Space Oddity
Chris Hadfield, YouTube, May 13, 2013

I just want to say, on behalf of all of us Canadians stuck here on the ground, that Chris Hadfield is an example and an inspiration to us all, an example of the best we here in the great frozen north can be. Bravo, Commander!

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An audience with...
Steve Wheeler, Learning with 'e's, May 13, 2013

As Steve Wheeler suggests, "John Dewey advocated 'learning by doing' and Seymour Papert called it 'learning by making'." Along with many others, I also advocate this approach to learning (it's half my unheralded 'Downes Learning Theory', "to learn is to practice and reflect" (which, I hasten to add, is completely unoriginal to me)). So he develops programs encouraging students to write for an audience (similar to what I described in my 2004 paper Educational Blogging). All great. But then he writes about encouraging his BA student to present his work, and "he presented in front of almost 100 people, by far the largest audience he had spoken in front of at that time." That struck me as surprising. Part of my childhood education (in a rural public school in Metcalf, Ontario) was writing my opwn speeches and presenting them. Everybody did this; we were expected to be able to speak coherently and think on our feet in public. Practice and reflection. Good at any age. Younger ages, especially.

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Industrialisation of Social Networking for the Enterprise
Luis Suarez, E L U S A, May 13, 2013

IBM has been working on social networking for the enterprise, evidence of this being the work of Luis Suarez for the company over the last 11 years. In this post he expresses his concern about the automation of social networking activities; "they just can’t find the time anymore to make it happen in a natural, authentic, self-driven manner." So where did we go wrong, he asks? Where did he get off the bus that said "conversation" and get on the bus that said "marketing activity?" He links to Mike Allton on "How to Destroy Your Social Media Credibility through Automation", making the very good point that you can do more damage than good though social media automation. I think it is a fear of disappearing from the social radar, the fear of 'going quiet' and becoming irrelevant. I feel this. Suarez suggests, "I am thinking that I prefer to go silent and learn from others reading along than to automate an online presence that I know won’t be fair to anyone out there."

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MOOCs and Community Colleges
J. Noah Brown, Inside Higher Ed, May 13, 2013

J. Noah Brown writes a long article for Inside Higher Ed that takes as it's point of departure the question, "do MOOCs represent a panacea for community colleges?" To which the answer is clearly and obviously 'no', because nothing is a panacea for anything! It is irresponsible to write essays about whether 'A is a panacea for B'. If you must write about A, in relation to B, then write about how A helps A, how A hinders B, or how the role of A is relevant or irrelevant to B. The language of panaceas is for children and politicians. The rest of us should know better.

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Study: Math Skills at Age 7 Predict How Much Money You'll Make
Lindsay Abrams, The Atlantic, May 13, 2013

This is worth mentioning because it shows how easy it is to misread stuff like this. In a nutshell: in a large study researchers measured a variety of factors at age 7, and then the same subjects' earnings at age 42, and determined that (among other things) even if you compensate for other factors (such as socio-economic status) there is a correlation between a person's math skills at age 7 and income at age 42. So naturally, we are intended to read this as showing how important it is to tecah math at an early age (as it undoubtedly is). But as the article suggests, "these findings also point to a role played by children's innate ability to learn." That is, learning math and earning money are both improved by underlying abilities, such that, if we see them learning math at age 7, we can predict they have the ability to earn more at 42. But do we have innate math skills? I doubt it - but I have no doubt that childhood nutrition, parents' smoking and alcohol use, and various other factors all have an influence on both math skills at age 7 and earnings at age 42. Via Joanne Jacobs.

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Gove's claims of teenagers' ignorance harpooned by retired teacher
James Ball, The Guardian, May 13, 2013

This is the sort of thing we face in education. The British education secretary, Michael Gove, said in a Mail on Sunday article in March: "Survey after survey has revealed disturbing historical ignorance, with one teenager in five believing Winston Churchill was a fictional character while 58% think Sherlock Holmes was real." It turns out that the source he used was PR-commissioned opinion polls originating from Premier Inn and UKTV Gold press releases. His fallacious claim was exposed by Janet Downs, who filed a Freedom of Information request to obtain the information. The problem isn't so much that Michael Gove said a silly thing, it's that this is the sort of data relied upon by authorities and managers in general to make education policy.

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Instructure, Blackboard, Desire2Learn and IMS Global Launch the LTI App Bounty
IMS Global, May 13, 2013

It may be a hundred million dollar industry, but don't tell the winners of this contest "offering a $250 reward for each qualifying LTI app submitted by June 10, plus an additional $1,000 for the best apps selected by an expert panel of judges from Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Remote-Learner, IMS Global, Brown University, The University of Texas at Austin and Hack Education." Tell them to be happy with the $250.

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The Pedagogy of MOOCs
Paul Stacey, Musings on the ed tech frontier, May 12, 2013

Good article from Paul Stacey outlining the arc of MOOC pedagogy from the first days of the connectivist MOOCs to the more recent U.S.-based offerings. "All of these new MOOC’s are focused on objectivist and behaviourist methods of teaching and learning. Their pedagogy is based on an assumption that when there are tens of thousands of learners social learning isn’t feasible." But "Students tend to find online behaviourist and objectivist learning pedagogies boring, impersonal, and not interactive or engaging." Like Stacey, I don't see the story being over just yet. Yes, we've seen "a form of colonialism that attempts to rewrite MOOC history." But we persevere.

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Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences
Clayton R. Wright, May 12, 2013

Clayton R. Wright has just released the lated in his excellent lists of education and ed tech conferences, this one for June - December, 2013 (with some additional conferences from 2014, 2015 and even 2016). Please download the attachmenmt for the full list, in MS Word.  He writes, "During the last five years, there seems to be greater focus on improving the quality of teaching and learning. Hence, institutions are expanding their professional/faculty development capabilities and hiring directors or vice-provosts of academic innovation and excellence. Concurrently, there has been an increasing number of organizations and conferences that promote professional growth. A few of these organizations and events (primarily North American) are listed below along with the month during which their workshops or conferences are most often held.  

• Best Teachers Summer Institute, June
• Committee on College Teaching and Learning (CCTL) Conference, January
• Faculty Development Summer Institute on Active Learning and Teaching, July/August  
• International Conference on College Teaching and Learning, April
• International Conference on Improving University Teaching, July
• International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association, January
• International Institute for SoTL Scholars and Mentors (IISSAM), May/June
• International Society for Exploring Teaching and Learning (ISETL), October
• International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), October
• International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT), July
• Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching, dates vary
• National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), May
• North American Council for Staff, Program and Organizational Development (NCSPOD), October
• Professional and Organizational Development (POD), October
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Commons, March
• Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), June
• Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA), May
• Teaching Professor Conference, May/June
• Teaching Professor Technology Conference, October

"In my e-mail to others I would suggest that they examine http://fakejournals.blogspot.ca/ or Jeffry Beale’s list of questionable publishers and organizations so that they could consider whether they want to attend events sponsored by these organizations. Also, I will advise them to read How to Get the Most Out of a Conference by Stephen Downes."

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