E-Learning 3.0 Newsletter


Newsletter archives are here

Distributed Ledger Technology

Today we'll take a brief look at blockchain. Although presented as a type of currency, blockchain is in essence a graph technology. It creates a record of transactions by chaining them together such that you cannot change or revise one transaction without revising or changing all transactions. Because this is expensive and in some cases impossible, blockchain becomes a permanent record of transactions.

Topics in Distributed Ledger Technology

This is a presentation I gave twice this fall, summarizing some of the major themes in blockchain, describing how it works, surveying a number of applications, and discussing issues related to its use. https://www.downes.ca/presentation/495

The Blockchain Papers

This is a very large resource shared as a Google Doc assembling a lot of the reading I have done on blockchain over the last year or so. I am constantly contributing to it (and welcome suggestions or ideas for additional resources). Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DX5nYbkd5mQ81xrLggovceIkE43rCFrOMbFLYUkBhZQ/edit#

Building a Blockchain

I also built my own toy blockchain engine last spring. Here it is: https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2018/03/building-blockchain.html It steps the reader through fundamental concepts of a blockchain and the major elements of a blockchain engine.

This is just the Beginning

Although this is the only day in the course dedicated specifically to blockchain, really what we should see is that blockchain is just one step in the narrative we've already been developing while talking about linked data and cloud technology, and a narrative that will continue through the remaining weeks of the course. As with the other topics in the course, it is possible to dive very deeply into the subject. From the perspective of E-Learning, though, the idea is to get an overview of what is happening and seek to apply it to a projection of likely trends in the next decade or so.

Activity

A reminder that this week's guest is Ben Werdmuller - the founder of Elgg, the founder of Known, and now working with Matter. We'll talk a bit about his work in the past but I'm far more interested to know where he sees the future of initatives like IndieWeb taking us in the years ahead. Please note that because of my travel on Wednesday, we will be having our chat on Thursday, November 8.

Task

This week's task has three parts
  1. Create a model graph of some aspect of the E-Learning 3.0 course (it doesn't have to be an actual graph, only a representation of what an actual graph might look like. We've already seen, eg., graphs on the relations between people in the course. Could there be other types of graphs?
  2. In your model, consider how the states of the entities in that graph might vary. Consider not only how nodes might vary (eg., a person might have a different height over time) but also how the edges might vary (eg., a person might have a different strength of relation (calculated how?) with another person over time).
  3. In your model, consider how knowledge about the changes in states in the graph might be used.
Record the results in your blog or website. And share with #el30.

No Newsletter Wednesday

Wednesday is a travel day for me, so we'll resume on Thursday.

Resources

Blockchain Technology Overview
Peter Mell, Nik Roby, Karen Scarfone, Dylan Yaga, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2018/11/06

This is a good crisp summary that doesn't shy away from technical detail but steps through the major elements of blockchain technology with clarity and precision. The sections on blockchain components (section 3) and consensus models (section 4) are particularly strong. It even comes with a fun blockchain use case flowchart.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Blockchain explained: What it is and isn’t, and why it matters
Brant Carson, Matt Higginson, Simon London, McKinsey, 2018/11/06

This podcast transcript provides a level-headed overview of blockchain technologies focusing especially on the trade-offs the use of blockchain entails (for example: less efficient databases in exchange for immutability). There's also a nice table depicting the major use cases for blockchain. And there's a nice look at the different motivations for employing blockchain.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Blockchain in Education
Alexander Grech, Anthony F. Camilleri, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, 2018/11/06

This is a long (136 page PDF) and detailed report on blockchains in education. The authors work slowly and deliberately in their pursuit of accuracy and clarity, which results in a presentation that will be easily understood by most readers. There is a wealth of examples in the document describing use cases, scenarios and pilot projects, and companies involved in the space.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Posts

E-Learning 1 And 2 Conversation With George Siemens – A Different Take
Frank, Doin’ Stuff, 2018/11/06

I had a very different take on Downes’s and Siemen’s Conversation than Roland Legrand’s elearn30 blog post “What and How to learn and teach in times of Artificial Intelligence?”  I think they actually answered the question and I would like to take their insight a bit further. To start off here are the three salient … Continue reading "E-Learning 1 and 2 Conversation with George Siemens – A Different Take"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

#El30 Week 1 – Data
daveymoloney, Davey Moloney, 2018/11/06

Backdrop Week 1 of #EL30 addressed the topic of Data. Within that, two core conceptual challenges relating to eLearning were explored, “first, the shift in our understanding of content from documents to data; and second, the shift in our understanding of data from centralized to decentralized.” All of this exists within the backdrop of “what … Continue reading "#EL30 Week 1 – Data"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Downes-Siemens Discussion (E-Learning 3.0) 17.10.2018
ioannouolga, connecting data to information to knowledge, 2018/11/06

Just finished watching the conversation between Steven Downes and George Siemens in the framework of the E-Learning 3.0 course. Here is some of the key points I wrote down: In the last five years we are kind of being in the wilderness/ now, there is an emergence of a more shared consistent narrative about AI […]

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]



Please note: these posts were added to the newsletter using the harvester. Apologies if I missed you. Don't forget, you can submit your feed here!. The 'Submit Feed' link also appears on the course menu. We've had a number of submissions so far (and I've added the feeds where I've found posts to list for this week). You can see them on the Feeds Page.

Course Newsletter RSS

A course RSS feed is now available. Now you don't need to read the newsletter or even visit the website - you can take this course from the comfort of your own feed reader, WordPress, gRSShopper application, or whatever. Here it is: https://el30.mooc.ca/course_newsletter.xml