May 28, 2012
Presentation
Publishing Paradigms of the Future: Where are We Headed?
Stephen Downes, May 27, 2012,
Canadian Association of Learned Journals - Congress of the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences , Waterloo, Ontario
Helsinki
Stephen Downes,
Flickr, May 28, 2012.
This is my first real day off in a while - I'll be in the big city and down to watch a Blue Jays game this evening - and it has given me a chance to catch up on some unfinished business - posting my photos from a brief day-drip across the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki while I was in Estonia in mid-April. Enjoy. And as always, the slideshow version.
Classroom observation software
Selena,
learning elearning, May 28, 2012.
I saw some interesting software called StudioCode while I was at the Congress yesterday (the one computer program in a room full of vendors selling boks - I thought I was in the 1980s). It bills itself as "video performance tagging software to assess training effectiveness and best practice competency." It's an elegant product, used by a number of NHL teams (and a wide variety of other clients) and though the price made me gasp I could see how something like this is a real step forward in assessment (and more importantly, improvement). I shared some memories of Roger Nielsen with Simon Reynolds, the booth-jockey. Anyhow, today along comes a post on classroom observation software. "The two are ecove and observe4success. Both require download of specialised software to assist with the archiving and analysis of classroom observations." Of course, the end-point for this sort of software is an algorithm that does the tagging automatically. But this sort of AI is as yet well beyond anyone's capability.
How revolutionary are MOOCs and their spin-offs? Some tentative predictions
Markus Deimann,
markusmind, May 28, 2012.
Do MOOCs address 'serious learning'? What is 'serious learning'? We write, "You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is PICK AND CHOOSE content that looks interesting to you and is appropriate for you." Markus Deimann responds, "For me this has more in common with TV-channel switching than with serious learning, which is aimed at a deep understanding. So I think it is important to facilitate deep learning, motivating the student to be persistent in the face of complicated or boring content." I really think this mixes motivation and process. I learned Perl and never took a course in it. Serious? This website is coded in it. Complicated? You bet. But not, according to this account, 'serious'. I can't agree.
MOOCs, Education and The Infinite Hotel
Gordon Lockhart,
Connection not Content, May 28, 2012.
It does raise the question of what a 'course' is. Gordon Lockhart writes, "A MOOC isn’t a course of course. Courses are about curricula and the management of time, resources, learners and teachers. A MOOC is Something Else - I think it belongs in the Infinite Hotel and there’s plenty of room there for any number of different types."
Salaries and Salary Scales of Full-time Teaching Staff at Canadian Universities, 2008/2009: Preliminary Report
Various Authors,
Statistics canada, May 26, 2012.
I've had a couple of occasions to refer to this document in the last few weeks, so it's worth saving here. From Statistics canada, it is a listing of all professorial salaries in Canadian universities. Clicking on the link takes you straight to the PDF document. I've saved a copy on my website just in case the Statistics Canada document becomes unavailable.
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