Extending a little thought experiment
David T. Jones, The Weblog of (a) David Jones, 2016/02/05

At what point does something personal - like writing a nice note to congratulate someone - become something impersonal - like writing a script that automatically selects and congratulates people. David Wiley poses this question in a thought experiment and David T. Jones carries the discussion a bit further. What if it isn't a congratulatory note, but something that sends a note asking people who have stalled whether they need any help? And, ultimately, "What about the apparently holy grail of many to automate the teacher out of the learning experience? Are we fearful that technology will replace teachers? Can technology replace teachers?" Image: PC Mag.

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Vancouver’s Just10 launches privacy oriented, ad free social network
Terry Dawes, CanTech Letter, 2016/02/05

I'm thinking 'no' but I still want to send this along, because the service might succeed after all. "Vancouver-based Just10 has unveiled a new social network that promises to be ad free, to never track your movements for selling to third-party marketers, and to emphasize privacy through end-to-end encryption." The catch? You only get to have 10 friends.

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On Old School Social Bookmarking
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2016/02/05

Interesting look back at what we used to call 'social bookmarking' - that's where you record the URLs of interesting links and then 'tag' them with meaningful (to you) words and phrases. These bookmarks could be shared, or searched by tag, which made an excellent discovery tool. As Alan Levine notes, it seems to have become less popular. "It’s one of those brilliant ideas that still make tons of sense yet never really caught on beyond the people who can get compulsive about tagging," he writes. Maybe. But I think what's missing is on the 'read' end - there's no really good way to read what people have found. We depend on things like Twitter and Facebook, and these really deaden the experience.

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Why kids — now more than ever — need to learn philosophy. Yes, philosophy.
Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 2016/02/05

If you read this more closely (like a philosopher would) you can see that what Valerie Strauss really means here is that kids should be taught how to reason more effectively. "The teacher’s job is to guide and inform student inquiries, helping them pay attention to the quality of their reasoning, and making sure they realize they’re meeting on terms of equality and mutual respect." This is a far larger endeavour than it sounds, as effective reasoning isn't simply a matter of memorizing some logical forms and fallacies. And while it is laudable to encourage kids to become better citizens, it's not clear exactly what that means - should they question assumptions, as Strauss suggests, or simply accept some things as fact, as many leaders suggest? And what is a better citizen anyways?

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LearningStudio and OpenClass End-Of-Life: Pearson is getting out of LMS market
Phil Hill, e-Literate, 2016/02/05

With Pearson getting out of the LMS market, writes Hill, " there will now be more than 100 LMS changes triggered by this announcement... there are still some very large online programs that now have to select a new LMS." But maybe this is a good point for them to pause and think about whether they need to run a learning management system at all. Pearson says, "we believe our learning applications and services are truly 'where the learning happens.'" That's a bit misleading (and anyways, learning happens in the human brain) but the point is sound: you could remove most of the infrastructure of an LMS, and still support learning. See also Inside Higher Ed.

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