Is there a link between flexible access and ‘productivity’ in higher education?
Tony Bates, online learning, distance education resources, August 1, 2013

A while back I challenged Tony Bates to expand on a model of educational productivity, and in this post bates begins his reply by outlining two aspects of such a model. His response, I think, illustrates the gulf between his thinking and mine. He describes as steps leading to 'higher order' goals set by governments: "equitable access (every qualified Ontario student), and economic development (ensuring that Ontario has a highly qualified work-force that can compete in an increasingly knowledge-based economy)." But the steps are based very much in traditional institution-based metrics: creating additional spaces in the PSE system, and "time to completion of a qualification," that is, a degree or certificate. He offers no way of measuring (that I can see) whether the traditional system is productive as compared to  alternative approaches. Who cares how many seats in programs or qualifications are available if they don't effectively improve access or meet economic goals? That's why I specified that we need a model - we need to get outside the traditional structure in order to assess whether it is working at all. What metrics would we use to compare (say, just to pick an example out of the air) 'offering PSE education through the traditional system' and 'giving every person $2500 to spend as they please'?

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JSTOR Releases Documents and Summary of Its Role in Swartz Case
Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog, August 1, 2013

Following up from yesterday's release of a report from MIT on the Aaron Swartz case, JSTOR follows up with a document releaase of its own. "Although JSTOR did not pursue legal action against Mr. Swartz, and said publicly that it had “no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter,” the organization continued to supply documents to the U.S. attorney’s office under subpoena as authorities sought to make a federal case against Mr. Swartz." Of course, it was JSTOR (and its terms of use and policies and actions in 'apprehending' Aaron Swartz) that started this in the first place. It later says "oh no, we don't want to prosecute," but you can be very sure that wasn't the tone at the beginning. Today they say "The volume of activity, hundreds of downloads per minute, was having a negative impact on our servers and therefore was prohibited by JSTOR’s terms of service" but you be sure back in 2010 the reaction was "Oh noes! Someonez is steeling our STUF!"

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Visiting Seymour
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, August 1, 2013

Seymour Papert was injured in a traffic accident in 2006 and carries the effects to this day. Audrey Watters takes the occasion of the latest Mindstorms robotics kit (sent to her as a promo by Lego) and a visit to Maine to interview Papert and reflect on his work. She cites a line in a 2011 Wired Magazine article about Khan Academy where Bill Gates dismisses (with an expletive) Papert's constructionism. "It highlights Gates' dismissal of established learning theories, his ego, his ignorance," she writes, ""the huge gulf between those like Gates who have a vision of computers as simply efficient content delivery and assessment systems and those like Seymour who have a vision of computers as powerful and discovery learning machines." To my mind, it's the work of people like Gates who use computers to (as Papert says) "put children through their paces" that should be dismissed with an expletive. (p.s. I was never a Lego person, but I spent a lot of time with Meccano.)

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Taking a test is better than studying, even if you just guess: We need to flip the flipped classroom
Mark Guzdial, August 1, 2013

The title of the post is a bit misleading, because Mark Guzdial isn't talking about 'taking a test' specifically, "the critical feature of learning is trying to understand, trying to generate an answer." According to the study, "students are better prepared to understand a theory after first exploring by themselves, and that tangible user interfaces are particularly well-suited for that purpose." Of course, Daniel Willingham, who is cited by Guzdial, looks at results like that and reads "test", which he then cites as 'the testing effect'. But the effect has nothing to do with the fact that it's a test, and everything to do with the fact that the student is trying to understand. But "understand" isn't part of the Willingham vocabulary. Guzdial should stick to more reliable sources.

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Why Federate?
Tim Bray, Ongoing, August 1, 2013

Tim Bray offers the argument to application developers in favour of employing 'federated identity', that is, using an identity provider such as Facebook, Google, Twitter or Microsoft (and as he says, there are many more, though we never seem to see them) instead of managing logons and storing passwords locally. The argument in favour is stated in a series of press reports about security breaches on various services. But are federated identities more secure? For one thing, all data managed by these identity providers is subject to routine collection and reading by the U.S. government's PRISM program. Moreover, you are storing your identity information with companies whose business model is in large part based on the sale of identity information to marketers and reserach firms. When I'm faced with a website or service that gives me no choice but to use Google or Facebook or Twitter to log in, I simply don't use that service. Something to think about.

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