OLDaily Audio: Recent Episodes
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In this presentation I consider some potential applications of AI in the design of online learning (and MOOCs in particular), point to the importance of data in these design processes, and discuss how data development and quality will become of major importance to learning design in the future.
Transforming Education in the Artificial Intelligence Era, Rabat, Morocco, via Salle de conférence AI et Transformation pédagogique () Jul 13, 2023 [Link] [Slides]
[Slides][Audio] My objectives are to:
- offer clear and understandable descriptions of three current technologies (metaverse, blockchain, artificial intelligence)
- discuss how they will impact the traditional role and function of universities
- describe the application of the conference themes (inclusion, sustainability, ethics) to these technologies with respect to these roles
Video with translation into Catalan
1r Congres Internacional de la SCP-IEC, Lleida, Spain () Dec 02, 2022 [Link][Slides][Audio] [Video] [Transcript]
We begin by looking at the applications of artificial intelligence and analytics in learning technology, describing in a structured way what decisions we actually make when we apply artificial intelligence, analytics, and neural networks to teaching and learning. We also survey the ethical issues that have arisen in the field, for example, bias in algorithms, justice and fairness, diversity and equity, bad actors and data manipulation, and a range of other concerns.
Some additional (big) resources:
- 1050 slides - pptx
- 1050 slides - pdf
- 997 page document
- Ethical Codes and Learning Analytics
Online Educa Berlin 2022, Berlin, Germany (Workshop) Nov 23, 2022 [Link] [Slides]
[Slides][Audio] As a new generation of digital technologies evolves we are awash in new terms and concepts: the metaverse, the fediverse, blockchain, web3, acitivitypub, and more. This presentation untangles these concepts and presents them from the perspective of their impact on open learning.
Open Education Conference, Online, via Zoom (Lecture) Oct 19, 2022 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
I was a part of this panel along with other members of the Covid Education Alliance (CovidEA). This session explores the ways in which digital solutions are currently used in our learning systems and how their uses can be expanded upon. Panelists discuss the priorities and concrete actions needed to transition to effective, sustainable education systems that prepare students and learners for the future.
Digital With Purpose Summit 2022, Online, to Lisbon, Portugal () Sept 28, 2022 [Link] [Slides]
[Video]
[Slides][Audio] At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system in Canada and around the world received an unexpected shock as schools, colleges and universities closed and people began working and learning from home. As faculty, instructors, students, administrators, policy-makers and funders, we learned a lot. But what can we expect in the future? In this webinar, Contact North I Contact Nord Research Associate Stephen Downes discusses the 10 major educational technology tools, methods and developments that are expected to be more widely adopted within two to three years and will likely be mainstream by 2030. See also the associated research report published by Contact North.
Webinar, Online, via Zoom (Seminar) Sept 21, 2022 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [Record post 74134 is unpublished.]
In this presentation I outline the development of MOOCs, discuss the impact of the pandemic, and suggest several ways MOOCs will grow and develop in the future, including through the use of web3 technologies, live linked data, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse.
Iranian Conference of Health Professions Education (ICHPE), Tehran, Iran, by Zoom (Keynote) May 20, 2022 [Link] [Slides]
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[Slides][Audio] This short presentation introduces major elements of the metaverse, outlines some applications for education, discusses how it may be combined with other technologies for advanced applications, and outlines some issues and concerns.
Smart Education Summit: Reinventing education in the Metaverse era, Online, via Teams, to Rabat, Morocco (Lecture) May 13, 2022 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
[Slides][Audio] Video slide presentation to accompany my data literacy report (79 page PDF). It's a comprehensive analysis opf the concept of data literacy, descrivbing the overall competencies involved, methods for assessing data literacy, and methods for enhancing data literacy.
In-house, Ottawa (Seminar) May 11, 2022 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
[Slides][Audio] Developers and practitioners have come to realize that OER require support and an infrastructure, and this has been realized through such mechanisms as open online courses and open practices. In this plenary Stephen Downes describes these developments both from a historical context and also to develop a broader framework of support. Drawing from examples in other fields, including social media, streaming video, and open source software, he identifies key elements of a broad-based open educational platform (OEP) and offers suggestions on how librarians and information scientists can support this approach.
LISACON-2021, Bangalore, India, via Zoom (Lecture) Jan 07, 2022 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
This was a panel discussion hosted by Saul Carliner and which featured myself, Matthew Giorgio and Jason Tam. We discussed the impact of the pandemic, the learning experience platform, changes in assessment and microcredentials, the role of AI in learning, and the future of learning generally.
CNIE Seminar, Online, via Zoom (Panel) Dec 15, 2021 [Link]
[Video]
[Audio] 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.
e21 Symposium, Ottawa, via Zoom (Panel) Oct 29, 2021 [Link]
[Audio] [Video]
[Audio] 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. Update. The interview has been posted as a podcast, along with contributions from George Siemens; here's my post wehere I discuss the final poduct.
EdSurge Podcast, (Interview) Oct 29, 2021 [Link]
[Audio]
[Slides][Audio] Part of Module 2 in Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care, this presentation survers the application of AI and anlytics in learning, first from the perspective of different functions performed by analytics, then from the perspective of six types of analytics task: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, generative and deontic.
Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care, (Lecture) Oct 19, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]
[Slides][Audio] This is a short 15-minute version of a longer presentation; I offered this condensed version at an in-house meeting at NRC and felt it was worth sharing the slides, audio and video to a wider audience. This was the first of three presentations I gave today in a three hour span, all different, which I bring to you as a set.
, (Seminar) Oct 19, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]
[Slides][Audio] This presentation begins with the observation that numerous ope n education providers require students to login before being allowed to view materials, offers arguments why this should not be the case, offers some examples of alternative practices, and looks in more detail at my own efforts to design and offer a course that has no registration or tracking whatsoever.
Open Education 21, Online, Via Zoom (Lecture) Oct 19, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]
[Slides][Audio] In this presentation I draw on my experience and coverage of stories of learning and teaching in the pandemic to bring together the best of what we learned over the last two years. From the perspective of three conference themes: 1. Active, Collaborative Learning, 2. Digital Tools and Technologies, and 3. Learning Communities, I look at where academics and universities excelled, where they struggled, and where they adopted new practises that may have a more lasting impact. I summarise these into ten core lessons we learned about learning and teaching during the pandemic, three challenges facing us as we leverage these into a better 'new normal', and three concrete opportunities for action we can take to facilitate improvements in learning, based on these lessons.
TILT Annual Learning and Teaching Conference (ALTC) 2021, Online, to Nottingham, UK, via MS Teams (Keynote) Sept 14, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [Record post 72790 is unpublished.]
In this webinar, we will identify whether OERs were a solution or being used in the last year in education; and how OERs may be used in the future. In our quest for shaping the future of higher education, do we consider open education a solution and OERs and practices as part of the education ecosystem? What problems might OERs help educators resolve and how we can harness the value of OERs for higher education? Can we consider the future of education is open and, if yes, what strategies can we use to make this happen?
Time for Action in Shaping HE 4.0, Online, via Zoom (Panel) May 10, 2021 [Link] [Slides]
[Video]
[Audio] This is a conversation with a working group based in Kazakhstan studying the future of the institution, both in the short term, to respond to the post-pandemic environment, and also in the longer term, considering what the ideal learning environment might look like. No slides. The featired video has good audio quality, but the remote voices echo; here's an https://youtu.be/0rfsl1MUwSU ">alternative video that shows the other speakers and has no echo, but has lower video quality.
Conversation with Task Force, Online, via Zoom (Seminar) Apr 28, 2021 [Link]
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[Slides][Audio] A comprehensive overview of connectivism. This presentation defines connectivism and distinguishes it from some other theories, looks at how learning actually happens, how to understand or interpret connectivism in a practical way, and how to think of connectivism as a theory of pedagogy.
Webinar Sharing Session on Connectivism Learning Theory, Online, to Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia, via WebEx (Seminar) Apr 27, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
[Slides][Audio] (Workshop)
Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada (workshop)
Description: When we think of supporting learning, even everyday learning, most of us think in terms of supporting traditional students in online or in-person class environments, where the work being supported consists of subject matter acquisition, projects and labwork, discussions, assignments, and exam preparation.
Yet for most of us, this mode of learning ceases the day we are handed our diplomas. And all of us, whether traditional students or not, engage in a much more casual everyday sort of learning, sometimes called informal learning, and sometimes called self-managed learning. Based on two decades' experience supporting everyday learning for professionals and practitioners, this workshop focuses on the thinking behind providing learning on an everyday basis where there are no classes, projects or assignments.
Based on an actual and active online learning initiative that includes occasional courses, newsletters, videos and presentations, this workshop will outline the thinking behind the design of an everyday learning experience, describe the technology used to acquire learning materials, organize them, and provide them in such a way as to offer day-to-day value for learners.
Learning Objectives: The objective of this workshop is two-fold: first, to provide participants with the chance to look at the tools needed to support everyday learning, and second, to provide participants with a sufficient insight into the thinking and model behind everyday learning so they can help subject matter experts at their own institution put it into practice.
The tools to be explored include:
- Content acquisition tools such as RSS readers, discussion boards, and IFTTT
- Authoring and presenting tools such as WordPress, SoundCloud and YouTube
- Dissemination tools such as RSS, MailChimp, social media and IFTTT
By the end of the workshop participants will have experienced at least one tool from each category
Canadian Network for Innovation in Education (CNIE) 2021, Online, via Zoom (Workshop) Apr 19, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
[Slides][Audio] In this hands-on interactive session Stephen Downes will lead participants as they create a distributed online community, thus modeling a practice that can be used for any class or learning group. Participants learn how to use their own website or blog to keep connected with the community using content syndication and to connect them with social media sites. Downes talks about the dynamics of distributed online conversations, demonstrating with examples how these can combine digital learning with individual agency, as well as providing links to people and resources beyond individual courses and platforms. Please note The audio cuts out when viewing full-slide scenes in the YouTube video, however, the full audio is available without interruption from the audio link. INTED, Online, via Zoom (Workshop) Mar 08, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]
[Slides][Audio] Colleges and universities are rapidly responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging the power of the Internet for both real-time sessions and online learning anytime. Some colleges and universities are doing exceptional work. Some are struggling, others are challenged but are “making it”. In this interactive webinar, Stephen Downes presents: • 10 lessons from teaching and learning in a pandemic; • Three challenges of leveraging these lessons for “what’s next” in online and blended learning; • Three specific ways we can facilitate improvements in teaching and learning, based on these 10 lessons. Seminar Series, Online, via Zoom (Seminar) Mar 01, 2021 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]
[Slides][Audio] This is a short presentation for Creative Commons Lightning Talks giving an overview of the design philosophy behind my personal learning tool called gRSShopper (and therefore, my philosophy about how we should be thinking about the creation and use of OER in learning generally). Lightning Talks, Online, via Jitsi (Lecture) Dec 11, 2020 [Link] [Slides] [Audio]
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[Slides][Audio] This talk looks at the recent resurgence of MOOCs and describes this growth (despite claims that they are 'dead'), shows how they are providing access to micro-credentials and skills-based learning, and explains how they are and will be improving in terms of student engagement and completion, offering as a proposal the development of "micro-MOOCs" to provide greater access and flexibility for MOOC-based learning. The Learning & Training Conference 2020, Online, via BeaconLive (Lecture) Dec 08, 2020 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
[Slides][Audio] This is a class talk discussing institutional support for personal learning. It recaps some of the essential features of personal learning, describes the online host-provider framework, and then delves into a number of examples and models that illustrate the framework. It also digresses quite a bit. Class Presentation, (Class) Dec 07, 2020 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [
This is a bit of thinking aloud about how we should approach the subject of data repositories from the perspective of data equity. I look at why we would do this, what challenges need to be addressed, who owns data, and how we should go about it (note - in the slide presentations the animations work - just click on the cross shaped-icons). Team Presentation, Online vs MS Teams (Seminar) Dec 01, 2020 [Link] [Slides]
[Video]
[Slides][Audio] Over the last few months, we have all become much more experienced with working and learning online. As we look to the future, we will no doubt carry on with a certain measure of digital teaching and collaboration. What will this new experience look like? Stephen Downes looks at our recent experiences using online learning and conferencing and paints a picture of what the longer-term future is likely to look like. He'll talk about what technologies worked, what didn't, and what we've learned about navigating the online environment. Professional Development, Toronto, Online via Zoom (Keynote) Nov 28, 2020 [Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video] [