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Transformative Learning and Critical Thinking in Asynchronous Online Discussions: A Systematic Review
Joshua P. DiPasquale, 2018/05/08

A paper published last fall by William Hunter in the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology called  'Critical Thinking in Asynchronous Online Discussions: A Systematic Review' caught my eye. It was is behind a paywall so I'm not even linking to it. But I wanted to follow up and conducted a search hoping to find a free copy of the paper. No luck, but I did find a 2017 dissertation by Bill Hunter's student called 'Transformative Learning and Critical Thinking in Asynchronous Online Discussions: A Systematic Review', which I reference here (74 page PDF). After a longish discussion of literature reviews in general, the core of the findings are presented after page 51, looking for (following Anderson, et.al.) indicators of instructional design and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction. DiPasquale concludes "The presence of the instructor as a designer and facilitator is an imperative for ensuring that the type of critical thinking and reflection that are necessary for transformative learning are promoted during AODs." I think this goes beyond the evidence, but it's certainly discussed in the literature.

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Graphene: The next S-curve for semiconductors?
Gaurav Batra, Nick Santhanam, Kushan Surana, McKinsey, 2018/05/08

Good article on the future of graphene technology, a longish read but worth the time. Graphene is a one-atom tick layer of carbon atoms and it's "ideal for a range of applications, from battery technology to optoelectronics such as touch screens." But with technical and market issues prevailing, its widespread commercialization could take as much as 25 years. This report predicts "graphene adoption and market growth to come in three phases - enhancer, silicon replacement, and revolutionary electronics." Personally I see the greatest application coming in power technology, and this may be as little as a decade away.

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Jupyter Notebooks and Moodle
Tony Hirst, OUseful.Info, 2018/05/08

This post reports on SageCell filter for Moodle "that lets you embed an executable code cell powered by Sage Cell Server... in a Moodle content page... Sage Cell Server provides a stateless was of executing SageMath, R or Python code." It works by having the page import some Javascript and CSS, then using it to populate a page area (specifically, a 'div'). This is a very common way to create functionality for web pages (including the interface I'm using to type this post) but generally won't work for email (because of email client security) so I can't demonstrate it here.

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Lessons in saving your student paper, before it’s too late
Jessica Huseman, Daxton Stewart, Columbia Journalism Review, 2018/05/08

Student newspapers are just one part of education learning to adapt to new technology. Part of this is a decline in ad revenue for print and online newspapers, which hits some of them hard. It's especially difficult when the school has a history of suppressing student voices, a journalism department which would prefer to run the student press internally, and a lack of independent funding. The story suggests ways alumni can help 'save your student newspaper', but it's not theirs to save, but I'm not sure of the value of replacing one form of 'adult supervision' with another. Autonomous and independent student newspapers should belong to and be run by the students, even if that means they sometimes fail. My best gift to the Gauntlet (where I worked for many years) is to leave it alone.

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