The Secret Language of Girls on Instagram
Rachel Simmons, Time, 2014/11/21

I saw this item on Time. There's probably no less a secret agenda for boys than for girls, and probably a secret agenda that involves all such schoolchildren, and probably not just on Instagram, etc. but I'll just attribute that to Time's journalistic agenda (which is segregationist and vaguely misogynistic). I found more value when I followed up the work of the author, Rachel Simmons, which I found here. A lot of it is the sort of advice that countervails many of the more subtle media messages - for example, people (not just girls!) shouldn't apologize for expressing their views, people shouldn't listen to (and shouldn't make) comments intended to undermine someone else's confidence (ie., 'negging'). And more. These are good messages. And spreading these sort of messages (mostly through out own actions) is something we can all do.

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Analytics Leaders Discuss New Trends
Karen O'Leonard, Bersin by Deloitte, 2014/11/21

Without ado, here are the trends:

• Predictive retention models: Coming to a desktop near you.
• Continuous performance feedback replaces the dreaded annual performance appraisal
• An overhaul in employee engagement measurement
• Prepare to address privacy and ethical issues around analytics

These seem to be reasonably accurate, to a point. A lot depends on what people are prepared to live with. Replacing the performance appraisal with analytics, for example, will have to be negotiated (if you don't work in a union shop, you may want to think about forming one, before these intrusive measures become part of your daily life).

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Future Decoded - We need leaders who know how to create a culture of innovation
Andrew Robertson, Microsoft UK Schools Blog, 2014/11/21

What I wonder is who is the "we" in the sentence "We need leaders who know how to create a culture of innovation." Is it the students themselves - do they perhaps need to be led by these putative leader? No - the point of view is obviously some sort of third person 'social' or perhaps 'company' level view. When Sara Murray speaks of "the kind of boldness and agility of thought and action that stirs the business pot, and which, by implication, needs to be recognised and nurtured by educators," what sort of social need is this, exactly? I am not buying it. This sort of picture brings to mind wave after wave of VC-funded self-starting entrepreneurs, which to me would be symptomatic of a dysfunctional society.

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Open Education Resources: Bursting the $8 Billion Bubbl
Lindsey Tepe, New America Ed Central, 2014/11/21

The lede is buried in the eighth paragrah of this story: "A new initiative announced this week ... The K-12 OER Collaborative—a new nonprofit led by a group of 11 states that started with Utah, Washington, and Idaho and now includes states with huge markets like California—announced this week it will 'sponsor development of comprehensive, high-quality, standards-aligned [resources for] K-12 mathematics and English language arts.'"

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