OLWeekly
by Stephen Downes
Feb 10, 2017
Feature Article
An Ethics Primer
Stephen Downes, Feb 04, 2017.
Many readers will find this section unnecessary, but for many others the range and variety of ethical theories extant may be new to them. It is my objective here to show that a significant number of questions and assumptions in dialogue around ethics are open for discussion. Ethics is by no means a complete or closed discipline; it is a living study that has been shaped and formed by thinkers from the ancient world through to the modern era.
A conceptual framework for integrated STEM education
Todd R. Kelley, J. Geoff Knowles, International Journal of STEM Education, 2017/02/10
The conceptual framework in this paper employs the metaphor of a pulley system whereby scientific, engineering and mathematical thinking lead to integrated educational approaches. The idea is to promote STEM and a metadiscipline offering "an integrated effort that removes the traditional barriers between these subjects, and instead focuses on innovation and the applied process of designing solution to complex contextual problems using current tools and technologies." The really interesting part of this paper, though, is the comparison between scientific and engineering methodologies. The paper also looks at the engineering perspective of technology as compared to that found in the humanities. These create tensions, and the model essentially uses a community of practice as the 'rope' to mediate between them and integrate the educational program.
The Legacy of InBloom
Monica Bulger, Patrick McCormick, Mikaela Pitcan, Data & Society, 2017/02/10
As the story (34 page PDF) says, "InBloom was a $100 million educational technology initiative primarily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aimed to improve American schools by providing a centralized platform for data sharing, learning apps, and curricula." It collapsed three years ago amid accusations of privacy violations. This article depicts it as in part "a clash between Silicon Valley-style agile software development methods and the slower moving, more risk-averse approaches of states and school districts" and in part a problem of communication. "InBloom’s communication materials and messaging were developed by consultants rather than in-house experts and explained the technology solution without conveying any useful purpose, thus failing to communicate a compelling value proposition to teachers, parents, and students." But in racing for federal dollars, the project also scaled up too quickly, attempting to achieve overnight a vision that did not take into account the public's interests and concerns. Via EdWeek.
Gillard and Riseboro: How Canada can help boost girls' education globally
Julia Gillard, Caroline Riseboro, Ottawa Citizen, 2017/02/10
This article fits a standard pattern worth exploring. The lead author is a well-known politician (in this case former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard). The article has four major sections:
- a story describing the problem (a 12-year old girl sold into marriage);
- a policy or mandate (Goal 4 of the recently agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs));
- outline of the responding organization ((GPE) is the only global partnership focused exclusively on education);
- and the ask (Global Affairs Canada will soon release its response to Canada’s International Assistance Review... We hope to see Canada’s continued and deepening support).
Textbook. And it's published in a major newspaper in Ottawa.
Lessons Learned: Expanding technology-enabled approaches for out-of-school children and refugees
Center for Educational Innovations, 2017/02/10
This article describes a learning program in Sudan where tablet computers with learning resources are made available in learning centres in communities, where the learning centres are themselves solar powered. On the surface it looks like a good program, and though it has yet to be evaluated is similar to other programs with the same objectives. The story itself led me to follow links to the Center for Educational Innovations, which ran the story, and its parent, Results for Development. Like many US-based initiatives, the organization tend to look for private-sector based responses to social challenges.
Folk Intuitions about the Causal Theory of Perception
Pendaran Roberts, Keith Allen, Kelly Schmidtke, Ergo, 2017/02/10
If I see a clock, my perception of the clock is caused by the clock. Right? This is the so-called 'folk intuition' about perception, but not only is it not clear that it is true, it is not even clear that ordinary people (aka 'folk') think it is true. This paper reports on a test of folk intuitions about perception and finds that, instead of the strong 'causal' theory of perception, folk are content with a much weaker 'non-blocker' theory of perception. We don't feel obligated to say that there actually is a clock when we report having seen a clock. This has all kinds of implications for our understandings of testing, experience, and learning. Image: Böhm and Pfister.
How will education change in the next 10 years?
Various authors, Quora, 2017/02/09
This is a question thread on Quora which has just been graced by Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy. Khan predicts the rise of mastery-based learning, competency-based credentials, and alternative and clearer career paths. It's not wrong, per se, but it feels like a very incomplete picture to me. There's a number of other responses as well which make for interesting reading.
MOOCs and Open Educational Resources: A Handbook for Educators
Peter B. Kaufman, Intelligent Television, 2017/02/09
This is a longish guide (60 page PDF) outlining MOOCs for instructors and (mostly) developers. There are long sections devoted to video and open licensing, which I consider to be the least important aspects of a MOOC. Interesting terminology half way through - "a Massive Really Open Online Course—a MROOC" (which would distinguish it from a merely open online course, I guess). Vie OER Knowledge Cloud.
If content is king, why are OER still uncrowned? A developing world perspective’
Asha Kanwar, Balasubramanian Kodhandaraman, Abdurrahman Umar, Pan-Commonwealth Forum, 2017/02/09
This is a conference presentation from 2010 which was listed in the OER Knowledge Cloud today (10 page PDF). So it's a bit dated but it's well written and I felt it was a pretty good description of some fundamental trends and issues in open educational resources. The prize you get for reading it to the end is this redefinition of OER: "The phenomenon of OER/OLR is an empowerment process, facilitated by technology in which various types of stakeholders are able to interact, collaborate, create and use materials and processes, that are freely available, for enhancing access, reducing costs and improving the quality of education at all levels."
A Growing (But Controversial) Idea in Open-Access Textbooks: Let Students Help Write Them
Ellen Wexler, EdSurge, 2017/02/09
I've promoted the idea of having students author learning resources since forever, but not surprisingly the idea hasn't caught on. It won't catch on after this article either but each voice in support is a tiny step forward. The article describes physics teacher Delman Larsen's project called LibreText in which his students write the wiki-like textbook. Jessica Coppola, another professor doing the same thing, has a very practical reason for doing so. “I commonly have students who are homeless, students who have to choose between feeding their child and buying a textbook,” she says. “I had to find a way to get them a free resource.”
The Shattered Mirror, Part Two: The Underwhelming Recommendation for Open Licensing at the CBC
Michael Geist, 2017/02/08
Michael Geist has authored a two-part review of The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age (108 page PDF), released by the Public Policy Forum in January (part one, part two). The report itself is a mixed bag, on the one had seeking to strengthen revenue for news media (partially by extending copyright), and on the other hand seeking to address local needs (partially by helping CBC reduce reliance on advertising). Geist's first article attacks (quite rightly) the recommendations on copyright. And in his second posts he applauds opening CBC content under Creative Commons but wonders why the authors would recommend the "no-derivatives" clause, which would prevent people from making anything new with CBC content.
The Path to Prosperity
Advisory Council on Economic Growth, 2017/02/08
The Canadian Government's Advisory Council on Economic Growth has released a set of five papers under the heading of 'The Path to Prosperity'. Here they are:
- The Path to Prosperity: Executive Summary (PDF 356 KB)
- Unlocking Innovation to Drive Scale and Growth (PDF 697 KB)
- Building a Highly Skilled and Resilient Canadian Workforce through the FutureSkills Lab (PDF 1.04 MB)
- Unleashing the Growth Potential of Key Sectors (PDF 1.4 MB)
- Positioning Canada as a Global Trading Hub (PDF 730 KB)
- Tapping Economic Potential through Broader Workforce Participation (PDF 506 KB)
The second (FutureSkills Lab) and Fifth (Workforce Participation) have the greatest impact on education and training. The latter is the 'skills gap' argument for 2017, with a focus on reskilling and workforce integration. The former would "solicit, select, and co-finance innovative pilot programs in skills and competency development. I can think of a few things I'd propose for such a program.
The Security Impact of HTTPS Interception
Zakir Durumeric, et.al., 2017/02/08
The state of web security is, um, awful. Specifically, with respect to HTTPS, here's what this pointed study reports: "we find more than an order of magnitude more interception than previously estimated, ranging from 4–11%." This was determined by studying different browsers, e-commerce sites, and content distribution networks. But worse, software installed by corporations to increase security may be making the network more vulnerable. "62% of traffic that traverses a network middlebox has reduced security and 58% of middlebox connections have severe vulnerabilities. We investigated popular antivirus and corporate proxies, finding that nearly all reduce connection security and that many introduce vulnerabilities." Via O'Reilly.
Announcing the new CC Search, now in Beta
Creative Commons, 2017/02/08
Creative Commons has launched a new search service. "The new CC Search harnesses the power of open repositories, allowing users to search across a variety of open content through a single interface. The prototype of this tool focuses on photos as its first media and uses open APIs in order to index the available works.... we selected the Rijksmuseum, Flickr, 500px, the New York Public Library as our initial sources." The beta, I think, needs to be refined - none of my 36K Creative-Commons licensed photos on Flickr appear to be findable.
CLOs, Move From Conduit to Curator
Greg Pryor, Chief Learning Officer, 2017/02/08
A CLO is a 'Chief Learning Officer' and the point of this article is to suggest that CLOs shift their role from being a 'conduit' of knowledge and information to being a 'curator'. This is a three step process:
- Personalize employee learning experiences - "deliver content in a way that’s personalized and similar to the content employees view on their personal devices; think Netflix and Facebook."
- Enable the (l)earning curve - encourage learners "who are always ready to learn and evolve to meet new challenges"
- Crowdsource employee knowledge - "have learning technology in place that can capture and store employee knowledge on the business"
Of course none of these is nearly as simple as the quick one-paragraph form suggests. And I thin k the process involves far more than mere curation.
Algorithms and insults: Scaling up our understanding of harassment on Wikipedia
Ellery Wulczyn, Dario Taraborelli, Nithum Thain, Lucas Dixon, WikiMedia Foundation, 2017/02/07
I've seen this type of result before, but it's worth reiterating. "Registered users make two-thirds (67%) of attacks on English Wikipedia, contradicting a widespread assumption that anonymity is the primary contributor to the problem." The other two observations are also consistent with my own experience of Wikipedia (and speak to why I don't get myself involved in editing Wikipedia documents): "Only 18% of attacks were followed by a warning or a block of the offending user" and "While half of all attacks come from editors who make fewer than 5 edits a year, a third come from registered users with over 100 edits a year."
Gavagai and TZQQA
Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2017/02/07
I thought this was a fun post. Quine's thesis on the indeterminacy of translation is that in the case of a radical translation - that is, a translation of a completely unfamiliar language - we don't have sufficient evidence to be certain of the meaning of any specific word - 'gavagai', say - in the other language. What's amusing here is that this theory is applied to teens' use of text messaging. What does 'TZQQA' mean, anyways? "There is nothing in linguistic meaning, then," says Quine, "beyond what is to be gleaned from overt behavior in observable circumstances."
Next Generation Repositories
Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), 2017/02/07
The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) has released a report as a part of its efforts to define a vision for resource repositories. "The vision is to position repositories as the foundation for a distributed, globally networked infrastructure for scholarly communication, on top of which layers of value added services will be deployed." the current report outlines 12 user stories that help define the functions to be supported. This is a draft for public comments (which will be open until March 3). You can comment paragraph-by-paragraph right on the web page.
“Xenophobia”
Alex Usher, Higher Education Strategy Associates, 2017/02/07
You can split a lot of hairs by saying that 'xenophobia' means 'fear of foreigners' and then saying you don't fear them , you just want them treated differently. The traditional Greek suffixes (-mania, -philia, -phobia) doesn't seem to leave us any alternatives. But there are some. I like 'xenovilic', meaning 'one who vilifies foreigners', for example, by treating them differently. So the Canadian Federation of Students could say that differential fees are 'xenovilic' and avoid the brunt of Alex Usher's argument (which is essentially say "no they're not").
Now it's true that xenovilia is popular worldwide. But should it be? Is there a good rational (morally justified, politically economic, etc) argument to support treating foreigners differently? Usher argues, "services go in priority to people who pay taxes in that jurisdiction." But what about infants and children, and the disabled, and the poor, who pay no taxes? No, the "he who pays" argument doesn't work. Finally, and as an aside, the goal of international trade agreements is to eliminate xenovilia - that is, to ensure foreigners and domestic businesses are treated the same way in each others' countries. They do this very imperfectly, and they do not extend their protections to people, which ultimately is their Achilles heel.
Scientists Need to Stop “Othering” the General Public
Jessica Pelland, ExtreNewsfeed, 2017/02/05
I have mixed feelings about this article. I agree that scientists should see themselves as a part of the general public. I also agree that some (not all) scientists should engage the public "not only to communicate their research, but also to encourage non-scientists to use the scientific method in everyday life." But I don't think scientists - not even Neil Degrasse Tyson - should be silent on issues on which they are not expert. If you are approaching an issue in a reasoned and scientific manner, then it is perfectly appropriate to voice your thoughts. Ours is a society not of experts but of the people, and if there is a problem with society it is not that we don't listen to experts, it is that we don't talk back to them.
Against mass consumption of ‘already certified’ credentials
Doug Belshaw, Open Educational Thinkering, 2017/02/06
Doug Belshaw bemoans the unsurprising co-option of digital badges by established institutions. "Even though the tools to do something radically different are available, people seem content to do as they’re told, going cap in hand to the existing powers that be." Sure, there were alternative credentials, but these were swept away by the mainstream. "If we have a landscape full of ‘alternative credentials’ provided by the incumbents," writes Belshaw, "then, I’m sad to say, this may all have been for naught." I don't think you can disrupt certificate-granting institutions with more certificates. I think you need an approach that makes certification superfluous.
What the Acquisition of Meta Means for Scholarly Publishers
Joseph Esposito, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2017/02/06
Meta is a tool that analyzes scientific publications. For example, in one study it predicted the number of citations a published article would receive. Now it has been acquired by Chan Zuckerberg. This, writes a Meta board member, is a good thing. "The acquisition of Meta by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) promises to transform scientific investigation. As a byproduct of this, it will likely transform scientific publishing as well." There's no doubt that scientific publication is changing; 'research' these days consists of running (more or less) intelligent searches against databases of hundreds of thousands of articles. People don't look at the content of the articles any more; they analyze global trends. That's what Facebook tries to do already with social media. And that's why they acquired Meta.
What Research Says About Transferring Explicit Knowledge: To Share or Not to Share
Nancy Dixon, conversation matters, 2017/02/06
As always, convenience is the major usability factor when introducing new technology. "Acceptance of technology for knowledge sharing is directly related to how employees view the usefulness of the technology in supporting their job performance, without extra effort. Those last three words are key." Meanwhile, they are more likely to use the knowledge management system if it is useful: they need to be able to access content where they are, and they need efficient search (that doesn't take a training program to understand).
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