April 12, 2012
The Failure of One Laptop Per Child
Audrey Watters,
Hack Education, April 12, 2012.
The word 'failure' must definitely be taken in context here, despite the breathless reports circulating through the media. The story is that "One Laptop Per Child doesn't increase test scores," and sites like Mashable and (naturally) the Economist can't wait to trumpet the failure. But as Audrey Watters notes, OLPC never set out to increase test scores (and that would have been a ridiculous ambition). "The best preparation for children," according to the OLPC website isn't test prep. It is "to develop the passion for learning and the ability to learn how to learn."
Ebook formats and the allure of customer lock-in
Jenn Webb,
O'Reilly Radar, April 12, 2012.
As we ponder the implications of the lawsuit alleging price-fixing of eBooks by Apple and five publishers, it is worth reflecting on this point made at the O'Reilly site: "What's disappointing right now is that Amazon is very set on their Mobi format for their Kindle device, Apple has made strides away from EPUB 3 with their latest iBooks 2.0 and iBooks Author ... I think vendors that make these devices are interested in maintaining that lock-in for customers."
Yes, it is Bleeding Edge Week
Kae,
Center4Edupunx, April 12, 2012.
I can't keep up with all the new MOOCs being created, but I can point you to Week 4 of the Virtual Worlds, Games & Education MOOC.
Goodbits
Various Authors,
Website, April 12, 2012.
RSS Hero is now Goodbits, "and we're calling ourselves a web reading platform. This still means we're a great place to read your RSS feeds, but we also support Twitter, and will be adding other sites that you spend time reading (or viewing photos on, or storing links at." I teied RSS hero when it came out, I'll give this one a try too (because I'd like to escape Google Reader (because it'll eventually collapsed into Google+ and hence wrecked)).
Massive Open Online Courses: Setting Up (StartToMOOC, Part 1)
Inge de Waard,
Learning Solutions Magazine, April 12, 2012.
Inge de Waard writes, "In this first part of a six-part series, you will learn about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which are courses in the Cloud. You will also learn how to set up the core spaces for MOOCs. The articles that follow in the series will move from basic to more complex course features. Having organized MOOCs myself, I admit that for newbies it might look a bit scary at first, but it sure is worth the result."
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