OLDaily Text Edition ~ Nov 29, 2016

Stephen's Web ~ Link
OLDaily - Text Edition by Stephen Downes Nov 29, 2016
Teachers on Facebook: Is posting that beach bikini shot
going too far?
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It is always a subject of astonishment to me that behaviour
that is otherwise normal is deemed by some to be (a) not
acceptable for teachers, and (b) not appropriate on the
internet (or Facebook). The case this time (as it is so
often) involves the posting of a photo of oneself relaxing
on the beach. Or maybe having a beer at the local pub. What
we are seeing is a case where people are told there are
special codes of behaviour if they are (a) teachers, and
(b) women. If I were either (a) or (b) I would be telling
the guardians of my morality where they can put their
directives. These behaviours are not wrong and there is
thus no need for prohibiting their depiction on the
internet.
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Dexter Schools testing Facebook-engineered program in the
classroom
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I can't say I have a lot of confidence in Facebook's
ability to design a learning program, but there it is. It's
"a new personalized learning system called Summit Basecamp
http://summitbasecamp.org/" target="_blank this school
year that gives students more control over their learning."
It's being provided free to schools (for now) and is
composed of three major areas: a self-study mode, a
collaborative learning mode, and a mentoring option. Says
one teacher, "It's been very different because it allows
the kids to have responsibility and ownership for their
learning. They're learning how to learn." The article is a
fluff piece but the subject is worth a deeper look.
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A groundwork for allostatic neuro-education
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I'm not sure how to judge this paper (the sentence fragment
in the abstract does not reassure) but there's enough good
that I don't want to overlook it. The proposal is for "a
groundwork for allostatic neuro-education (GANE)" which
views education as a process of growth and development.
"Organic education compares the learner to a plant or
blossoming flower. For education in the service of
cognitive acquisition, the learner has inputs and outputs,
comparable to a machine or other functional instrument. For
the constructivist, the learner is understood to be engaged
in a constant dialectic with the environment." It's based
on the concept of allostasis
Link"maintaining
stability through change, is a fundamental process through
which organisms actively adjust to both predictable and
unpredictable events." On the one hand I want to regard
this paper as nonsense, and on the other I see it as an
effort to comprehend phenomena that have been observed
elsewhere. Via Matt Scofield.
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Design of Multi-level Teaching System Based on Association
Rule Mining
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Here's the pitch: the authors describe a learning analytics
system that can divide a class of students into different
skill levels in order to determine how much they can learn.
This paper is not a stellar example of academic writing;
the grammar is atrocious and we can only partially grasp
the authors' intent. That said, the paper serves to raise
the question: should we divide a class by ability and
differentiate instruction accordingly? This is an open
access paper, but you may have to sign up to access.
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How the Jobs to be Done Theory Applies to Online Education
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This article states, "According to the jobs-to-be-done
theory
http://www.christenseninstitute.org/key-concepts/jobs-to-be-done/"
target="_blank, customers hire products or services to do a
specific job for them, and those providers can adapt their
offerings by understanding the job they've been hired to
do." OK, fair enough. So what is the job students expect
MOOCs to do? It depends on the student. "Students straight
out of high school want the coming-of-age experience that
goes with attending a campus in person," and online
learning doesn't really help with this. Adult learners, by
contrast, want "a more flexible way to earn a degree that
may help them get a better job." This may all seem pretty
obvious, but universities still get it wrong. That said,
keep your eye on the 'job to be done'. It's a moving
target, a strange attractor.
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The Values of Fandom: Collaboration
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If you're wondering whatever happened to Wikia, wonder no
more - it was renamed Fandom Link
and has taken on a much more entertainment related theme.
This I guess is where the money is. But now and then the
site remembers its roots, as with this article on how staff
use the wiki to collaborate. "Wikis are based around
collaboration—we've talked about that before
LinkForestFairy/Why_Collaboration_on_Wikia_Is_So_Important,
and it's ingrained into the site's DNA," writes Ted Gill.
"That started with Wikipedia, and it evolved into the many
thousands of Fandom wikis we have today. That's how we were
able to grow into the largest entertainment fan site in the
world." So there you have it.
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Copyright 2016 Stephen Downes
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