You can download the slides and the audio, and for an extension and contextualisation on the Meta university schemata, check out the also excellent slides and audio for On Being Radical.
Stephen's received some criticism for his Matauniversity talk being too utopian, and ungrounded in the disappointing realities of current institutions and commercial networks. To be honest, I don't want to go to a conference and listen to someone telling me about all the things that are not possible. I pretty much have most of them down. When I give up my time to attend a conference, I want to come away feeling - because of the people I've met, the speakers I've listened to, and the conversations I've stayed up way too late for - that I'm a part of something worthwhile, filled with enthusiasm and spilling over with ideas. Working in educational technology is hard graft - the wins are small, the battles are constant, and the enormity of the task we are engaged in - completely and fundamentally changing the culture of teaching and learning - can be overwhelming. Being practical, positive, creative and flexible are fundamentally important - but that's only possible where you have the vision to address problems. That might be a vision limited to your end of year targets, your institutions road map, or you personal vision for learning. There are precious few individuals in our field who are currently articulating a clear and powerful narratives about what learning supported by technologies has the potential to be, the extent to which technology could empower learners, and offering clear directions to where, as a global community, we could choose to be heading. Stephen Downes is without a doubt irreplaceable at present in this sense.
hear frickin hear!
Posted by: James | Monday, November 21, 2005 at 01:59
Gee, that environment looks a lot like elgg.net.
Here's to learning revolutionaries!
Posted by: Harold Jarche | Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 15:58