OLDaily

Presentation
Vision 2030: Redesigning Education for the Future
Stephen Downes, Nov 06, 2018, Asbar World Forum 2018, Riyadh, Saudia Arabia

In this presentation I outline three ways education needs to adapt to the future, by becoming more relevant, engaging and personal, and then describe the technologies and approaches we will need to develop and use in order to support this. (Note that long portions of the video are blocked by a camera operator sitting down in front of my camera and doing nothing in particular).

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

For the Web
Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Foundation, 2018/11/06

Tim Berners-Lee has launched a petition-pledge website calling on people to endorse a set of principles for the open web. I find that the principles he is asking people to sign fall far short of the web he is trying to support. The principles basically call for access, privacy and benefit to humanity. The main page calls for a web that's safe, diverse, open and accessible.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Learning Together, Learning on Their Own
Allison Rodman, Educational Leadership, ASCD, 2018/11/06

This article presents personal professional development for teachers from the stance of "what if?" and seems to suggest that it's a radical new idea. "Teachers, rightfully, have begun to speak out against this one-size-fits-all system and form their own professional learning networks (PLNs), using tools like Twitter and Voxer, edcamps, massive open online courses, and blogs." From where I sit, this mode of personal learning is well-entrenched. But I can see there being a perspective where all of this is new to teachers, and that it has been the change in their students' education that has led the way. See also: Escape from the zero-learning zone.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

One university to close, another lays off faculty, and two more will merge
Bryan Alexander, 2018/11/06

For a long time newspapers claimed they were holding out against the digital wave. Then the crisis hit and newsrooms began to close and jobs began to disappear. Colleges and universities, to this point, have been claiming they will hold out as well. But with the echo boom fading, the realities of digital competition are sinking in. As Bryan Alexander reports, "the forces of changing enrollment and declining state support continue to wreck havoc.  The American higher ed crisis rolls on."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Blockchain explained: What it is and isn’t, and why it matters
Brant Carson, Matt Higginson, Simon London, McKinsey, 2018/11/06

This podcast transcript provides a level-headed overview of blockchain technologies focusing especially on the trade-offs the use of blockchain entails (for example: less efficient databases in exchange for immutability). There's also a nice table depicting the major use cases for blockchain. And there's a nice look at the different motivations for employing blockchain: "it’s about disintermediation, but at the same time, those who are investing in the space think of it as a defensive play to strengthen their position in the center of an ecosystem."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]