Want to look back on my copious archive of blog posts, stretching back over 20 years? You’ve come to the right place! There are approaching 1000 posts here, mostly related to technology, learning, education, and related topics. Unfortunately I have lost those from before 2004. I don’t know how many words I have published as blog posts, but I am pretty confident there are a few books’ worth of content here, even allowing for the many commentaries on resources that are long-gone now.
Last 100 posts
- On the importance of place
- Sets, nets and groups revisited
- On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a generative AI
- Proctored exams have fallen to generative AI
- At the end of this post a successful reader will be able to make better use of learning outcomes
- The importance of a good opening line
- And now in Chinese: 在线学习环境：隐喻问题与系统改进. And some thoughts on the value of printed texts.
- Slides from my SITE keynote, 2024: The Intertwingled Teacher
- A conversation about generative AI with David Webster
- New article from Gerald Ardito and me – The emergence of autonomy in intertwingled learning environments: a model of teaching and learning
- ▶ I got air: interview with Terry Greene
- Journal of Imaginary Research, Volume 9 (including a piece by me)
- Educational ends and means: McNamara’s Fallacy and the coming robot apocalypse (presentation for TAMK)
- Stories that matter and stories that don’t: some thoughts on appropriate teaching roles for generative AIs
- Presentation – Generative AIs in Learning & Teaching: the Case Against
- Published in Digital – The Human Nature of Generative AIs and the Technological Nature of Humanity: Implications for Education
- ▶ How Education Works, the audio book: now with beats
- Downes.ca ~ Stephen’s Web ~ How Education Works: Teaching, Technology, and Technique
- Recording and slides from my ESET 2023 keynote: Artificial humanity and human artificiality
- Preprint – The human nature of generative AIs and the technological nature of humanity: implications for education
- 10 minute chats on Generative AI – a great series, now including an interview with me
- Research, Writing, and Creative Process in Open and Distance Education: Tales from the Field | Open Book Publishers
- Cognitive prostheses and the future of the human race
- Bob Dron, 1955-2023
- The artificial curriculum
- Look what just arrived on my doorstep! #howeducationworks from @au_press is now available in print and e-book formats
- A decade of unwriting: the life history of "How Education Works"
- Technological distance – my slides from OTESSA ’23
- Can a technology be true?
- View of Speculative Futures on ChatGPT and Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Collective Reflection from the Educational Landscape
- Technology, Teaching, and the Many Distances of Distance Learning | Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning
- Athabasca University’s major unions condemn the sacking of Peter Scott. Meanwhile….
- Petition · Athabasca University – Oppose direct political interference in universities · Change.org
- Athabasca University bids a deeply reluctant farewell to Peter Scott in the vilest attack yet by the Albertan government
- My keynote slides for Confluence 2023 – Heads in the clouds: being human in the age of cloud computing
- Proceedings of The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Conference, 2022 (and call for proposals for this year’s conference, due January 31)
- Two stories about learning to be human from a machine
- Hot off the press: Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education (open access)
- On the Misappropriation of Spatial Metaphors in Online Learning | OTESSA Journal
- Some meandering thoughts on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ learning
- Loab is showing us the unimaginable future of artificial intelligence – ABC News
- Brunel University’s Integrated Programme Assessment – a neat way to decouple learning and credentials
- Slides from my ICEEL 22 Keynote, November 20, 2022
- The Socio-economic Contribution of Religion to American Society: An Empirical Analysis
- In a nutshell, this is everything that is wrong with the cloud
- Communities we live in and serve: universities and places
- So, this is a thing…
- A beautifully expressed letter about the town of Athabasca, and Athabasca University's place within it
- Over 150 AU staff signed this letter to the Government of Alberta and AU’s Board of Governors
- Three reasons why Athabasca University’s leaders must never be made to live in Athabasca
- We shape our buildings and, afterwards, our buildings shape us: some lessons in how not to build an online university, and some ideas for doing it better
- Learning, Technology, and Technique | Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology
- Thanks @demetriosnAB for your generous offer. We completely misunderstood that you wanted to help us. Here’s what we need…
- We need help: Athabasca University is facing an existential threat from the government of Alberta
- The limits and limitations of business requirements
- Can GPT-3 write an academic paper on itself, with minimal human input?
- Weary, old, a little broken, but not letting go of the dream: edtech in the 21st Century
- Ernst & Young fined $100 million after employees cheated in exams
- #AthaU22 – may your journey be rich, gentle, and challenging
- Solving The Wrong Problems: Why Online Education Is and Must Be Different from In-Person Education – slides from my invited talk at ICEMI 2022
- Interesting product: Bionic Reading
- The problematic metaphor of the environment in online learning (update: found a publisher!)
- Informal Learning in Digital Contexts | Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education
- Pedagogical Paradigms in Open and Distance Education | Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education
- English version of my 2021 paper, “Technology, technique, and culture in educational systems: breaking the iron triangle”
- So mouse jigglers are a thing now
- Requiem for an email address
- Nobody has ever learned anything at a distance, and no one ever goes to a distance institution
- Journal of Universal Rejection
- Gather is a remarkable retro but modern collaboration, cooperation, and socialization system: I really like it.
- The Uncensored Library – Reporters without borders
- I am, at last, Canadian, eh? 🇨🇦
- Some thoughts for Ada Lovelace Day
- Higher Education: an Owner's Guide – slides from my Times Higher Ed Student Festival keynote
- Challenges of the Physical: slides from my keynote at XII Conferência Internacional de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação na Educação, September 2021
- A modest proposal for improving exam invigilation
- At last, a serious use for AI: Brickit
- Why do we work from home but learn remotely?
- A few thoughts on learning management systems, and on integrated learning environments and their implementation
- The physics of social spaces are not like the physics of physical spaces
- Mediaeval Teaching in the Digital Age (slides from my keynote at Oxford Brookes University, May 26, 2021)
- Words will never be a substitute for grunts
- What really impacts the use of active learning in undergraduate STEM education? Results from a national survey of chemistry, mathematics, and physics instructors
- Educational technology: what it is and how it works | AI & Society
- Are experienced online teachers best-placed to help in-person teachers cope with suddenly having to teach online? Maybe not.
- Incarceration in Real Numbers
- Affordable Internet for Canada – Virtual Day of Action today (March 16)
- My keynote slides from Confluence 2021 – STEAM engines: on building and testing the machines in our students’ minds
- EdTech Books
- How distance changes everything: slides from my keynote at the University of Ottawa
- Course Content – London Interdisciplinary School
- Joyful assessment: beyond high-stakes testing
- Echoes and polarization in Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter: it's not just about the algorithms
- Asus Flip C234 Chromebook review
- Strange affair of man with the machine
- Why Social Media Make Us More Polarized, and How to Fix It – Scientific American
- Facebook Conducts 'Mass Censorship' of Climate Activists
- Skills lost due to COVID-19 school closures will hit economic output for generations (hmmm)
- How Assessment is Changing in The Digital Age – Five Guiding Principles | teachonline.ca
- How social media platforms could flatten the curve of dangerous misinformation.
More posts from the archives