November 12, 2013
New Council to Develop Standards, Best Practices for Online Learning
Megan O'Neil,
The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog,
November 12, 2013
Carnegie Mellon university is launching the Simon Initiative to accelerate research on technology-aided learning (named after Herbert Simon) and the Global Learning Council that "will spearhead efforts to develop standards and promote best practices in online education." Herbert Simon was the real deal but this initiative seems oddly out of place. "They seem to be masters of leaping to the front of whatever parade they see and shouting 'Follow me!'" says Steve Foerster in a comment. "Except instead of leaping to the front of this parade, they are leaping somewhere into the middle of the last third of the parade shouting 'Follow me!'" rejoins someone else. Another person observes, "In reading the release, it appears that online education began with MOOCs and the elite institutions." True, all too true. You'd never know we've been at this for 20 or 30 years.
Purdue’s Non-Answer on Course Signals
Michael Feldstein,
e-Literate,
November 12, 2013
One of the claims being made by learning analytics is that it increases student retention. But this is the sort of claim that needs to be empirically verified and open to public scrutiny. One such program, Purdue's Signals, is being scrutinized and the critics are finding issues. In September, Mike Caulfield examined a Purdue study that claimed "taking *two* classes using Course Signals boosts graduation rates by 21%." However, "two years later, that retention effect has disappeared entirely," he writes. A month later, Alfred Essa corroborated Calfield's results using a simulation. "The simulation data shows us that the retention gain for students is not a real gain (i.e. causal) but an artifact of the simple fact that students who stay longer in college are more likely to to [take the CS course]." Purdue research scientist Matt Pistilli responds, "The analysis that we did was just a straightforward analysis of retention rates. There’s nothing else to it." But "Purdue’s credibility is on the line," says Michael Feldstein, and they're going to have to come up with a better answer than this. See also this 'issues explainer' from Feldstein.
Educational Technology and Education Conferences, January to June 2014
Clayton R. Wright,
Stephen's Web,
November 11, 2013
Clayton R. Wright once again compiles his great list of conferences, this time for January-June 2014. He adds in an email: "The 30th version of the list has information for 1,100+ conferences/workshops. Despite sending out 310 e-mails (yes, sometimes I do keep track of stuff like that) to obtain basic information not available on websites, I was unable to obtain information for 116 events listed previously. As many of these events occur in June, I may be able to find the missing information for the next list. It is normal for me not to find information for 8% to 14% of conferences listed on a previous list - sometimes conference organizers do not make date and location decisions well in advance so that potential participants can plan to attend; other times, the events are not held again." MS-Word document.
How teachers in Africa are failed by mobile learning
Sven Torfinn,
SciDevNet,
November 11, 2013
I sort of agree and sort of disagree with this post. On the one hand, we can agree that innovations that focus exclusively on content, or focus exclusively on technology, are likely to fail, and that this explains (for example) the failure of OLPC in sub-Sahara Africa, or the failure of mobile phones to realize their oft-touted potential to support education. But is it true that "only teachers can ensure the success of mobile learning interventions?" Is it possible that families, communities, professionals and prctitioners could provide the necessary support? Yes, let's build local capacity. But let's decentralize - let's make education something the community as a whole supports, and not something that rests essentially on the backs of teachers.
A Guide to Web Components
Rob Dodson,
CSS-Tricks,
November 11, 2013
This is pretty interesting. "Web Components are a collection of standards which are working their way through the W3C and landing in browsers as we speak. In a nutshell, they allow us to bundle markup and styles into custom HTML elements. What's truly amazing about these new elements is that they fully encapsulate all of their HTML and CSS. That means the styles that you write always render as you intended, and your HTML is safe from the prying eyes of external JavaScript." The educational uses are obvious, as web components can be used to plug contents and applications into courses or MOOCs.
Openness, constraint and emergence
Jenny Mackness,
November 11, 2013
A popular definition of freedom is that it is the absence of restriction or constraint. We see this definition employed implicitly lot, as though any impedement is an infringement on one's freedom. But if we really were free in this sense we would be floating in space (or in society) unable to do anything. Action is possible only with reaction. To be able to move at all we require friction. Constraint. So yes, with Jenny Mackness, I agree that 'open' is not merely a 'lack of constraint'. That would be a poor definition. The question, though, is the extent to which we exercise choice in the nature of the constraint, and the manner in which we respond to the constraint.
The Surface Pro 2 Will Be the Death of Notebooks
Jim Shimabukuro,
educational technology & change,
November 10, 2013
I still use a notebook computer (formerly called a laptop computer) and wouldn't dream of using anything else. But the only difference between my computer - a Lenovo Ultrabook - is that the keyboard stays attached to the tablet. I'm not thrilled with the Windows 8 'Metro' interface but I recognize that it's a first draft of something that will get better (and it's already more flexible than anything Apple ever produced). And after using the heavy clunky MacBook Pro for a few years, the Ultrabook is like a breath of fresh air. So while I may not be as enthusiastic about the Surface Pro 2 as Jim Shimabukuro I can certainly understand his point of view.
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