OLDaily

Whatever happened to …
Doug Peterson, doug - off the record, 2017/08/22

As I flip through old photos and presentation archives I am struck by the fact that the only evidence that some event or conference ever existed might be on my web page. So it may be with Educational Network of Ontario/Réseau éducatif de l’Ontario (ENOREO), recolleded by Doug Peterson in thiss post. He writes, "Through a text-based interface, you could connect with other Ontario Educators and discuss the educational issues of the day, 24 hours a day.  It really seemed like magic." But it does have a legacy:  the Flat Stanley Project.  How about that!

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Amazon’s Alexa: Your Next Teacher #elearning
Cait Etherington, eLearningInside News, 2017/08/22

Don't panic about the headline. The story here is that learning management systems (including, among others, Instructure's Canvas) has hooked into the Alexa API, so they can not accept (some) voice commands, and give audio responses. "This means," we are told, "that students will be able to ask Alexa key questions (e.g., What were the main points made in today’s class?), and Alexa will be able to offer a summary." For more coverage, see this report describing how Alexa is being supported by Canvas and Blackboard.

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Re-humanise
Leigh Blackall, 2017/08/22

Text and slides at Leigh Blackall's presentation to E-Ldearning 2017 in Seoul. I appreciate the way he has used Korean in the titles of his slides, as well as the English heading and text. Blackall looks at the topic of technology hype and the responses to it, saying "my personal goal is to continuously seek out and build in questioning, philosophy, ethics, anthropology, history, theory, art, storytelling, criticism and debate, and to use these discoveries to find kindred spirits, to help refine meaning and purpose, and expand human-ness in the relentlessly technocratic world we live and work in." He cites a good selection of rehumanizers, from Carlyle to Huxley to to Curtis to Herzog. I would probably have included David Noble in the set.

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The rise of robot teachers
Melissa Jun Rowley, Cisco, The Network, 2017/08/22

This article describes Amy, "an AI-driven, robotic math tutor.... so far, Amy prototype has been trialled in 10 different high schools across New Zealand" (of course, everything is 'AI xdriven' thesde days - web services, coffee makers, shampoo...). The idea i that Amy examines student work and identifies where tghey made theifr mistake. It then punishes them instructs them in that specific topic. But of course, teachers will still have jobs. "I think we will see humans and AI working in symbiotic relationships, where they are able to provide something much better together than either could do on their own," says Raphael Nolden, co-founder and CEO of Osnova.

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If you’re a startup, you should not use React (reflecting on the BSD + patents license)
Raúl Kripalani, Medium, 2017/08/22

React is a Javascript framewowrk for content presentation. I've never used React because using something release by Facebook felt a little, well, greasy. That intuition is substantiated by this post. React is released under a 'BSD + patents' license. It looks like open source. But the license to use it is instantly revoked if you sue Facebook. "Bottom line: Open Source is not a “quid pro quo” trade. Open Source is about creating communities to build better software together. It should never be used as a marketplace to exchange rights."

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