Keynote - Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes, an educational technology philosopher who spoke like a philosopher, often stopping in mid-sentence to change his mind. He set up a screen with a web address where you could go to enter commentary on his speech during his speech which was displayed on the screen. Thus, we got to chat about his presentation together. At least, everyone who brought a computer did. Sadly, my machine was not with me for the first time in two days. Stephen runs OLDaily, a website which reports every day on on-line learning. His presentation made much of the fact that learning is not the acquisition of known things, but really the growth of a network in the brain, which is literally true. He compares current learning to a utility, like water or power. There is a constant supply put in, and users take out what they need when they need it. He sees this leading not to a hive-mind like uniformity, but to knowledge which is a joint product of what we all know and share. Group vs network, in which the group is the sum of its parts, but he network is something more.

Stephen mentioned Second Life, saying that it does not support diversity, since sometimes you feel directed in some direction, and does not support autonomy, since he could not pick the last name he wanted. Specifically, Downes. So we can say that he has visited SL, but not really come to know the place. Sounds like he may not have gotten much past Orientation Island.