(2004-11-23) Downes Learning Networks

Stephen Downes on "Learning Networks" (Educational Technology). Educating Kids? HyperText? Social Software?

• RSS as descriptor of "Learning Object-s", rather than buying into existing market of LearningManagementSystems (LMS, equally-evil twin of big CMS)

• he talks about fitting together Learning Object-s like atoms. I'd think proteins might be a better metaphor, considering their relative messiness (Texture?).

  • it's interesting to think of a useful-info-unit as a state-change box: you have certain inputs (prerequisites), and the output is a new capability/understanding. Which leads maybe to an Ontology of knowledge, with certain info building on other... This is reinforced by the planning sheets I've seen at my kids school, where they have pretty granular lists of skills with a plan for how soon in each year/grade they hope to deliver that dosage (add whole numbers, multiply whole numbers, learn what fractions are, add fractions, multiply fractions, add decimal numbers, multiply decimal numbers, etc.). It would be interesting to see how to describe more complex learnings...

    • also interesting to think of packaging chunks of learning For Hackers.

    • the Programmers Stone had an interesting section comparing how different resources sequenced the sections of introductory Physics Text-Book-s, suggesting that many different approaches are possible, implying that an Ontology might be a waste of time. Or at least that you need a flexible relation-tagging model that lets nodes get connected with some Social Software filtering of those arcs.

Mar'2005 related - Peter Kaminski links to some materials collections that try to organize an overall Curriculum... Imagine, then, scrolling back to 4th grade, and at your leisure going over some subject that you never really got, until it clicked. Or imagine a precocious 4th grader scrolling forward to learn about high school chemistry, because she thinks it's fun.

May'2005: an older Don Norman piece talks about "modules" as a unit of education, and eliminating grades (pass = complete, nobody sees what you failed, just was you completed).