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OLWeekly ~ by Stephen Downes

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OLWeekly

by Stephen Downes
Feb 16, 2018

School Shootings: No More Thoughts and Prayers
Ronnie Burt, The Edublogger, 2018/02/16

I endorse this message: "Please, no more thoughts and prayers. It is time for action on how we can stop a 19-year-old, who had been suspended from school for bringing a gun, from walking into a store and purchasing a military-style assault weapon. We must work to elect those to office that will make this happen. For decades we’ve done nothing while our kids are dying. We are ready for real change and real action."

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Anger at Google image search 'peace deal'
BBC News, 2018/02/16

The essence of the deal Google struck with Getty Images is that it has removed the 'view image' button from its image search application. Now I personally don't know why you would search for images unless you wanted to view them. But more to the point, it seems wrong to me that one company with a few million commercial images would dictate the terms of access to an entire web full of billions of all sorts of images (including my openly licensed images that I want people to be able to view). "This is a terrible idea... you find an image on Google Images only for the image to be nowhere in sight," said one user on Twitter. "Talk about destroying your own successful service."  Google also removed the "search by image" button, which ironically is the best way for people to discover whether their images have been used by someone else. More: Ars Technica, Boing Boing, ZD Net. Update: there's a Chrome extension to put the 'view' button back. I checked and there's also a Firefox extension that does the same.

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Universities and the “democracy of the gullible”
Jean Winand, UNESCO Courier, 2018/02/16

This is a good article and a weak article at the same time. It's a good article in the sense that it raises a significant issue and discusses it clearly and precisely. But it's a weak article in that it overstates the problem (it's simply not true that "no one thinks of criticizing the technical elite") and offers an overly broad resolution, taking a classic 'defense of the humanities' position. I don't, for example, debate the need for "research on Kant [Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German philosopher] medieval philosophy or phenomenology." But I would certainly debate the manner in which it is currently conducted. Philosophy and the humanities have such an important role to play in the day-top-day lives of people, and yet their practitioners retrench behind academic walls, subscription barriers, and programs available only to the elite of society. No wonder governments question their continued funding. More from the current issue of Courier, which is dedicated to the question of why education is still searching for utopia.

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Automerge
GitHub, 2018/02/16

This is a "JSON-like data structure that can be modified concurrently by different users, and merged again automatically." So how might that be useful? Here's one case: imagine a cMOOC has been developed and released, with all its contents defined in a JSON file (so it can be harvested automatically by personal learning environments). As people use the course, they begin to alter its structure and add resources. This data structure would make that possible. Would it work? No idea.

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IMS Global Learning Consortium Announces Caliper Analytics v1.1
Press Release, IMS Global, 2018/02/16

The Caliper specification "was initially released in 2015, to enable the collection of valuable learning and tool usage data from digital resources, which can be used for predictive analytics." This is an update. It provides "guided language for describing, collecting, and exchanging learning data across learning technologies, and promotes better data interoperability through a shared vocabulary for describing learning interactions."

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I Wrote Down Everything I Learned While Programming for a Month
Sung Won Cho, Dnote, 2018/02/15

What if you wrote down what you learned every time you learned something. It would be a bit like taking classroom notes, but in real life. When I joined NRC people used to use scientific notebooks where they would capture everything. I use this newsletter for the same purpose, partially (but I don't capture all kinds of knowledge, like how to parse OPML files, for example). For me, being able to find the note again was important. But sometimes just the taking of the note can be enough of an intentional act. Anyhow, Sung Won Cho tried this (using Dnote) and found it " allowed me to see through the fuzzy meaning of learning and clearly quantify just how much I was learning... I was not learning as much as I had thought, but also because we seemed to misunderstand the ways of learning."

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Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Preprint Badges!
Phil Davis, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2018/02/15

To date when people have talked about badges they've talked about badges as something people earn. But what about artifacts, like academic articles? It makes sense. Badges would function a bit like awards (the way films are labled with the 'Palm d'Or badge') or a bit like certification (as in the Good Housekeeping 'Seal of Approval'). It makes me think that all along I should have been awarding 'Posted in OLDaily' badges rewarding articles and resources worthy of mention. It's like how I once won the 'Cool Site of the Day' badge. But for professionals and academics. The 'Published by Nature' badge would be worth getting, and Nature could make it work by doing only peer review; leave the bother of publishing and distribution to others. Of course the opinion of the pro-publisher Scholarly Kitchen blog is that preprint services issuing badges are "outlaws" For example, "By incorporating post-publication validation badges into preprints, bioRxiv begins to transform itself into the largest open access megajournal the world has ever seen."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers
Jack Morse, Mashable, 2018/02/15

This article is a bit off in that its original title appears and then is obscured by the newer title. The original title? "Facebook is so desperate for engagement, it's spamming users via their 2FA numbers." I like it better than the original. '2FA' stands for 'Two Factor Authentication' and here refers to the practice of having people enter their phone numbers so they can verify logins via text messages. Now Facebook is sending marketing through these numbers. It also appears to have struck a deal with Microsoft to have its application automatically installed on Windows 10 machines, hence marketing themselves through the desktop as well (I use Windows 10 but can't report having seen these). These are annoying, to be sure, but also the inevitable result of a business plan based on massive numbers of eyeballs. And as I read recently, "The older generation is afraid of social media doing to their children what television did to them."

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A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Consensus Algorithms
Zane Witherspoon, Hacker Noon, 2018/02/15

A 'consensus algorithm' is a mechanism for verifying transactions in a distributed network. A transaction doesn't take place until everyone (or a large enough subset of everyone) agrees that it can take place (ie., it isn't contradicted by some previous transaction). But how do you get to have a say in these consensus networks? That's what the algorithms decide. The first is 'proof of work', such as solving equations to 'mine' bitcoins. Another is 'proof of stake' in which you 'bet' on the validity of transactions. A third is 'delegated' proof of stake, in which you elect a subset of you to become validators. Related is 'proof of authority', where transactions are validated by approved accounts. The 'proof of weight' algorithms award authority to the largest entities. Then the algorithms get messy: there's Byzantine Fault tolerance, spaghetti algorithms, and more.

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What are the priorities for L&D in the modern workplace? Our survey says …
Jane Hart, Modern Workplace Learning, 2018/02/15

The term 'L&D' is being used as a noun in this survey, as in 'the Learning & Development Department'. So we see questions like "Do you think that L&D should manage social learning in the workplace?" The answer to this one, courtesy of 173 responses to Jane Hart's survey, was 'yes' at 33% and 'no' at 57%. I'm not sure how an L&D department would manage social learning. The real surprise, though, was the answer to this one: "Do you think the primary purpose of the L&D department is to design, deliver and manage training/e-learning for the organisation?" Most said 'no', and the number is increasing. So what should these departments do? Respondents wanted to spend their time "helping managers develop their teams, and helping individuals learn from daily work and share their knowledge experience."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

An Alternative to the Engineering Model of Personalized Learning
e-Literate, online learning, 2018/02/14

Larry Berger "is exactly right that there is a fundamental problem with the assumptions behind what he calls the engineering model of personalized learning," writes Phil Hill. Berger argues that he "spent a decade believing in this model—the map, the measure, and the library, all powered by big data algorithms" but that ""the map doesn't exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library." Hill reiterates his minority and irrelevant definition of 'personalized learning' as "teaching practices that are intended to help reach students in the metaphorical back row" but beyond that doesn't say more about Berger's commentary. And Berger's commentary is important, and importantly right.

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Google Thinks The Future Of The Web Is . . . Email
Mark Wilson, Co.Design, 2018/02/14

This is another phase of their Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. The idea is to deliver media content embedded in the email message, rather than having you open it in your browser (this of course ensures you never leave the Google environment). Why is this important? Well, it reflects the increasing importance of email to marketers as they lose their ability to position their content in social media. " The opaque algorithms of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can make promoting content organically (i.e., without paying) a tricky matter," writes Mark Wilson. The benefit to the consumer? According to Wilson, it's that they will no longer get lost on their phone. Um hm.

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The Sublimated Grief of the Left Behind
Erin Bartram, 2018/02/13

For the record: I was a really good philosophy professor. Just as Erin Bartram, who recounts her story here, was probably a really good history professor. But after getting a PhD and being rejected for a tenure track position, she leaves it behind. All of it. "One response is to tell the person that this doesn’t mean they’re not a historian, that they can still publish, and that they should. 'You can still be part of the conversation!' Some of you may be thinking that right now. To that I say: 'Why should I?' ... we’re also asking people to stay tethered to a community of scholars that has, in many ways, rejected them, and furthermore, asking them to continue contributing the fruits of their labor which we will only consider rigorous enough to cite if they’re published in the most inaccessible and least financially-rewarding ways." I wonder how academia would change if journals were open access and if writers were paid for their contributions. Via Inside Higher Ed. More.

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Book Review: Interaction Online By Lindsay Clandfield And Jill Hadfield
Philip J. Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2018/02/13

Philip Kerr reviews Lindsay Clandfield and Jill Hadfield’s new book Interaction Online, calling it "a recipe book, containing about 80 different activities (many more if you consider the suggested variations)." The objective, he writes, is to address the phenomenon of underused chat and discussion areas in online  English language training (ELT) services. "A recipe book must be judged on the quality of the activities it contains," writes Kerr, "and the standard here is high. They range from relatively simple, short activities to much longer tasks which will need an hour or more to complete."

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Some thoughts on scaling online and digital learning
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2018/02/14

This post summarized an article by Shalina Chatlani reporting on (unpublished?) results from Lou Pugliese, director for the Technology Innovation Action Lab at Arizona State University, and Kate Smith, vice president of academic affairs at Rio Salado College. They report four key findings: "take a strategic portfolio approach to digital learning, build capabilities and expertise to design for quality in the digital realm, provide the differential student support to succeed in fully online learning, and engage faculty as true partners, equipping them for success." Bates adds a few other findings from the literature.

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Hearts on fire: How educators are using Skype to ignite idealism in their students
PK Dauer, Microsoft Education, 2018/02/14

I always worry about claims that something fires up students' idealism, because propaganda also does that, and it has nothing to do with learning. The jury is still out on this initiative. It describes a partnership between a group called Hearts on Fire and Skype in the Classroom where "teachers now have access to inspiring speakers and innovative content online." Microsoft's take is that it is Skype performing a valuable service. "“Skype in the Classroom makes it easier for me to connect my students with people in the real world,” Leslie says. “It’s not always feasible to put them on a bus and take them somewhere. Experts may not be local. This makes the connection so much simpler and more efficient.” I'd feel more comfortable if the content of these inspiring messages were public, as in a Google Hangout, so we can see what's being pumped into classrooms.

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Macmillan Learning Intros Curated OER Course Materials
Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, 2018/02/14

I don't think the real problem with OERs is quality. Sure, it's nice to choose the better of two resources, if given a choice, and limited to using only one. But why limit yourself? Look at both! But of course looking at both is exactly the opposite of the model where course designers select the one-and-only resource from a library to create prepackaged courses to students. Anyhow, the story here is that "Macmillan Learning is launching a new course materials product that brings together open educational resources, instructor supplements and on-demand support. Dubbed Intellus Open Courses."

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Will Augmented and Virtual Reality Replace Textbooks?
Michael L. Matthews, Center for Digital Education, 2018/02/13

This article is over-stated, but I think it places augmented and virtual reality (AVR) in the correct context, positioning them as potential replacements for the traditional textbook. "Students and professors are now able to connect directly with current images, animations and entire visual learning environments that are fresh off the 'shop-room' floor from the workplace." But I think that the positioning of AVR as an equalizing agent is a bit misplaced. It gives "the ability for a class of diverse students to have an equal playing field," writes Michael L. Matthews. "In the era of textbooks, those who excel in memorization and linear learning styles easily outpaced the visual or conceptual learner."

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Computer-Assisted Language Learning & Media Selection
Sandra Rogers, AACE Review, 2018/02/14

This is an application of Chapelle's media selection criteria for computer assisted language learning (CALL): language learning potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, positive feedback, and practicality. Once the domain of programmed instruction systems like Plato, CALL today is "based on the communicative approach to second language acquisition (SLA) with authentic communication derived from meaningful activities beyond academia." The article also notes that the The Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) International Association has a CALL Interest Section that is very active and "other professional associations that focus on CALL include the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL) and the Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO)."

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Read the Declaration
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, 2018/02/13

Developed in 2012, the Declaration on Research Assessment "is a cross-disciplinary global initiative seeking to improve the ways in which scholarly research outputs are evaluated." The core idea is to move away from journal-based metrics for the evaluation of research output. In particular, it addresses "the need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published; and the need to capitalize on the opportunities provided by online publication." It shows up in my inbox from time to time as new organizations sign on, as the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) did this week.

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What Are Progressive Web Apps?
Chris Hoffman, How-To Geek, 2018/02/13

A progressive web app is an application that works well on a mobile device but also supports older-style browsers (hence, they're 'progressive'). As well, they live on the web, not on your device. "Like the traditional web apps we use today, they’re hosted entirely on the application’s servers. If a developer wants to update their progressive web app, they update it exactly like they would update the web app—on their servers." What's new is that the major developers are gradually working toward a progressive web app standard.

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A Must Have Tool for Taking Notes on Videos
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2018/02/13

Reclipped "allows you to collect relevant parts from videos, add your comments and notes to them and then share them with others. You can trim videos and choose specific timestamps for the start and end of your snippet." It's a nice idea. It really needs to be integrated into a workflow, though. There's a Chrome plugin, or you can clip the videos from inside the Reclipped website.

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Personalized Learning Vs Personalization of Learning
George Couros, The Principal of Change, 2018/02/13

This is, I think, another effort to grapple with the distinction between 'personalized learning' and what I have been calling 'personal learning' and is called 'personalization of learning' in this article. The difference is that it is focused on an in-class perspective: the idea of “personalization of learning” is about "how does the teacher understand the student, build on their interests, and create learning opportunities for the student." I like what Tristan Miller says in the comments: "I think the disservice is to expect all children to learn the same things at the same rate.... Don’t typecast personalized, or believe it has to exclude the individual."

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An Emirati City Is Giving Tablets to Every K-2 Learner As Part of its Lughati Initiative
Henry Kronk, eLearningInside News, 2018/02/12

People talks about the failure of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which encouraged governments to give school children their own laptop to support learning. And while it's true that the computers distributed by OLPC weren't that great, and that the project itself didn't endure, the idea of giving out laptops (or more recently, tablets) wasn't abandoned. Case in point: this project where thousands of tablets are being distributed as part of a wider project that "seeks to bolster Arabic language instruction for 25,000 students and 1,000 teachers in the city." They're by no means alone. This article describes other projects in the Bahamas and in Alabama. (p.s. the article's image bothered me so much I corrected the tilt, perspective, white balance and exposure before uploading it here).

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Don't call it a snow day: Schools closed, but Leyden students participate in 'e-learning day' from home
Heather Cherone, Chicago Tribune, 2018/02/12

The snow last week in the U.S. Midwest has allowed some Chicagi-area schools to test their "e-learning day" arrangements. Leyden High School is " one of three Illinois school districts participating in a pilot program that could put an end to snow days for good." Accoridng to the article, they will "judge the success of the e-learning day by tracking student attendance, as well as gathering survey and anecdotal data from teachers, parents and students." Right now they expect students to be in e-class for five hours; it will be a better test when they are given actual learning outcomes to complete.

In neighbouring Indiana, it's also e-learning day. But there's even more happening there. I've said before that e-learning days will soon extend beyond snow days. It's happening a bit faster than I thought. Case in point: in Fort Wayne, some Allen Country schools are implementing flex days. " “It’s a scheduled day, where parents and everybody knows on this day we are going to run an e-learning day and in the morning our teachers get professional development and in the afternoon they are online with kids.” It's not new; Homestead High school started running flex days in 2014. More.

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How does Tor *really* work?
Brandon Skerritt, HackerNoon, 2018/02/12

Tor is an encrypted communications protocol. The Tor browser, for example, allows you to browse the internet without your service provider seeing what you're accessing. 'Tor' stands for 'The Onion Routing' protocol, and that gives you an idea of how it works. Each packet is wrapped in layers of encryption (like an onion) so that as one host passes it on to the next, the layers come off and on, so that the provider doesn't know where the message came from and doesn't know where it is ultimately going. This article is a summary of a much longer white paper describing the protocol.

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Copyright 2018 Stephen Downes Contact: [email protected]

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