OLDaily

Presentation
Rethinking the role of young people in a rapidly changing world
Stephen Downes, Oct 29, 2021, e21 Symposium, Ottawa, via Zoom

Panel at the e21 conference. I participated as a commentator; you can see my contribution beginning at 28:54 after the main speaker. Mostly what I talk about here is how to think about young people (specifically, not as defined by age, but as defined by experiences, which vary a lot across people). I argue in favour of autonomy for young people - and identify programs which focus on innovation and entrepreneurship as just another way of telling them what to do. And I argue that if we want to support young people, we should make sure they have the resoruces they need to bring their ideas to fruition.

[Link] [Audio] [Video]

Presentation
Are Upstart Online Providers Getting Better at Teaching Than Traditional Colleges?
Stephen Downes, Oct 29, 2021, EdSurge Podcast,

In this edition of the EdSurge Podcast Jeffrey R. Young interviews me at some length about the present and future of MOOCs. This audio has my side of the audio (so you'll have to imagine what the questions are). I haven't been able to find the finished interview on the EdSurge podcast (the current link is just a placeholder) but I'm pretty sure I didn't just imagine it.

[Link] [Audio]

Forget Flexibility. Your Employees Want Autonomy.
Holger Reisinger, Dane Fetterer, Harvard Business Review, 2021/10/29

I think this applies as much to students as to employees. "Data paints a picture of the future of work that is based on flexibility by way of autonomy. It also suggests that hybrid working strategies which approach the issue of flexibility by implementing granular policies on where and when to work are likely to be suboptimal or flat out rejected by the majority of workers." (Note: because Harvard only has $53.2 billion in the bank, it cannot afford to make this information available to the public free of charge, so you may encounter a paywall; I recommend using Firefox with Ublock Origin to get around this. I also note that I can get the full article in the RSS feed).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Are you really smart, or is it just Google?
UT Austin, Futurity, 2021/10/29

Will, I think I'm really smart, but perhaps I am indeed just fooling myself. "When we’re constantly connected to knowledge, the boundaries between internal and external knowledge begin to blur and fade," says Adrian Ward, assistant professor of marketing in the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. "We mistake the internet’s knowledge for our own."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Two Things Are True
Dean Shareski, Ideas and Thoughts, 2021/10/29

Two things are true, writes Dean Shareski. "Teachers are overwhelmed and tired and teachers still need and want to learn." So he asks, "how do we design professional learning that equally honors both of those truths?" The article consists mostly of Twitter responses to the question. Overall, he says, "choice and well designed experiences top the list." The other major response is that because things are "bananas" at school, there's no time to learn. I would think the opposite is true: learning the only way to develop an effective response to crisis. At the same time, though, I'm sympathetic. "No buses & no subs & no routines & & &" is enough to challenge anyone. Image: EdSurge.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Expensive, boring, and wrong: Here are all the news publications people canceled and why
Laura Hazard Owen, Nieman Lab, 2021/10/29

I know that news media differs from education in significant ways. Nonetheless, I think this article is instructive - it is a lengthy list of the reasons people gave for why they cancelled their subscriptions. Cost was a major factor. But form my perspective, another was what amounts to a betrayal of trust. News media were expected to inform, but over time as ownership changed they became much more adept at maximizing profits and presenting a corporate-friendly perspective. When we read all the time about educators needing to meet employer needs and train for values such as innovation and entrepreneurship, I see the same sort of thing happening. Education, just like news media, functions best if it represents the interests of the reader, not the owner. When it doesn't, people sign off.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]