OLWeekly

OER18 Open to all
Phil Barker, Sharing and learning, 2018/04/20

Phil Barker argues that we should not be recommending Eric Raymond's work. Raymond authored, if you may recall, the enormously influential The Cathedral and the Bazaar paper recommending distributed open source organization. Barker argues that Raymond is a libertarian, a gun nut, and has regressive views regarding women and gays. " I do not think we should be recommending this person’s work to the OER community," says Barker. Now I personally find Raymond's politics reprehensible (assuming the Wikipedia account is correct). And yes, I'll delete content that's racist or hateful. But if I were to require a purity test for everyone I quoted or recommended, this would be a very short newsletter. I think it's a far more progressive strategy to pay attention to one's own failings and to leave social condemnation to those more qualified to render judgement.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open Invitation to Contribute to the Draft OER Recommendation Text
UNESCO, 2018/04/20

According to this website, "A draft UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) text is currently being prepared. This open invitation is to call for inputs on the above-mentioned draft text." You can read the draft on the website (7 page PDF). Note the 'no cost' in the definition: "Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions."

Web: [This Post]

Knowble – a review
Philip J. Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2018/04/20

Nice review of a language learning app providing a needed dose of scepticism. The app is called Knowble and is a browser extension that purports to improve English-language vocabulary. The problem is, it relies on Google Translate, so it often offers incorrect vocabulary advice. Google translates pretty well when the word is found in context, but " Knowble, however, have set their software to ask Google for translations of each word as individual items," which results in inevitable errors. "The claim that Knowble’s ‘learning effect is proven scientifically’ seems to me to be without any foundation," writes Philip Kerr. "If there has been any proper research, it’s not signposted anywhere."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Assessing the Potential Toward Open Educational Practices in Kyrgyzstan
Anita R Walz, Jyldyz Bekbalaeva, Open Praxis, 2018/04/20

This is the first reference to Kyrgyzstan in the almost 30,000 posts in OLDaily over the last 20 years, and proof that open education has become a completely worldwide phenomenon. According to the abstract, "Analysis of the results revealed a higher than expected gravitation toward student-centered pedagogy than previously assumed. The study also identified broad use of digital downloads as learning materials, conflation of open educational resources with free online resources." This actually doesn't surprise me, because OERs and student-centered pedagogy go hand-in-hand. The paper discusses 'non-disposable' learning activities such as editing Wikipedia articles, though noting "the practice of using non-disposable assignments for learning is likely still a new idea for most instructors." 19 page PDF. Image: logo from a 2014 UNESCO OER conference in Kyrgyzstan.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Facebook moves 1.5bn users out of reach of new European privacy law
Alex Hern, The Guardian, 2018/04/20

Facebook has spent a lot of time apologizing in recent weeks but it should not be believed. In an appearance before a Parliamentary committee in Canada it would not commit to honouring European GDPR privacy protections. And in an even more telling move, it moved 1.5 billion user accounts out of Europe and into the United States. I think that countries, including Canada, should endorse and ratify GDPR. Because it is obvious that these companies will not police themselves with any sort of restraint.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming
Nate Lanxon, Bloomberg, 2018/04/20

One of the impacts of GDPR is that website terms and conditions will be required to be clearer. But this may just be the beginning of the end for book-length legal agreements. "If a typical user wouldn't understand the documents, the consent that companies rely on for their business activities would be legally invalid." The main beneficiaries here won't be users - who typically ignore the terms - but companies (including schools and colleges) who have to hire layers to parse the terms before using the site in their business.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open Educators Factory
Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education, 2018/04/20

In my email today: "Open Educators Factory is a methodology produced by the Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED) aiming to allow self-evaluation of professors capacity in the use of open approaches and to recommend tailored actions to increase the open education “fluency" of educators. The platform will be used by Brazil's Open Education Initiative, a major Brazilian project focused on Open Education and teacher professional development, that is being launched with the support of the Brazilian Ministry of Education." Nice.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Why collaboration is a bad idea for developing personalized learning teachers
Thomas Arnett, Christensen Institute, 2018/04/19

According to Thomas Arnett, "the 'collective action' approach will likely flounder at creating the pipeline of excellent personalized learning teachers that the field needs." This is because "when new innovations are still stretching to meet our expectations, the best strategy for pushing a product’s performance forward is for a single entity to control all the interdependent pieces of the solution." He draws a parallel between the development of teachers and the development of touchscreens. It's hard to imagine a more tone-deaf analogy, save perhaps the reference to training for a particular charter school network in New York City. Teachers are not "a product" and personalization may yet be something that resembles art more than it does manufacturing.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

What the edtech?! Episode one: transforming your student engagement with social media
Laura Kidd, JISC, 2018/04/19

Britain's Jisc has launched a new podcast called "What the EdTech?" hosted by Laura Kidd. The first episode features guests "Eric Stoller, education consultant and thought leader, Sarah Knight, head of change - student experience at Jisc, and Kardi Somerfield, senior lecturer in digital marketing and advertising at The University of Northampton."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Uncited Research
Simon Baker, Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/04/19

The argument documented here is familiar, but it's still a point of frustration for researchers working in the humanities and social sciences when they are compared with peers in technology, engineering and mathematics. Simply, the former receive much fewer citations because citations, and papers themselves, play a different role in those disciplines. So it's silly to compare researchers based on citation counts or H-indices. This, for example, is a big difference between me and other researchers in the same building: "Scholars position their approach not through a comprehensive literature review but by way of strategic citations." The 'literature review' approach to science has always seemed odd to me. Don't you actually know the important papers in your field after having worked in it for 15 years? Also, literature reviews actually miss some of the most important work in a field. But - I recognize - it's a perspective thing.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Pearson Embedded a 'Social-Psychological' Experiment in Students' Educational Software
Sidney Fussell, Gizmodo, 2018/04/19

According to this article, "Pearson is drawing criticism after using its software to experiment on over 9,000 math and computer science students across the country." The experiment was disclosed in a paper presented on Tuesday (not Wednesday, as was incorrectly reported by Gizmodo). "Some students received 'growth-mindset messages,' while others received 'anchoring of effect' messages. (A third control group received no messaging at all.)" According to the paper's abstract, " Results indicate increased persistence in the growth mindset condition, and a decrease in persistence for the anchoring condition, relative to control." The suggestion here is that the students did not know they were the subjects of an experiment, which would be a violation of research ethics. (This was first reported in EdWeek, but thei link currently is failing due of an invalid SSL certificate. It was presented at an AERA conference, but you really have to dig to view the listing for the paper delivered byDaniel M. Belenky, Yun Jin Rho, Mikolaj Bogucki and Malgorzata Schmidt).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

This Tsinghua University-backed company wants to revolutionize the classroom
Linda Lew, TechNode, 2018/04/19

This article is about a Chinese e-learning application called Rain Classroom. "Services (rain) made possible by big data analytics (the cloud) are utilized in classrooms or for self-learning (rain irrigating the soil). More data on teaching and learning is generated and collected then uploaded to the cloud again (evaporation), completing the cycle." It's used in more than 2,300 universities in China "and there are plans to expand this to colleges overseas and also more high school classrooms at home." The same company. The same company operates the MOOC platform XuetangX.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open Educational Practices and Micro-Credentialing: A pilot project
Justin Mason, Open Pedagogy Notebook, 2018/04/18

What caught my eye was this description of "a competency-based micro-credentialing program called the University Learning Store (ULS).... conceived of as an online store for learning, where students can purchase mini-courses both to acquire and to be assessed on discreet competencies." Offered by the University of Wisconsin Extension's Continuing Education, Outreach and E-learning (CEOEL) it's (to me) a natural locus for experimentation. And that is the main subject of this course, a wiki-based offering with content contributed by students that could be (might be? may never be?) recognized by the university.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

After-school Code Club – Lifelong Kindergarten?
Angela Brown, AACE Review, 2018/04/18

It's funny how the after-school activities seem more educationally relevant than classes, when when they're not relevant at all. That's why this description of an after-school coding club appeals to me. Drawing on Mitch Resnick's book Lifelong Kindergarten as a guide, Angela Brown describes how her coding sessions sometimes stay on topic and sometimes stray far from the original idea. And I really like this: "How do we know if our Code Club is successful? I hope we never know. Resnick suggests instead of trying to measure learning, to document it. This made me think of approaches like floor-books in kindergartens." Yeah.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

New Education Marketplace Development Funded by Crypto Coins
Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology, 2018/04/18

The script for the On-Demand Education Marketplace (ODEM) reads like it came straight from the Christensen playbook: "The platform reduces costs and improves access to premium education by directly connecting educators with students and eliminating inefficient and costly intermediaries." The idea is that you have to buy cryptocurrency to do this (I don't see why online payments wouldn't have worked as well). Mostly, it's a recommender system. "ODEM uses artificial intelligence to seamlessly manage complex requests, organizing complete educational programs around the world." It then uses Ethereum to manage smart contracts between educator and learner.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open the Gateless Gate: OER and Open Education
Geoff Cain, Brainstorm in Progress, 2018/04/18

I love how Geoff Cain mixes a new spirit of optimism and positivity with a couple of 'get off my lawn' moments. The positivity he finds in the Open Pedagogy Notebook created by Robin DeRosa and Rajiv Jhangiani to “support community sharing of learning materials and ideas around access to knowledge and knowledge creation.” I've added the feed to my reader.

Ah, but the cranky moments in Cain's post are to be savoured, even if they have nothing to do with the site just cited. The first: "I can get really annoyed when I come across a pay-wall when trying to access materials that are openly licensed... What part of open don’t you understand?" Totally. And the second: "Is the project 'sustainable'? If by 'sustainable' you mean provide a means for a corporation to make money off of the hard work of other educators, then no, maybe not." Nor would we want it to be. We need to reclaim the concept of 'sustainable' for human systems, not factory farms.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Future of College Looks Like the Future of Retail
The Atlantic, Jeffrey Selingo, 2018/04/18

The suggestion here is that "similar to e-commerce firms, online-degree programs are beginning to incorporate elements of an older-school, brick-and-mortar model." I would comment that the e-commerce physical storefront is a novelty, not a trend, but let's continue. "Richard DeMillo, the executive director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology...  wouldn’t be surprised if universities start fusing the best of the online experience with the best of the physical experience, possibly like 2U is trying to do with WeWork. 'Think of it as the storefront for the university,' DeMillo said." This may mean transforming their existing physical presence, but the trend in education is not toward converting online to in-person. And as you rad through the article it becomes that this is more of a hope being expressed rather than an actual thing.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World
Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, Pew, 2018/04/17

According to this survey (92 page PDF) of internet experts, "Some 47% of these respondents predict that individuals’ well-being will be more helped than harmed by digital life in the next decade, while 32% say people’s well-being will be more harmed than helped. The remaining 21% predict there will not be much change." Count me as being among the 47%. Yes, the internet helps people do bad things. And these get all the headlines. But the internet also helps people do good and noble things, and in the end, these outweigh the bad.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open Science Training Handbook
Sonja Bezjak, et.al., GitBooks, 2018/04/17

The Open Science Handbook has launched version 1.0 on Gitbooks. "The Handbook is available under Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0 Universal) and is oriented to practical teaching of Open Science principles. It was written by 14 experts during a book sprint organized by FOSTER and the TIB Hannover in February 2018. After including suggestions from the community the handbook was moved to Github and we can announce the release of version 1.0 now." It is intended to be a living text and will be revised through contributions in the future. The 'science' aspect of it (as in, for example, the description  of the scientific method) is pretty rudimentary, but it will do for now.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How Debate Structures Allow English Learners' Brilliance to Shine
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 2018/04/17

This is being posted to an NPR website as an example of good teaching, but my concern here is that this approach is not grounded in a proper understanding of critical thinking (which is why I recently wrote Critical Thinking for Educators). The non-standard approach is something called 'claim-evidence-reason' where the reason 'explains why' the evidence supports the claim. This misunderstanding of argument form makes it impossible for students to learn how arguments work. Moreover, the examples used are often poor, in some cases literally begging the question, and grammatically incoherent throughout. That these are being used for English language learning (ELL) only compounds the problem, because students are led to misunderstand the roles of different words in day-to-day use. If you're going to teach language and logic, you need to be somewhat proficient in it yourself.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

OECD Releases Report on Automation and the Workforce
Susan Gentz, ConVerge, 2018/04/17

The OECD has released a new report on automation, skills use and training (125 page web-based document). It asserts, essentially, that automation is on the increase and that therefore governments should consider allocating more resources to computer science training. As this summary in Converge points out, "The study is quick to point out that although not all jobs will be automated, they will certainly be impacted by new processes and technology. While not as many jobs will be completely automated as once thought, computer science and coding will be considered only basic skills.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Google's latest do-it-yourself AI kits include everything you need
Jon Fingas, EdGadget, 2018/04/17

When I was a kid the prototypical DIY kit was a build-it-yourself crystal radio (for the princely sum of $24, well beyond my means at the time). Today's equivalent is DIY Artificial intelligence (AIY). "Google has released updated AIY Vision and AIY Voice kits that include what you need to get started. Both include a Raspberry Pi Zero WH board and a pre-provisioned SD card, while the Vision Kit also throws in a Raspberry Pi Camera v2." They cost $US 90 and 50 respectively, so they are actually cheaper (in relative terms) than the crystal radio. 

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How to build a chat bot in 10 minutes
Natalie Afshar, Australian Education IT blog, Microsoft, 2018/04/16

OK, despite the title of this post, you are not going to create a chatbot in ten minutes, despite what the headline says (I followed through and found that you have to have a FAQ already written, in which case (presumably) the chat bot is simply selecting the most likely response from your FAQ to type or say. But I am linking to this item in order to think about what would happen if you truly could make a chat bot in 10 minutes. Suppose, for example, I fed it all the contents of this website, and then asked it to answer questions with the most relevant sentence or paragraph from my work. It wobbles the mind.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Creative Problem Solving
Adobe, 2018/04/16

Adobe has released a study (64 page PDF) that appears to be based on a survey of 'policymakes and influencers' and 'educators' (their terms) from the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Japan. The premise is to higjlight the importance of teaching creativity in schools, to suggest it's not happening as much as it should, and to identify the reasosn why (which are mostly related to policy, access to technology, and training). Maybe Adobe could consider lowering some prices to provide greater access to tools. Hm? The reports are lavishly over-illustrated PDF versions of PowerPoints. Via Campus Technology.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Personalized precision education and intimate data analytics
Code Acts in Education, Ben Williamson, 2018/04/16

So now we have 'precision education' as described on the Blog on Learning and Development: "Scientists who investigate the genetic, brain-based, psychological, or environmental components of learning … aim to find out as much as possible about learning, in order to accommodate successful learning tailored to an individual’s needs." Ben Williamson notes, "the task of precision education requires the generation of ‘intimate’ data from individuals, and the constant processing of genetic, psychological, and neurological information about the interior details of their bodies and minds." He references the the private non-profit National University, which "has a ‘Precision Institute’ ... and is creating a Precision Education Platform for Personalized Learning." If you read one item today, read this.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Change the title, change the work?
David Hopkins, Technology Enhanced Learning Blog, 2018/04/16

Am I an instructional designer (ID) or a learning technologist (LT), asks David Hopkins. "The only difference is that the ID role requirements are for commercial/corporate employers, and the LT ones for universities." Excpet that it feels like there should a difference - doesn't it? " Does the title/name given to your role even matter? Perhaps the difference here is time … what was once two distinct roles have now merged in outlook and intention and can be seen as the same, depending on which title the organisation prefers?"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Blogging is most certainly not dead
Jason Kottke, kottke.org, 2018/04/16

This is mostly just a set of links to some odds and ends in the blogging world, but there are comments I want to highlight. The first is this: "I refuse to let social media take everything. Those shapeless, formless platforms haven’t earned it and don’t deserve it... When I log into Facebook, I see Facebook. When I visit your blog, I see you." And this: "People are increasingly souring on the surveillance state Skinner boxes like Facebook and Twitter. Decentralized media like blogs and newsletters are looking better and better these days." Kottke (to whom I still subscribe) has been around for 20 years. Image: Hoder. Realted: How to make 29 different shapes of pasta by hand.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Google’s online learning platform to offer free basic digital skills
Naushad K. Cherrayil, Gulf News, 2018/04/16

According to this report, "Google has launched an Arabic online learning platform — Maharat min Google — in an effort to help people in the Middle East and North Africa to find jobs, advance their careers or grow their businesses by offering a free basic digital skills-building programme." They're working with Injaz Al Arab, a regional non-profit organisation, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman Bin Abdul Aziz (MiSK) Foundation. You can view the online platform (all in Arabic) here.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]