OLDaily

Presentation
A Model of Personal Learning (Take Two)
Stephen Downes, Jun 20, 2017, Learning Tech Day, Ghent, Belgium

In his talk, I look at the daily routine of a personal learner, filled with examples and demonstrations. Tagline during the whole talk will be Connectivism, the importance of a Personal Learning Network and the ARRFF model of learning activities (Aggregate Remodel Repurpose Feed Forward) . To top this off, he’ll also offer insights on some newer technologies and his personal thoughts on the future of learning.

[Link]

To study real thinking, scientists shouldn’t give easy tasks
Mike Williams-Rice, Futurity, 2017/06/20

I've prefaced a few of my talk recently with some caveats about models. The selection of a model, I argue, presupposes the ouycome of the research in which it is used. We have, as this article notes, a bias toward simle models. This has an impact in the design of thinking achines, and also in our understanding of thinking. Jumping from phenomenon to simple model to prediction is a lot more complex - and potentially misleding - than jumping from phenomenon straaight to prediction.

[Link] [Comment]

Facebook and Twitter are being used to manipulate public opinion – report
Alex Hern, The Guardian, 2017/06/20

From where I sit, this is a case of the latest centralized news media being used for the same purpose centralized news media have always been used: to, um, educate the public. 'The reports... cover nine nations including Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States. They found “the lies, the junk, the misinformation' of traditional propaganda is widespread online and 'supported by Facebook or Twitter’s algorithms” according to Philip Howard, Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford.'"

[Link] [Comment]

Meet Matter Seven
Ben Werdmuller, Medium, 2017/06/20

Ben Werdmuler: "Unlike most journalism, these stories are two-way: you can reply to the journalist and have a conversation. And unlike most conversational platforms, you’re always talking to a real person, not a bot. The result is strong audience trust and a loyal audience in a world where media companies are struggling to find either."

[Link] [Comment]

Whither Moodle?
Phil Hill, e-Literate, 2017/06/20

"The trajectory of Moodle new implementations (higher education degree-granting institutions moving from another LMS to Moodle as the primary LMS) is striking," writes Phil Hill. What's striking, of course, is the downward momentum, trending toward zero. "In 2012 and 2014 an astounding 76% of new implementations were movements towards Moodle. But we might be seeing a change. In 2016 the number was down to a still-healthy 49%, but for the first quarter of 2017 it is only 3%."

[Link] [Comment]

Innovation Starts At Home…?
Tony Hirst, OUInfo, 2017/06/20

This commentary from Tony Hirst is true not only of OU but also of every large organization - public secort and private sector - I have ever encountered. With size comes control. Here's Tony Hirst: "The OU was innovative because folk understood technologies of all sorts and made creative use of them. Many of our courses included emerging technologies that were examples of the technologies being taught in the courses. We ate the dogfood we were telling students about. Now we’ve put the dog down and just show students cat pictures given to us by consultants."

[Link] [Comment]