2,073 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2016
    1. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been the subject of much hyperbole in the educational/eLearning world for a few years now, under the guise of spreading university-quality education to the masses for free (the hyperbole is dwindling down, but not completely).

      Cue Rolin Moe, who has investigated the MOOC hype so thoroughly. We may still follow a Gartner Cycle (Merton did warn us about self-fulfilling prophesies). But much of those phases have been documented.

    2. Postcolonial

      In some ways, it’s quite remarkable that one of the key figures of post-development was also the one who called for “deschooling society”. As is obvious from observing humanitarian and philanthropic work is that “development” participates in neocolonialism, despite (or often because of) the best of intentions. MOOCs are closer to development than to postdevelopment. Even cMOOCs.

    1. The military’s contributions to education technology are often overlooked

      Though that may not really be the core argument of the piece, it’s more than a passing point. Watters’s raising awareness of this other type of “military-industrial complex” could have a deep impact on many a discussion, including the whole hype about VR (and AR). It’s not just Carnegie-Mellon and Paris’s Polytechnique («l’X») which have strong ties to the military. Or (D)ARPANET. Reminds me of IU’s Dorson getting money for the Folklore Institute during the Cold War by arguing that the Soviets were funding folklore. Even the head of the NEH in 2000 talked about Sputnik and used the language of “beating Europe at culture” when discussing plans for the agency. Not that it means the funding or “innovation” would come directly from the military but it’s all part of the Cold War-era “ideology”. In education, it’s about competing with India or Finland. In other words, the military is part of a much larger plan for “world domination”.

    1. grant-like programs where teachers apply for ed tech with a plan for how to use it

      Sounds like this strategy could solve several issues at once, including the lack of recognition for the teaching profession. But “the devil is in the details”. Could easily imagine such programmes to lead to misdirected incentives. Part of the way this could work is if the “pilot project” at the core of such a grant were to also allow for some freedom in course design. There’s been some discussion of “pilot courses” in our milieu and those could be a great opportunity for many teachers. After all, the problem is often that there are too many hurdles to implement something appropriate. Sure, resources may be lacking but, more often than not, they’re misappropriated, “siloed out”, put in a separate budget.

    2. New technology has often been introduced in schools without the necessary long-term planning and training that should have accompanied it. SMART boards were notorious for being installed in classrooms (at great cost) and then used in the same way as the static blackboards that preceded them. One-to-one device programs have been ridiculed for the same reasons.

      Was just discussing the SMART boards roll-out with a friend and colleague.

    1. Bridging the Digital Divide

      Really wish people were to consider the multiple divides which affect digital inclusion. That notion has been a significant part of the subtext in our Cyberspace sociology course. Explicitly discussed here: doi:10.1111/jcom.12045 It’s a bit like Belshaw’s use of the plural to discuss literacies. Makes it more difficult to claim that we’ve completely solved the issue if we acknowledge its diversity and complexity.

    1. With internet access at home becoming increasingly important for students to be able to finish their homework, some schools are having to get creative to meet the needs of those without it.

      Access may not be the most important divide, anymore, but it remains salient in terms of programmes meant to alleviate it. With the embedded assumption that access matters in the grand scheme of things.

    1. With the presidential election cycle coming to a close in November

      Surprised by the US focus of this piece, from the start. But this phrase is particularly awkward, coming from a UK publication. Sounds a bit like people from the US coming to Canada and talking about “the country” in reference to our southerly neighbours. Feels strange, especially from those who teach here.

    2. This model might make sense if our goal was to produce cars, clothing, and some other commodity more efficiently. But a university education doesn’t fit into this paradigm. It isn’t just a commodity.

      In education as in health, things get really complex when people have an incentive for people not to improve.

    1. Right now the focus is on audio data, which is being used in two ways. First, the system signals the TA when he or she is talking too much. That shows up as a big red screen that flashes to the instructor to give a warning, or a green light to signal that all is well.

      Does it apply the “10-second rule”, @slamteacher? Or does it trigger warnings at rhetorical questions?

    1. That competency profile is part of a transformation Craig sees coming, “the great unbundling of higher education,” to borrow his 2015 book’s subtitle.

      Oh, yeah, right… Almost forgot about this 2015 term…

    2. “In my perfect world, I have a competency profile — you know, on LinkedIn, presumably — that is kept up to date in real time on the competencies that I am exhibiting in my work, as well as competencies that I’ve demonstrated through assessments, through my education, the formal credentials that I’ve accrued,”

      It’s a very specific dream, but it sounds like it’s shared by a lot of people.

    1. getting back to the old

      Tricky formulation. Those who believe in the “inexorable march of Progress” would have a hard time getting on board. Sounds nostalgic, in fact. But the feeling is understandable. One of the directions in which education is moving is away from those core values.

    2. improving teaching, not amplifying learning.

      Though it’s not exactly the same thing, you could call this “instrumental” or “pragmatic”. Of course, you could have something very practical to amplify learning, and #EdTech is predicated on that idea. But when you do, you make learning so goal-oriented that it shifts its meaning. Very hard to have a “solution” for open-ended learning, though it’s very easy to have tools which can enhance open approaches to learning. Teachers have a tough time and it doesn’t feel so strange to make teachers’ lives easier. Teachers typically don’t make big purchasing decisions but there’s a level of influence from teachers when a “solution” imposes itself. At least, based on the insistence of #BigEdTech on trying to influence teachers (who then pressure administrators to make purchases), one might think that teachers have a say in the matter. If something makes a teaching-related task easier, administrators are likely to perceive the value. Comes down to figures, dollars, expense, expenditures, supplies, HR, budgets… Pedagogy may not even come into play.

    1. It creates resentment towards minorities because you are forced to take take this training that treats them like charity cases which in turn encourages the “lowering the bar” mentality.
    2. We found zero relationship.

      Lack of correlation isn’t lack of causation… but it does make it harder to argue that your practice makes sense.

    1. We believe that America’s diversity is our strength.

      Apart from the political context for such statements, it’s interesting to note that a link between innovation and diversity is made more frequently in technology than in education (where diversity is taken as a challenge).

    1. never heard of Bateson before reading Musicking, but I’ve added some of his writings to my reading list!

      There are multiple reasons to start reading Bateson. It’s never too late. In anthro, he was mostly cited for his Iatmul work with a passing remark about Double-Bind and maybe something about comms. But he’s this intriguing character who only gets airplay when someone digs a bit deeper.

    1. disheartened that open education is still mainly focused on MOOCs and OERs, rather than on the broader concept of open textbooks, open research, and open data.

      We often think of the hype cycle but two things this post reveals about MOOC hype: 1) There can be regional differences in the timing of those cycles. 2) We might be in a broad shift from MOOC as a thing to MOOC as a pretext for openness.

    2. MOOCs have forced Vice Chancellors to focus on teaching and learning This is probably a true if sad statement.

      My thoughts exactly. Same was true of McG’s Tony Massi saying that MOOCs got a few science teachers to rethink their teaching for the first time in decades.

    1. In their current role, advertisements don’t just tell us what we should want, but also who we are. It’s no wonder that childless women want in

      Finding it somewhat surprising. It's something to be represented in media and something else to be targeted by advertising.

    1. Other people, particularly politicians, defend technology on the grounds that it will keep our students “competitive in the global economy.”

      Neoliberalism isn’t a partisan divide, anymore.

    1. How does the increasing diversity of our student population make good teaching more challenging and what is the best approach to meeting that challenge?

      At the same time, this is partly a loaded question. From another perspective (say, in anthro), diversity is richness. It’s part of a broader context. Teachers do need to vent about new challenges. Some may even think that diversity is what makes their lives more difficult. And they may wish for that time when all students were exactly alike.

    1. I know there are quite a few people out there who dislike me and even hate me; you make speak poorly of me and call me names. That is fine, but know this: I wish you no ill will.

      Taking the high road.

    1. The remix should be thought of as a method of quotation, citation and commentary; as a form of pastiche, parody or homage; as a means of picking our way through the media-saturated labyrinth in which we find ourselves; a vital expression of our living culture in a confused and confusing time.

      Sounds like a description of Shepazu’s Annotation Architecture. Web Annotation Architecture

    1. Our research indicates that individuals exercise a great deal of critical evaluation of sources in non-academic contexts (as in the case of looking for good restaurants, or shopping for new cars, for instance). It may be of value to explore these personal evaluation practices with students, encouraging them to apply them in academic contexts.

      +1 Insightful

    1. The copyright for the materials in this collection is held by Universal Music Canada and their affiliates. These materials have been made available with their consent. Patrons may not download, reproduce, alter or transmit files/images without permission from the copyright holder(s). These files/images may not be used for commercial purposes but may be used under the fair dealing or educational exemptions outlined in the Canadian Copyright Act.

      Being able to access these resources without any cost can lead to cool projects, but the fact that they maintain full copyright does restrict the type of learning which may happen through this. In other words, we’re far from Open Educational Resources. But it doesn’t mean these aren’t useful.

  2. Jun 2016
  3. www.nybooks.com www.nybooks.com
    1. Put simply, the people have spoken and news appears to have lost.

      A moment of clarity for journos? The writing was on the wall over twenty years ago yet media consolidation kept going on.

    1. It is important to note, however, that throughout all of this, we have always had the best intentions.

      Will sound like a rhetorical question, but still: why is it important to note this? Or, more specifically, who is this important for? People from this project have been heard clinging to their intentions, before this (as Courtney Martin notes, very candid) update. In some ways, the “best intentions” are the very problem to be solved. The project wasn’t something which happened from the ground up. It was based on some people’s best intentions. As Martin also noted, those on the other side of the equation probably didn’t receive the same kind of apology. But they’re the real victims, here. In this kind of work, doing something is often much much worse than doing nothing. This update, while candid, resonates with Negroponte’s attitude:

      people really don't want to criticize this, because it is a humanitarian effort, a nonprofit effort and to criticize it is a little bit stupid, actually.

      As Tiny Spark is showing, time and time again, humanitarianism is precisely what requires deep and broad critical thinking. Not merely “best intentions”.

  4. unchartedplay.com unchartedplay.com
    1. ensure that you’re solving the right problem

      Lots to be said about misdirected problem-solving. Much of it has to do with people who are extremely competent at their job but whose job is narrower than it could be. For instance, engineers are unbelievably adept at finding a solution to almost any problem. But it’s relatively common for them to work on “the wrong problem”, something which may not even need solving in some cases or a solution which may bring completely new problems. Those who think of the human condition as a problem to be solved may apply this type of mindset to an inappropriate extreme. Hence Soylent and VR goggles for prisoners.

    2. demanding that technologies designed for a group of people be designed and built, in part, by those people

      Despite some differences, it sounds a bit like the standard by which risks and benefits of research are measured in terms of a given population. Since the troublesome Tuskegee syphilis experiments, it has led to the evaluation of “fair or just distribution of risks and benefits to eligible participants” (WP). The connection may be a little bit strained, especially since Zuckerman is talking about pragmatic issues instead of ethical ones. But there’s some insight in this line of thought, IMHO.

    3. Understanding the wants and needs of users is important when you’re designing technologies for people much like yourself, but it’s utterly critical when designing for people with different backgrounds, experiences, wants and needs.
    1. The War on Stupid People

      Lots of difficult things with this text, including the title. The obsession on measurable “smarts” is an important topic and the possible measures to prevent this obsession from impacting (US) society make sense. But it’s really tricky to discuss intelligence in such ways. Part of the text reads as further essentialisation of measured intelligence. Yet it sounds clear from the possible measures described that this form of intelligence takes at least part of its meaning in a given social context.

      Maybe the deep issue with a text like this is that it’s hard to get people to shift from one consistent mindframe (paradigm, episteme) to another. More specifically, it’s hard to discuss intelligence in a context where the concept has become so loaded.

      Would have lots more to say about this from my parents’ experiences (an occupational therapist who spent a career with people labelled as having “intellectual disabilities” and a psychopedagogue who worked in “special education” with students from a low-income neighbourhood who had “learning disabilities”). Maybe later.

    2. When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. At the time, the world he imagined, in which intelligence fully determined who thrived and who languished, was understood to be predatory, pathological, far-fetched. Today, however, we’ve almost finished installing such a system, and we have embraced the idea of a meritocracy with few reservations, even treating it as virtuous.

      The pullquote Audrey Watters used. Sociologists frequently point out the multiple issues of the concept of “meritocracy”, often in connection with education, but rarely use it to discuss “intelligence”.

    3. People who’d swerve off a cliff rather than use a pejorative for race, religion, physical appearance, or disability are all too happy to drop the s‑bomb: Indeed, degrading others for being “stupid” has become nearly automatic in all forms of disagreement.
    1. Two performances did seem to transcend the present, with artists sharing music that felt like open-source software to paths unknown. The first, Sam Aaron, played an early techno set to a small crowd, performing by coding live. His computer display, splayed naked on a giant screen, showcasedSonic Pi, the free software he invented. Before he let loose by revising lines of brackets, colons and commas, he typed:#This is Sonic Pi…..#I use it to teach people how to code#everything i do tonight, i can teach a 10 year old child…..His set – which sounded like Electric Café-era Kraftwerk, a little bit of Aphex Twin skitter and some Eighties electro – was constructed through typing and deleting lines of code. The shadowy DJ sets, knob-tweaking noise and fogbank ambient of many Moogfest performers was completely demystified and turned into simple numbers and letters that you could see in action. Dubbed "the live coding synth for everyone," it truly seemed less like a performance and more like an invitation to code your own adventure.
    1. Those annoying pop-up windows? My fault, at least in part. I designed a vertically-oriented popup window that included navigation tools and an ad for inclusion on webpages at some point in late 1996 or early 1997. It was intended to be less intrusive than inserting an ad into the middle of a user’s homepage. I won’t claim responsibility (irresponsibility?) for inventing the damned things, and I disclaim any responsibility for cascading popups, popups that move to the top, and those annoying “bot” windows that open different popups every few minutes. Still, the fault is at least in part mine, and I’m sorry. :-)
    1. (Who is “we”?)

      As per the linked post:

      Using Snow’s essay as a jumping off point, I want to consider a problem that’s been on my mind a great deal since joining the MIT Media Lab five years ago: how do we help smart, well-meaning people address social problems in ways that make the world better, not worse?

      Not to defend Ethan, but he’s typically quite explicit about such thing. At least, he doesn’t evade responsibility.

      From his about page (also in narrative version in the Do Not Track doc):

      Those annoying pop-up windows? My fault, at least in part. I designed a vertically-oriented popup window that included navigation tools and an ad for inclusion on webpages at some point in late 1996 or early 1997. It was intended to be less intrusive than inserting an ad into the middle of a user’s homepage. I won’t claim responsibility (irresponsibility?) for inventing the damned things, and I disclaim any responsibility for cascading popups, popups that move to the top, and those annoying “bot” windows that open different popups every few minutes. Still, the fault is at least in part mine, and I’m sorry. :-)

    1. The future of the sustainable development of effective OER will be characterized by stigmergy. Stigmergy is the watchword for the next decade of OER.

      Noticed the claim, at the time, forgot the term. Was trying to retrieve it and that was a bit difficult without a deeper understanding of what it covers. Not too surprising that it’d come up in technocentrist contexts.

    1. The Piper Computer Kit comes with everything a 7-12 year old needs to assemble her own computer, including a Raspberry Pi 3 microcomputer, an HD LCD display, a powerbank, a speaker and a puzzle-like wooden case that she assemble to house her computer.
    1. «Les professeurs qui publient dans une revue disciplinaire n'ont pas toujours le temps, ni la reconnaissance, pour publier dans d'autres publications sur leurs projets ou leurs innovations pédagogiques, explique Anastassis Kozanitis. S'ils le font, ces publications hors discipline ne sont pas reconnues pour leurs demandes de subvention. C'est un frein majeur à la diffusion des recherches dans le domaine au Canada.»
    2. «On entend pourtant peu parler de la pédagogie postsecondaire, même s'il y a des initiatives qui naissent à gauche et à droite. Certains innovent, mais ça reste dans leur collège ou leur département universitaire»
    1. If the RRID is well-formed, and if the lookup found the right record, a human validator tags it a valid RRID — one that can now be associated mechanically with occurrences of the same resource in other contexts. If the RRID is not well-formed, or if the lookup fails to find the right record, a human validator tags the annotation as an exception and can discuss with others how to handle it. If an RRID is just missing, the validator notes that with another kind of exception tag.

      Sounds a lot like the way reference managers work. In many cases, people keep the invalid or badly-formed results.