OLDaily

The Knowledge and Learning Transfer Problem
Charles Jennings, Workplace Performance, 2017/05/03

Charles Jennings is right at the outset of this post. "Learning takes place in our heads. We alone make it happen... The same could be said of the phrase ‘knowledge transfer’. We can’t and don’t transfer knowledge between people." Quite so. But then he says, "We transfer information.... We can share information in the form of data and our own insights." But if the idea of the transfer of knowledge is a fiction, so is the idea of the transfer of information. How do we know this? Because what counts as information depends on the receiver. Any artifact - a printed page, a thermometer, an old woman saying "Beware the Ides of March" - any artifact becomes information only if it is recognized as such by the receiver. And recognition is a property of the person, not the artifact. This, of course, changes the nature of what we are doing when we design learning. We don't ask, "how can I transfer information to people?" We ask, "what would count as information to this person?" and then arrange our artifacts accordingly.

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Using Fetch
Zell Liew, CSS-Tricks, 2017/05/03

The idea of web pages that send and receive data without reloading has been around for a while now, but the ability to do this easily has always depended on JavaScript libraries like JQuery. This article describes a new method called 'Fetch', which is supported by recent browsers (though not, of course, by Internet Explorer). The article is rich with code examples showing data retrieval and uploading with error checking. It won't be useful to you if you don't write JavaScript code, but all readers should at least be aware that this functionality exists.

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Shared Agency
Abraham Sesshu Roth, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017/05/03

This excellent revision of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's (SEP) article on shared agency is a must-read for anyone working on theories of applications of collaboration in learning. "Shared activity is distinguished from a mere aggregation of individual acts by a structure of appropriately related participatory intentions across different individuals. It is a structure that has a distinctive normative significance for those individuals, with an impact most immediately on each individual’s intention-based practical reasoning." The article discusses different accounts of shared action, mechanisms for structuring interrelated intentions, mutual obligations, and the group-mind hypothesis. See also: collective intentionality. Image: Idle no More, APTN News.

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The death of the smartphone is closer than you think. Here's what comes next
Steve Ranger, ZD Net, 2017/05/03

The word 'death' in this post is about as exaggerated as you can get. After all, many people still own and use traditional hand-set phones that are now several generations obsolete. Not everything that rises must fall; we still use the wheel, fire and shoes. But sure, Silicon Valley must invent something new in order to survive. Is it, as the author suggests, virtual and augmented reality glasses? "Smartglasses will in turn be a stepping stone to smart contact lenses or even the mind-reading tech that Facebook announced last week" Sure. But these are a decade away.

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OpenAIRE survey on open peer review: Attitudes and experience amongst editors, authors and reviewers
Tony Ross-Hellauer, Arvid Deppe, Birgit Schmidt, Zenodo, 2017/05/03

I think people interested in open pedagogy could draw some insight from this discussion of open peer review. There's not one single dimension to open publishing (or open science generally) but multiple dimensions, including open identity, open participation, and open reports. The idea isn't just to license openly, but to draw what is currently hidden into open view. Note that while open peer review may require open access, this isn't its defining characteristic. 'Open' isn't just about sharing resources (though this is a bit part of it) it's about making processes accessible and participatory. Read this document (39 page PDF) as a PDF rather than in the user-hostile viewing port on the web page.

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Indonesia needs to revive interest in reading books
Zita Meirina, A. Saragih, Antara News, 2017/05/03

It's easy to forget that Indonesia is the sixth largest in the world in number of internet users, and the fouth largest in terms of Facebook users. This isn't a country known for its literacy rates, coming in second-last among ASEAN member countries, with a low demand for books and newpapers. The result is that people believe what they read on the internet. "A survey showed that Indonesian people believe in 65 percent of internet information. This is bad. The percentage is quite high in comparison with people in many other countries," says Informatics Ministry official Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan. The problem is, the needed investment in traditional media would cost billions. Indonesians need to make their internet better - because at least it is reaching the people - instead of trying to replace it.

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