Laden...
[Home] [Top] [Archives] [Mobile] [About] [Threads] [Options]
by Stephen Downes
Mar 11, 2016
Presentation
Informal Discussion on the Future of Educational Media
Stephen Downes, Mar 05, 2016, Educational Technology Summit, Istanbul, Turkey
Presentation
The Future of Educational Media
Stephen Downes, Mar 05, 2016, Educational Technology Summit, Istanbul, Turkey
In this talk I look at some of the common tropes of the 'future' of educational media - learning analytics, mobile, etc. - and offer criticisms and an alternative account.
Share | SXSWedu’s Opening Keynote, Temple Grandin, Revisits ‘Learning Styles’
Michael Winters, EdSurge, 2016/03/11
Although the concept of learning styles has been criticized for instructional ineffectiveness, Temple Grandin argues "that, when used effectively, these preferences can help teachers and parents find the right ways to engage kids in educational activities." The idea is to get beyond labeling and to find ways to help students focus on their strengths. "Once someone is labeled as belonging to one category, others will make assumptions about their goals and behaviors, leading to a deterioration of the relationship." The full video is available in this article.
Canada joins network to improve the international exchange of student data
Becky Rynor, University Affairs, 2016/03/10
This is a good thing though it still seems so terribly ad hoc. The national work has been done: "The Groningen Declaration Network on Digital Student Data Portability (more), formed in 2012, aims to modernize and improve the international exchange of transcripts, diplomas and applications by creating digital hubs and networks between academic institutions and other organizations worldwide. Canada became a signatory to the declaration in May 2015." But as the article notes, institutions have to be on board as well, which seems almost guaranteed to create a patchwork of compliance. If only there were a way people could manage their own credentials.
STEP Conference 2016 Keynote 1 Janie McManus – Attainment and Improvement
Janie McManus, EDUtalk, 2016/03/10
I listened to this talk on Ed Radio from the STEP (Scottish Teachers for Enhancing Practice) conference last week on the drive in this morning. Janie McManus is an engaging speaker who spoke on meeting the two challenges in Scottish education, excellence, and (especially) equity. Meeting these requires the continuous engagement and improvement by all staff in the system, she said. And in meeting these objectives, you should ask:
How well are you doing How do you know What can you learn from othersI've often said that learning is composed of practice and reflection. Facing these questions, looking for key indicators, and especially addressing the questions how do you know? and so what? constitute the 'reflection' part of the equation.
The Claims of EdTech (supposedly backed by research)
George Veletsianos, 2016/03/10
George Veletsianos points to an email that "paints a direct and unequivocal relationship between edtech use and outcomes.: 'use of educational technology resulted in.'" But, he says, "That's not actually the case." In the actual reserach, there were some differences in outcomes, but they weren't statistically significant. And "teachers used technology to efficiently facilitate drill and practice test preparation activities." It makes you just want to sign. He points out that "such claims are of course neither new nor isolated."
Want to Change Academic Publishing? Just Say No
Hugh Gusterson, Chroncile of Higher Education, 2016/03/10
The headline is definitely a mismatch for the content of the article. In a nutshell, the author argues that if he were a lawyer or physician, consulting fees could be hundreds of dollars a session, and as an author, he might be paid well by magazines, but as an academic, he gets nothing for writing or reviewing for academic journals. Meanwhile, as we all know, publishers charge substantial fees for these articles and pay their CEOs millions of dollars. Is the solution to "just say no"? Not exactly. "We should give up our archaic notions of unpaid craft labor and insist on professional compensation for our expertise, just as doctors, lawyers, and accountants do," writes Hugh Gusterson. He might want to rethink. As a professor at George Mason University, he can receive $200K or more a year. Is he ready to give that up in order to be paid on a case by case basis? Probably not. Academics are paid for the academic work they do, and paid very well. So that's not the problem. Indeed - maybe if the public threatened to stop paying academics unless they published in open access journals, maybe they wouldn't be so blasé about simply handing over public goods to pirate private publishers.
Behind the Headline: There Is No FDA For Education. Maybe There Should Be
Education Next, 2016/03/10
We get this sort of sentiment a lot. It's the thinking behind initiatives like the Campbell Collaboration which postulate that innovation in education should be (more or less) completely evidence-based. So here we have "NPR’s Eric Westervelt talks with Harvard education researcher Tom Kane about how and why American education research has mostly languished in an echo chamber for much of the last half century." First of all, who cares that it's a Harvard education researcher? Second, what do they mean by "American educational research"? It's not like there's one big monolith. But most significant is the idea that "The point of education research is to identify effective interventions for closing the achievement gaps that Coleman observed and ensuring that that information is usable." Well - no. It's a ridiculous proposition, the idea that lack of access to the same education rich people have can be solved like it were a disease or illness. What do they think, that we use the education of Eton as a baseline, and if everybody gets that then we're done? I'd like to do rather better than that.
How to teach quantum mechanics to kids
Helge Scherlund, Helge Scherlund's eLearning News, 2016/03/09
I made the comment in Istanbul on Saturday that there's no particular bit of knowledge that's foundational. Why, we could even start by teaching quantum mechanics to kids, I said. It was a bit of a quip, to be sure. But wouldn't you know, there's a book on teaching quantum mechanics to kids. "You might think that it’s a tall order to convey the weirdness of quantum correlations to kids, but there’s an insightful way to do this without the mathematical machinery of the theory by considering simulation games."
Some thoughts on the evidence behind Open Badges
Doug Belshaw, Open Educational Thinkering, 2016/03/09
Doug Belshaw thinks aloud after Alan Levine's post questioning open badges. The claim being made for badges is that "unlike LinkedIn profiles or CV’s, they’re a bunch of evidence rather than a bunch of claims." But what's evidence? The evidence might be whatever's in the 'evidence' field provided by the open badge issuer, or it might be something we can show as evidence for the badge. But surely we need more than that. "Being able to provide trusted evidence is a gamechanger when it comes to credentialing," says Belshaw. "If we find more useful metaphors for people that ‘certificates’ then we’re likely to see different kinds of credentials — and hopefully with many more pointing to evidence than we have now!"
Google Community - NRC01PL
Fredrik Graver, Google+, 2016/03/09
This is how a distributed course can reduce dependence on technology. Yes, the Personal Learning MOOC OpenEdX site was down this week. But this Community page made in Google Plus works just as well for many things! Kudos to Fredrik Graver.
How not to write about grade inflation, or education, for that matter
Bryan Alexander, 2016/03/09
The main point Bryan Alexander makes here - and I agree with him - has nothing to do with grade inflation (though of course all but one of the comments addresses grade inflation). It is this: that writers should not regard the so-called elite universities as representative of education in general. "I’ve blogged about it previously," writes Alexander. "As inequality among Americans increases, and gaps between campuses widen, it’s increasingly important to bear that reality in mind, not disappear it in parentheses."
Making Sense of Blended Learning: Treasuring an Older Tradition or Finding a Better Future
John Daniel, Contact North, 2016/03/08
From the summary in the Contact North newsletter: "A consensus is emerging that blended learning, a term that embraces various combinations of classroom presence and online study, will become the most common approach to teaching and learning in higher education. Does this consensus simply aim to safeguard the tradition of face-to-face teaching against an invasion of fully online learning - or can blended learning raise higher education to new levels of effectiveness and quality?"
Stop Innovating In Schools
Will Richardson, Medium, 2016/03/08
What Will Richardson means, of course, is that instead of constantly focusing on teachers, we should invest in learners. "The vast majority of “innovation” I’ve seen in my visits to schools around the world doesn’t amount to much change at all in the area where we need it most: using those new methods, ideas, or products to shift agency for learning to the learner." He cites author Seymour Sarason: "the goal is not to force kids to abandon their passions and interests for our curriculum when they come to school, which is what we currently do... we must start with their questions and curiosities, and bring our world to them." Too true.
Good scientist or successful academic? You can't be both
Xenia Schmalz, Times Higher Education, 2016/03/08
I can't say I have any disagreement with this chart either. As the author says, "I find it interesting to find and connect puzzle pieces that make up a bigger picture of how the world works. Engaging in practices that are currently required in order to be a successful scientist goes directly against this ideal. In other words, when I chose my career, I did not want to play a dirty game of selling myself, sucking up to the right people, and publishing results that I don’t even believe in myself."
Next Generation Learning Analytics: Or, How Learning Analytics is Passé
Timothy Harfield, 2016/03/07
From last year, but the point remains valid: "The biggest problem with learning analytics in its most popular incarnations is that — particularly as it is applied at scale by colleges, universities, and in vendor-driven solutions — it sits on top of existing learning management architectures which, in turn, rely on irrelevant assumptions about what higher education looks like."
This newsletter is sent only at the request of subscribers. If you would like to unsubscribe, Click here.
Know a friend who might enjoy this newsletter? Feel free to forward OLDaily to your colleagues. If you received this issue from a friend and would like a free subscription of your own, you can join our mailing list. Click here to subscribe.
Copyright 2010 Stephen Downes Contact: [email protected]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Laden...
Laden...
