Presentation
Trends in education: Facts, Fads and Fiction
Stephen Downes, Nov 26, 2016, Digital trends challenging learning and training in the workplace, Brussels, Belgium

This talk looks at a number of current trends in online learning and sorts then according to their likelihood of success. In general, those that depend on significant human intervention - such as, for example, creating competency definitions - are expected to be failures. The distinction between learning as a path and learning as an environment is discussed. In the video, Wilfred Rubins speaks first; my talk begins at 1:01:00

After the talk, we held an afternoon workshop in the BeODL offices.

[Link] [Slides] [Audio]

Great Bloggers of Canada
Dean Shareski, Discovery Education Network, 2016/11/28

Dean Shareski highlights five Canadian bloggers that may be new to you (quoted and paraphrased):

• Hugh McDonald: a strong advocate of ideas like Genius Hour and other innovative practices.
• Robyn Thiessen: exploring many ideas around space and design.
• Kelli Holden: with a collective team that is pushing the envelope of new learning.
• Rex Ferguson-Baird: has built an enormous number of partnerships for his school .
• Rola Tibshirani: student ownership and agency.

I've added these to my reader so you don't have to read them. But you should.

[Link] [Comment]

Generations of service, love and respect
Unattributed, New Zealand Education Gazette, 2016/11/28

We don't see stories like this enough in the news. What's important here is not technology, content, or test scores, but the deliberate modeling of values educators would like to see carried on. You have to live what you teach. "Just as the poutu needs to be fixed and stable to hold up the fale, so the values of alofa (love and commitment), tautua (service and responsibility) and fa’aaloalo (respect) remain constant."

[Link] [Comment]