Some readings on networked learning
David T. Jones, The Weblog of (a) David Jones, Aug 01, 2014

A couple interesting items (and one dud) on networked learning are highlighted in this post:

• the first focuses on new media literacy for faculty and described it as a "threshold concept", which means, essentially, take it slowly and be sympathetic to their plight. Jones suggests that the networked and global leaning course might also be viewed that way. I liked the five aspects of threshold concepts, as they reminded me of the idea of incommensurability in Kuhn's paradigm shifts.
• the second looked at cases "where values of social media conflicted with those of higher ed (especially QA)." I like this (absolutely accurate) bit: "Participative processes can be experienced as tyrannical when participation is demanded by course designs, tutors and ultimately by participants in an unreflective and normative way."

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Wrong Answer: In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice
Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker, Jul 31, 2014

It makes me wonder how many of the 'success stories' in the literatire are based on cheating, just as this one from a school in Atlanta did, complete with published papers and a 'Dispelling the Myth' award. "There have been accounts of widespread cheating in dozens of cities, including Philadelphia, Toledo, El Paso, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston, and St. Louis."

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Student Privacy: Harm and Context
Mark MacCarthy, International Review of Information Ethics, Jul 31, 2014

As the author notes, "Education is on the verge of dramatic changes in the collection, flow and use of student information." One approach, the "harm approach," seeks to advocate the use of these technologies that cause the least harm to students. By contrast, writes Mark MacCarthy, "the theory of contextual integrity counsels caution about transgressive changes that violate intuitive context-relative norms governing information flows." What that means is that the violation of ethics occurs not when harm is done, but when the extraction of information violates what people would expect of normal information flows. Thus, for example, information about personal physical properties, or the sharing of information to unrelated third parties, violate ethics because they go beyond the bound of normal information flow, even if no actual harm is caused.

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