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OLDaily - Text Edition by Stephen Downes Jun 28, 2016
SRI’s Study on Gates Personalized Learning Grants Is Out
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Short note summarizing the Gates Foundation's SRI study (53
page PDF
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on personalized learning grants. First of all, Feldstein
writes "this is not a report that screams, 'Wow, adaptive
courseware works!'" But secondly, and more interestingly,
he writes, "Large-scale educational research is incredibly
hard and may actually be impossible to do rigorously for
certain kinds of questions." Feldstein explains, "one
reason the conclusions are murky is because there so many
variables in each class—not just each course subject,
not just each course at one university, but even with each
section of each class taught by one teacher—that
really matter." I've commented one reason the
conclusions are murky is because there so many variables in
each class—not just each course subject, not just
each course at one university, but even with each section
of each class taught by one teacher—that really
matter on this before.
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Maker Education: Pedagogy, Andragogy, Heutagogy
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To be clear, the term 'Andragogy' does not mean (as
suggested in this article) "self-directed
learning". The term
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refers specifically to adult learning - "andr (meaning
‘man’) could be contrasted with pedagogy (paid-
meaning ‘child’ and agogos (meaning
‘leading’)". And educators do love their levels
and series of progressions, hence the movement in this
article from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy (from 'heut
Link, meaning 'self).
All of that said, the PAH framework (educators do love
frameworks) could serve as a useful guide for thought in
the area.
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EDEN 2016: Re-imagining Learning Environments
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Tony Bates summarizes the recent EDEN conference, writing
"I was surprised at how much importance European
institutions are still giving to MOOCs. There were by far
more papers on MOOCs than on credit-based online learning
or even blended learning. Even the Oxford debate this year
was on the following motion: We Should Focus in the Short
Term More on MOOCs than on OER." The resolution, Bates
writes, as to his relief soundly defeated. But I would have
won that debate, in my humble opinion, by talking about the
critical role OERs play in MOOCs (our MOOCs) and the role
MOOCs play to stimulate the use, production and reuse of
OERs.
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Inspiring Students: Bringing Awe Back to Learning
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In his monumental work The Idea of the Holy
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Rudolf Otto wrote of the 'numinous' as mysterious,
(mysterium) terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating
(fascinans). This post seems to want to do the same thing
for education. The key of the tremendous and fascinating is
that it holds us in awe. "Awe is a driving force for
learning that will not just benefit our students now, but
also well into their future. However, traditional views and
functions of school deprive many students from experiencing
the joy and power of awe as a catalyst for meaningful
learning." I am not troubled by a sense of awe - I get it
every time I stare into the night sky or look at a
butterfly, which is often - but I'm not sure it should be
an objective of learning.
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Things to Know (and Potential Dangers) with Third-Party
Scripts
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One of the major reasons I use AdBlocker is that it blocks
many third party scripts. These are bits of code web page
owners place on their pages to display the advertisement -
and to do a lot more. I don't really care about the ad.
It's the rest that concerns me. For example, as this post
notes, "eavesdroppers can track things like your email,
username, full name, home address, purchases, location,
history, IP address, and preferences." Additionally,
"Third-party scripts frequently cause pages to load slower.
For example, Business Insider's actual site loads in about
1 second, while third-party scripts account for the
majority of the 7 to 15 seconds of load time." This
includes scripts that impact the performance of the page
even after it has been loaded; for example, some scripts
slow down page scrolls. That's why I'm back on Firefox
(Chrome was having difficulties loading AdBock Plus).
That's why I'll keep the adblocking software running.
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Open Educational Resources: American Ideals, Global
Questions
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This article talks about "the American led movement on
behalf of the MOOC" though what it really should say is
something like "the MOOC movement as seen through American
eyes". It depicts MOOCs and Open Educational Resources
through a puzzling history beginning "the many kinds of
free instructional resources in MIT’s OpenCourseWare
project (and) culminating (for now) in the MOOC." There is
no question of an American role and influence in these
movements, but I think the article would have done better
to contrast this role with the concurrent and sometimes
leading roles played by people outside the U.S. Either way,
though, the article's central premise holds - that what
started as a benign movement supporting personal and
international development can be seen as having been
co-opted to support national and international ambitions.
"For critics like Robert Rhoads and his UCLA colleagues the
OER movement is primarily an expression of economic
'neoliberalism' and, as presently organized (in the U.S. at
least), has little chance of fulfilling its lofty claims
for democratizing education across the globe." It's not
just the critics who see this though. It's also many of the
originators of open online learning - myself included - who
see this. Image: Carolyn Fox
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LittleSis database of biz/gov't connections
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LittleSis http://littlesis.org/ describes itself as
"an involuntary facebook of the 1%." It is essentially a
network graphic tool showing connections between the
powerful and influential in (mostly Amercian) society. It "
documents personal and business connections in the worlds
of government and business. For instance, here's George
Soros LinkAnd
Dick Cheney http://littlesis.org/person/14305/Dick_Cheney."
We really need an international version. The record for
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Linkis just a
placeholder. So is the record for Vladimir Putin
LinkThe
mnoted website 'They Rule Link was
created with the assistance of LittleSis.
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Copyright 2008 Stephen Downes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
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