- Jul 2016
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medium.com medium.com
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expand access to some knowledge
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afford a university education
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MOOCs hold potential benefit for many in the developing world
Especially if we hold a view that the developing world’s ultimate goal is to become exactly like the developed world.
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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.
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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.
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A Postcolonial Look at the Future of #EdTech
Timely. Sent it to a few people, already, as it connects with several discussions we’ve been having on neocolonialism in EdTech, including the content side of Open Education (OER). Some of it reminds me of Crissinger’s critical take on OER, based on her experience with Open Access.
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“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”
Been having issues with the ways this quote has been handled in various contexts, but it’s quite fitting here. One potential issue, though, is in the embedded assumption that the future is a solid. Goes so well with Modernization Theory that the focus on global inequalities can be skipped over.
Tags
- World System Theory
- global inequalities
- philanthropy
- Modernization Theory
- humanitarianism
- #xMOOC #cMOOC
- #IvanIllich
- A Celebration of Awareness
- Late Modernity
- Gartner Cycle
- #HypeCycle
- Neocolonialism
- diversity
- Rolin Moe
- Open Access
- postdevelopment
- #EdTech
- postcolonialism
- Deschooling Society
- Mission civilisatrice
- White Man’s Burden
- Globalisation
- Immanuel Wallerstein
- Business Models for Higher Education
- international development
- OER
- MOOC Hype
Annotators
URL
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www.literacyworldwide.org www.literacyworldwide.org
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When we encourage students to use technology, do we remind them of the risks of placing their information online and give them choices of how much personal information to reveal?
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hackeducation.com hackeducation.com
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one could argue that the erasure of embodiment is a feature common to both the liberal humanist subject and the cybernetic posthuman.
Sounds a lot like something from Tufekci, in Whitehead & Wesch. ISBN-13: 9781607321699
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(Actually, I’m pretty sure the company above meant “constructivism” here, since “constructionism” builds upon the learn-by-doing of constructivism by stressing the importance of the tangible not just the abstract.)
Useful note. And reminder.
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The body matters to learning.
PhysEd teachers have a lot to teach us. We may mention this, paying lipservice to the notion of embodied learning. But it’s remarkable how “heady” we all remain in pedagogical spheres.
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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”.
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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proper planning has been key
So is context.
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only the best projects get funded each year
And those are measured how?
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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.
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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.
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opportunity to print 3D prosthetic limbs for real children who need them
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closing the “digital use divide.”
Speaking of the diversity embedded in divides…
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www.edtechmagazine.com www.edtechmagazine.com
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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.
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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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.
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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It starts by rejecting the canard that a university education is just another commodity.
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A J Angulo is the author of Diploma Mills: How For-Profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers and the American Dream
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For-profits typically take those funds and spend way more on advertising and profit distribution than on teaching.
Don’t know what the stats are for “non-profit universities and colleges” but it does feel like an increasing portion of their budgets go to marketing, advertising, PR, and strategic positioning (at least in the United States and Canada).
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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.
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The phrase “diploma mills” came into popular usage during the era.
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A similar conclusion was reached by the medical (pdf) and legal professions of the late-19th and early-20th centuries.
Somewhat surprising, in the current context.
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give students what they want
To a large extent, this is the current model for course evaluations by registered students.
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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.
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There are outputs, such as graduates, increased social mobility and higher standards of living.
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The idea is that higher education is like any other industry.
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Don't turn students into consumers – the US proves it's a recipe for disaster
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campustechnology.com campustechnology.com
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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?
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help TAs — especially those from other countries
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While TAs are intended to help students understand the material, their teaching skills vary and they come at the job with widely different backgrounds.
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Large lecture classes may go through the content too quickly for the typical student to understand. That's why so many schools follow the practice of breaking the class cohort into smaller sections led by teaching assistants.
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The ultimate goal of the project is to support improved teaching and learning in university classrooms by bridging cultural divides between students and their teachers.
Did not expect this line of thinking, from the headline.
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www.seattletimes.com www.seattletimes.com
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Tyton’s Bryant sees LinkedIn, Lynda and Microsoft tapping into continuing and lifelong learning, an arena in which he thinks higher-ed institutions have done poorly.
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The more vulnerable part of higher ed is professional master’s and certificate programs, which are long and expensive and provide more than someone needs to get the job, said Selingo, the “There Is Life After College” author.
Speaking of PhD attrition…
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‘Well, but I have all these badges because I did a bunch of skill-based stuff online,’
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much more tied to employment
Cue Thorstein.
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Craig doesn’t think elite schools need to worry; their degrees will still be used by employers as a sign of quality.
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“In five to 10 years, most students will buy their postsecondary education differently from the way they buy it now,”
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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…
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“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.
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“unstructured informal just-in-time learning.”
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“less formally organized around specific certifications and more organized around demonstrating competencies with specific technical skills.”
Sounds like an ideal context for badges.
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The tech skills that people are looking for now
Cue the “teach someone to code” discourse.
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traditional certification market
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currently fragmented corporate-training market
There’s typically a big gap between “education” and corporate training. Sounds like the deal is more about the latter than the former.
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A slide presentation promised to “transform learning.”
Let’s not forget that LinkedIN owns Slideshare…
Tags
- Corporate Speak
- elite
- corporate training
- vocational schools
- informal learning
- SlideWiki
- #OpenBadges
- portfolios
- Mental Health
- #HourOfCode
- Lynda
- Microsoft
- Privilege
- Grad School
- coding
- talent pipeline
- Learner as Product
- profiles
- elitism
- Professional Development
- Unbundling
- Slideshare
- Ivy League
- Lifelong Learning
- recruitment
- certification
- 21st Century Skills
- slides
- Business Models for Higher Education
- quality assurance
- #credentialism
- elite schools
Annotators
URL
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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The culture of doctoral work can prompt paranoia, overwhelming desire to please dissertation committees and other faculty.
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www.centerdigitaled.com www.centerdigitaled.com
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Improve Admissions ROI
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www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
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which applicants are most likely to matriculate
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Colleges using data analytics have to make sure their students have “open futures” — that their programs create educational opportunities, not the other way around.
Another side to Open Education: open opportunities. While they still mean “opportunities for success in the current system”, it’s compatible with a view of student success which goes beyond the current system.
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Data collection on students should be considered a joint venture, with all parties — students, parents, instructors, administrators — on the same page about how the information is being used.
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"We know the day before the course starts which students are highly unlikely to succeed,"
Easier to do with a strict model for success.
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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there is some disparity and implicit bias
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medium.com medium.com
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that learning is defined by “student achievement,”
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focus on teaching, not learning
Heard of SoLT? Or of the “Centre of Learning and Teaching”? Been using that order for a while, but nobody has commented upon that, to this day. There surely are some places where learning precedes learning in name and/or in practice. But the “field” is teaching-focused.
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assess the stuff that’s easy to measure
If it’s not measured, does it count?
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an assessment to see if, in fact, students leave at least as interested in learning as when they entered
Sounds like an interesting project.
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relearning why we want kids in schools in the first place
Post-Illich?
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The real innovation that we need in schools has little to do with technologies or tools or products designed to improve our teaching.
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real world, authentic purpose
Going back to the “projects” in the Maker Movement. Not “project-based learning” with projects set through the curriculum. But the kind of “quest” that allows for learning along the way and which may switch at a moment’s notice.
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real learning that sticks with us over time
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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.
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our “stock of intuitive, empathic, commonsense knowledge about learning.”
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those who are learners will have more opportunities for growth and success than those who are learned.
Nice pun, giving another connotation to the term “learner”.
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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.
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shift agency for learning to the learner
We share this goal. Maybe we focus too much on it. Maybe it’s just a new spin on an old idea. But it’s nice to have a group of pedagogues who want the same thing in this world.
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“innovation”
The quotes are important. There are different approaches to innovation. The one described here may be pushed by politicians and administrators, but some would argue that it’s not innovation in the same sense as what either Eric Von Hippel or Michael Schragge might describe.
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the Maker Movement in schools, when fully embraced, is one such example of shifting roles in the classroom.
Tags
- Teaching Profession
- technological appropriation
- Quotables
- Papert
- #SoTL
- learner-driven education
- DIY
- innovation through usage
- Technopedagogical Appropriation
- #SummerOfMakers
- #IvanIllich
- Disruptive Innovation
- Student Success
- assessment culture
- Innovation
- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
- #DigPedPosse
- measurability
- #MoneyQuote
- achievement
- BuriedLede
- Learning Projects
- Learner as Product
- #LearnerAgency
- Teaching Analytics
- agency
- #SocInn
- Deschooling Society
- Lifelong Learning
- #SpheresOfAgency
- Business Models for Higher Education
- Maker Movement
- social innovation
Annotators
URL
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make money for Californian white people
The Man is Californian.
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At Google, I'll be encouraged to take annual Bias-Busting training, gathering with other privileged honkeys to encourage one another's virtuous respect of black coworkers we don't have.
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Google decided to close Atlanta engineering, and they mainly went as a group to Square
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A fellow Googler pointed out several factual inaccuracies in this post, and thus I have removed it.
Before correcting those inaccuracies or instead?
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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.
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It encourages thinking that “you’ve done your part” since you’ve been taken training on diversity
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perpetuating two negative attitudes
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feel they are extremely open minded & tolerant
Self-reported open-mindedness is a bit like bragging about being “cool”.
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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.
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technical interviews are completely worthless as a predictor for whether someone is a good hire or not
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One of the open secrets of working in technology
Hiding in plain sight.
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medium.com medium.com
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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).
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www.cbc.ca www.cbc.ca
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she says of young digital natives
<groan/> Pretty much the right time to debunk this idea as, clearly, being “born in it” didn’t give them much of a clue.
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www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
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It's easier to get Hamilton tickets than to get your hands on the perpetually sold out Raspberry Pi Zero these days
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www.chrisdonnellymusic.com www.chrisdonnellymusic.com
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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.
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www.tonybates.ca www.tonybates.ca
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am I just a visual learner?
Reflexivity begins with self-awareness.
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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.
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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.
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www.huffingtonpost.com www.huffingtonpost.com
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Stop Teaching
Via #DigPed. Sounds like an opportunity to followup on some tates from yesterday.
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www.slate.com www.slate.com
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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.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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do these analyses without ever mentioning diversity when we recruit survey-takers or within our survey
Indeed, a major advantage, in terms of methodology. Bias is introduced in myriad ways, but that one way would likely have a much deeper effect than many others.
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www.alfiekohn.org www.alfiekohn.org
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terabyte’s worth of skepticism.
That’s a lot of bytes, especially if measured on plain text.
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districts are pouring money into computers and software programs—money that’s badly needed for, say, hiring teachers
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(Really. See their work. It’s worth reading.)
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despite the fact that it’s remarkably expensive
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we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning
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students were being made to take them several times a year, including “benchmark” tests to prepare them for the other tests.
Testing has gone sentient. Resistance is futile. At least in the US.
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putting grades online (thereby increasing their salience and their damaging effects)
Grades are often an obstacle to learning.
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meaningful learning never requires technology
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efficiency...at teaching the same way that children have been taught for a very long time
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people in other countries should be seen primarily as rivals to be defeated.
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children’s learning
How about Higher Ed.?
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digitally personalized.
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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.
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spend oodles of money
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Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the idea of using digital technology in the classroom tends to be either loved or hated.
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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Black students in these schools took AP Physics at almost 11 times the rate as black students elsewhere, and they passed the exams at 3.4 times the rate
1100% is a lot of percent.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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the largest consumer of college graduates
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there is widespread agreement among college officials and policymakers that the current accreditation system is broken
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brocansky.com brocansky.com
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after teaching online many start to realize, “I could never do this in a classroom!”
Truth.
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mfeldstein.com mfeldstein.com
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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.
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discussion prompts
Classic. And appropriate.
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The verb “to problemetize” was coined for a reason.
Fighting “word rage” by self-assured prescriptivists.
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From an academic perspective, “explainer” is almost inevitably a misnomer for a two-minute animation aimed at a mass audience.
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We also want to produce short-form pieces that reach a broader audience.
Also a form of inclusion.
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This is exactly the sort of solution-in-search-of-a-problem problem that leads us down the road to horror shows like “robot tutors in the sky that can semi-read your mind.”
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This attempt at jujitsu is worth some unpacking.
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medium.com medium.com
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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.
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A man who is chancellor of a higher education facility blocked one of his students on the first day of his job.
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www.insidehighered.com www.insidehighered.com
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Funding for humanities labs
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our faculty are evaluated on not just research, teaching and service but also collaboration
Valuing the teaching profession.
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Jack Ma said in a speech last month in Hangzhou, China, that the fakes are of "better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names."
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larrycuban.wordpress.com larrycuban.wordpress.com
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Many, but not all, told me that they had integrated technology into their lessons to “personalize learning.”
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techcrunch.com techcrunch.com
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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.
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www.jisc.ac.uk www.jisc.ac.uk
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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
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“Students chose how they were going to display how they were going to master those standards through projects,”
A big part of both Competency-Based Education and the open-ended side of Open Education.
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"I realized then I could code on the computer to have it fulfill the tasks I wanted it to,"
A key to appropriation.
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marco.org marco.org
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what will happen to Tesla and the progress of autonomous driving as more people use Autosteer in situations it’s not good at
Self-driving cars aren’t merely a technical issue.
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www.raspberrypi.org www.raspberrypi.org
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Recursive hamstering, if you will
Gotta love British humour.
Tags
Annotators
URL
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brito.ca brito.ca
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De ce point de vue, il n'est pas nécessaire d'argumenter longuement sur ces dispositions car le convergence des structures de productivité peut produire des miracles et agrémenter le soutien du jeu des stratégies des forces en présence.
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www.diplopiagame.com www.diplopiagame.com
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Perceptual Learning - Training the brain to better perceive the information it is getting from the eyes.
This would be the optimal learning experience, for me.
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contentdm.ucalgary.ca contentdm.ucalgary.ca
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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.
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- Jun 2016
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www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
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Facebook is shutting down its Paper newsreading app on July 29th
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www.nybooks.com www.nybooks.comWords1
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“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
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www.buzzfeed.com www.buzzfeed.com
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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.
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at a time when the public opinion of the media is at an all-time low, which all serves to make today’s announcement even thornier
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Facebook is a social network, not a cable news network
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Facebook indicated it wanted to be the internet’s best destination for news
Therein lies the rub.
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boffosocko.com boffosocko.com
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I think it would be easier/better if Hypothes.is both accepted and sent webmentions.
Cool thing is. Udell and the gang are pretty open to suggestions, it sounds like. At the same time, it’s quite possible that webmentions wouldn’t fit in their overall vision of the tool.
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www.kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com
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Is there anyone here? I still have not received the product
From Uncharted Play:
Jessica became a co-Founder and Executive Director for KDDC, a 30 megawatt hydropower dam in Nigeria—one of the first to be privatized in the country.
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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”.
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unchartedplay.com unchartedplay.comTeam1
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co-Founder and Executive Director for KDDC, a 30 megawatt hydropower dam in Nigeria—one of the first to be privatized in the country
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www.ted.com www.ted.com
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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.
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blog.diigo.com blog.diigo.com
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Diigo’s Refocus Back to Annotation
Had missed this announcement. The annotation scene has this interesting ambivalence between being old and new, forward-looking and somewhat nostalgic. Wish Diigo were forward-looking enough to get into Open Annotations.
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docs.moodle.org docs.moodle.org
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This page does not exist yet.
Not yet, eh? Is QTI compliance coming back?
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docs.moodle.org docs.moodle.org
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Quiz questions can be exported in IMS QTI 2.0 format.
Yes? Other support documents make it sound like support was dropped by Moodle 2.1 or so.
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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The need for workforce training and professional certificate programs will increase just as the need for more four-year degrees will, and schools must remain ahead of trends with research and training to stay competitive.
Cue Veblen.
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failure to find revenue and support from unconventional sources
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support.google.com support.google.com
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We do not support casting from Android or iOS at this time.
Good to know. Somewhat surprising.
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www.ethanzuckerman.com www.ethanzuckerman.com
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It is unlikely that anyone is going to invite Shane Snow to redesign a major prison any time soon
Stranger things have happened.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Without the active collaboration of the people he’s trying to help, he’s unable to make technological advances.
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“Is it ever okay to solve another person’s problem?”
Among the main questions in sociology, albeit with a specific turn.
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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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.
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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”.
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At the same time, those positions that can still be acquired without a college degree are disappearing.
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many jobs that have come to require college degrees, ranging from retail manager to administrative assistant, haven’t generally gotten harder for the less educated to perform.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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blog.alanporter.com blog.alanporter.com
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Is there a particular reason why electronic music has to be played at night?
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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“'Makerspace' is just a modern term for project-based learning,” he said, adding embracing this teaching style in today’s classroom is “a part of good pedagogy.”
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www.eschoolnews.com www.eschoolnews.com
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www.ethanzuckerman.com www.ethanzuckerman.com
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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. :-)
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tinyletter.com tinyletter.com
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(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. :-)
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opencontent.org opencontent.org
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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.
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opencontent.org opencontent.org
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If only 2% – 5% of all faculty and their students (who are doing renewable assignments) were active creators and improvers of OER, that would likely be sufficient.
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We need to enable and facilitate alternative development models if our vision of universal OER adoption is to become a reality.
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www.s-sm.org www.s-sm.org
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No grades. No assignments. Instead, there are opportunities.
Though cross-curricular activities aren’t anything new, there may be something of a growing trend in making those parallel programs into a strong base for learning.
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googleforeducation.blogspot.com googleforeducation.blogspot.com
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change stereotypes
Here again, the notion isn’t to go beyond stereotypes but to replace one stereotype with another. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/19/-sp-barbie-can-be-a-computer-engineer-but-only-with-help-of-a-man
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we need to broaden perceptions and stereotypes of CS
Though it’s probably a simple mistake, the notion that Google is “broadening … stereotypes of CS” might have some truth to it.
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www.edtechmagazine.com www.edtechmagazine.com
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Placing Strategy Before Tech
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www.educationdive.com www.educationdive.com
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A PANACEA FOR EDUCATION’S IRON TRIANGLE
Can’t get more blatant examples of solutionism than this.
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www.eschoolnews.com www.eschoolnews.com
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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.
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www.ameqenligne.com www.ameqenligne.com
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Les actions des enseignants sont maintenant considérées comme des actes professionnels, au même titre que les médecins, les avocats, etc.
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www.ameqenligne.com www.ameqenligne.com
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«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.»
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«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»
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us9.campaign-archive2.com us9.campaign-archive2.com
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fail a little less
Much insight in this phrase.
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blog.jonudell.net blog.jonudell.net
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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.
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It’s a human/machine partnership that works as follows.
Sounds like there’s been a bit of a move towards partnership, recently. But much discourse on automation is about the complete exclusion of human intervention.
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“papers are the only scientific artifacts that are guaranteed to be preserved.”
Under the current mode of action.
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produce schema-aware writing tools that everyone can use to add new documents to a nascent semantic web
That dream does live on. Since Vannevar’s 1945 article on the Memex, we’ve been dreaming of such tools. Our current tools are quite far from that dream.
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Annotation can help us weave that web of linked data.
This pithy statement brings together all sorts of previous annotations. Would be neat to map them.
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We pretend that tech innovation races along at breakneck speed. But sometimes it sputters until conditions are right.
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- reference managers
- Semantic Annotation
- Bakelite
- Endnote
- Mendeley
- #LODLAM
- #transhumanism
- library
- Open Science
- citation databases
- librarians
- Open Research
- writelab
- BibTeX
- Semantic Web
- Vannevar Bush
- #SCoT
- Memex
- information science
- Zotero
- Actor-Network Theory
- ProCite
- Linked Data
- Linked Open Data
- meta-annotation
- #DigitalWriting
- Social Construction of Technology
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www.socrative.com www.socrative.com
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However, you may be required to pay fees to use certain features or content made available through the Site and Services.
Wish they said more. No-cost solutions are neat for one-offs, but pedagogues should be wary of building their practice on services which may start requiring payment.
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hechingerreport.org hechingerreport.org
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(The Gates Foundation is among the funders of the Hechinger Report.)
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Most of the universities combined the software with human instruction, but a few courses were delivered entirely online.
Interesting dichotomy.
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musicfordeckchairs.com musicfordeckchairs.com
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Innovation isn’t always about technology, efficiency, speed, scale
According to scholars like MIT’s Eric Von Hippel and Michael Schrage, innovation is about usage. Otherwise, it’s just novelty. But the innovation discourse often repurposes the term to be about R&D.
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the everyday nature of artisanal change in universities
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nothing we did is visible to our analytics systems
If it’s not counted, does it count?
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At the institution level, the course isn’t successful.
Oh.
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I’m neither persuaded nor antagonised by the rhizome metaphor
Nice followup to Bell et al.
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addressed the way we treat student writing as the waste product of assessment.
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easily supported by Slack
Although, honestly, forums also work fairly well for this. Still, it’s cool to appropriate a teamwork-oriented tool for something different.
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students to find three credible sources on narrative to use in a short piece of writing
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the person whose skates suddenly point in the right direction..
Interesting metaphor. The “right direction” may still be counter to one’s core beliefs and principles while being the direction in which others are going. It’s a bit like the shelters and windmills (via).
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