adds, there's a special issue from the Chrinicle on the digital campus - of course, without a trace of ironly, the Chronicle locks most of the special issue behind a paywall. One of the accessible article shas a headline only the Chronicle could write: Social Networks for Academics Proliferate, Despite Some Doubts.
More on #BonkOpen and other MOOC-iness
Nancy White,
Full Circle Associates, May 7, 2012.
The edublogosphere has fairly erupted with commentary about MOOCs and their ilk following recent groundhaking events. It's more than one person can follow, it seems. But here's a post from Nancy White with links to a number of relevant recent posts. Authors include Lisa Lane, James Moore, Bonnie Stewart, Ignatia and many more.
How Amanda Palmer Built An Army Of Supporters: Connecting Each And Every Day, Person By Person
Amanda Palmer,
TechDirt, May 7, 2012.
I know of Amanda Palmer only because of her rendition of Science Fiction Double Feature on Craig Ferguson last Halloween, which I saw on YouTube (there's a totally different version here). But the point is, it is online and available through social media. Palmer writes, "We're entering the era of the social artist. It's getting increasingly harder to hide in a garret and lower your songs down in a bucket to the crowd waiting below, wrapped in a cloak of sexy mystery above. That was the 90s. Where an artist could be as anti-social as they wanted, and rack up cred left and right for shoe-gazing and detaching. It's over. The ivory tower of the mysterious artist has crumbled." And that's why she funded her next album (successfully) on Kickstarter.
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