OLDaily

The One Answer to All Questions in Education
George Couros, 2018/01/23

Just so you're not hanging in suspense: "The answer to all questions in education keeps pointing me back to one thing; leadership." Well, no. Even the examples George Couros  uses in this article don't point to that conclusion. What we see are cases where the administrator tries to help the underling instead of supervising them. Couros calls this 'leadership' but the correct word is 'service'. The leader's first words should be "let me help you succeed." Where this begins to fail is when the leader begins to define what 'success' looks like, and begins to work against success as defined by the underling. Now the underling needs to be 'educated', 'motivated' and 'transformed'. The underling is expected to provide the service, for the benefit of the leader. That, too, is 'leadership' and is the model actually rewarded in the workplace. So, no, not 'leadership'. Service.

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Online Courses Are Harming the Students Who Need the Most Help
Susan Dynarski, New York Times, 2018/01/23

I was sent this on Twitter today. You can get the gist of the argument from the headline. I've seen this sort of article before. This is irresponsible journalism. There are many causes of failure - learning deficiencies, nutrition, attention deficit, poverty, family issues, etc. - that online learning was never designed to address. So pretending it should solve these issues is irresponsible.

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What is innovation and how can businesses foster it?
Hajra Rahim, The Telegraph, 2018/01/23

This is a fairly decent article that summrizes some of the major streams of thought regarding innovation." Innovation means creating value from ideas," says John Bessan. People often confuse innovation, which requires the creation of value, with ideation, which is the process of thinking of new products or processes, he says. "If I have a great idea for a heart valve, I will need a long time to refine the idea, take on board other people's input and knowledge to develop it, and require users to test it." This characterization isn't new by any means, but I liked the way it captured the idea in an introductory fashion.

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