OLDaily

E-Learning 3.0 - The Outline
Stephen Downes, Google Docs, 2018/09/13

I will be offering a MOOC called "E-Learning 3.0" this fall, launching at the Global Online Learning Summit | Online Learning 2018 in mid-October. The course will explore some of the major themes underlying what has been called Web 3.0 or DWeb and how they will impact online learning. My focus, as always, is educational technology, but of course technology can only be discussed in terms of the social, cultural and economic environment in which it is applied. The page linked here is a tentative outline for the course - please feel encouraged to add comments or suggestions. There's no sign-up form or anything like that - I will ask for information only if it's needed either to provide services (like email newsletters) or for research purposes (purely voluntary & with full disclosure).

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Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web
Zoë Corbyn, The Guardian, 2018/09/13

The web you thought you knew is getting ready for some major changes. "The proponents of the so-called decentralised web – or DWeb – want a new, better web where the entire planet’s population can communicate without having to rely on big companies that amass our data for profit and make it easier for governments to conduct surveillance." DWeb, or Web 3.0 (as it's also called in today's OLDaily) is coming. It's necessary. It has been building momentum for a couple of years now and is getting ready for prime time.

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EU approves controversial Copyright Directive, including internet ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
James Vincent, The Verge, 2018/09/13

There has been a lot of discussion regarding these regulations. Technology companies and activist organizations like EFF are particularly concerned (BoingBoing says "Europe just voted to wreck the internet, spying on everything and censoring vast swathes of our communications"). The provisions could require that companies pay money to sites for linking to them, and they could require that social networks filter content to prevent copyright breaches and other undesirable content. There's still another vote to go, though the sense it that it is likely to pass. More from EFF. Creative Commons calls it a major setback. Bryan Alexander calls it a dumb stick.

But maybe it's not so bad. Bill Rosenblatt, who has a long history of being reasonable in these matters, describes the bill as a "watered down" version of the original proposal, and expects more amendments before the final vote. And Ben Werdmuller draws what I think is the correct lesson from this: it's time to embrace decentralization. " While the internet economy has been dominated by services that leverage network effects to date, this directive is one way that monolithic networks have changed from an asset into a liability. Because the cumulative value in a network is owned by a single party, that party becomes subject to enormous rules and regulations over time."

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Why We Need Web 3.0
Gav Would, Medium, 2018/09/13

More and more, as Ethereum co-founder Gab Would says, we are seeing that "the internet today is broken by design." It is centralized, it is driven by "the greedy, the megalomaniacs, or the plain malicious," and it provides no defense against fake news, cyber-attacks and surveillance. Hence the need for what is being called web 3.0 (backed by a suite of applications called web3). "Web 3.0 is an inclusive set of protocols to provide building blocks for application makers," writes Would, " empowering users to act for themselves within low-barrier markets, we can ensure censorship and monopolization have fewer places to hide." Now maybe the new web won't quite be the "executable Magna Carta " Would says it will be. That seems a bit much. But it's certainly not going to continue in the model of Facebook and Twitter either.

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The Side Effects of Education: Research and Practice
Beth Holland, Education Week, 2018/09/13

The author considers the use of scientific evidence in education research in the light of Yong Zhao's  new book: What Works May Hurt - The Side Effects of Education. The major argument is this: " educators, policymakers, and researchers need to acknowledge that "the effect of any treatment is the result of interaction between the characteristics of the treatment and characteristics of the individual" (p. 90)" (the use of the word 'treatment' speaks to the analogy people are trying to draw between health and medicine). Research and evidence are important. But individual variability means that approaches that average and standardize are not just misleading, the may be harmful. You can also view the hour-long video with Yong Zhao.

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