OLDaily

The Second Annual Podcast Revenue Study by IAB and PwC
Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2018/06/11

Podcasting started in 2003 (which was when I launched Ed Radio) or 2004 and became popular, then disappeared, and now is a global industry worth some $313 million. This rep[ort (20 page PDF) looks mostly at revenue models (especially advertising) but still offers a broad outline of podcasting trends generally. I find that I tend to bounce back and forth between podcasting (twit, trig, titus) and the radio (CBC, alt/indy), with some live audio (mostly baseball and comedy) thrown in.

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Reflective Learning as the New Normal
Eric Sheninger, A Principal's Reflections, 2018/06/11

I've long said "to learn is to practice and reflect," and I am by no means the first to say such things. This article pursues that theme, and lists some different types of reflection. As John Dewey stated, “We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.” Eric Sheninger adds, "It is not a hard ask at all to ensure that students are provided with an opportunity to reflect on the learning target for the day." Having said all that, it's a biut jarring in 2018 to see images of paper-based reflection journals. I mean, really?

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Southern New Hampshire U Issues Blockchain Credentials to College for America Grads
Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, 2018/06/11

"SNHU partnered with Learning Machine for its digital diploma project; the software company co-developed Blockcerts with the MIT Media Lab in 2016." I'm seeing quite a bit more of this sort of thing, though I have to say I think that digital certificates are the least interesting application of these new technologies to online learning. But in any case, there's this: "In some ways, this is piloting what a modern transcript would be: digital, portable, owned by the student, can be verified using the encrypted assets. Employers ... don't need to call up SNHU and verify that information, it's self-verified."

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As Google for Education tools enter classrooms across Canada, some parents are asking to opt-out
Craig Desson, Josh Flear, CBC, 2018/06/11

Google is not only creating new consumers in schools, it's creating a new consumer database from schools. "According to Google's privacy policy for their educational products, the company doesn't collect student data for advertising purposes or sell them to third parties. The apps are also ad-free. But that doesn't mean Google isn't collecting data on students. The policy allows for the collection of information including location or GPS data, what mobile network a user is on, or their phone number."

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Digital Portfolios and Content
Silvia Tolisano, LangWitches, 2018/06/11

This is a good article introducing issues and approaches to content in digital portfolios in schools. "The content created and chosen to include in a digital portfolio can be free flowing or follow a more rigid structure... it depends on what the learner craves and feels more comfortable with. The worst seems to be, when a portfolio owner feels a lack of ownership, is so paralyzed and constrained from a given structure or to the contrary, a lack thereof, that they don’t create and publish anything" (the writing style is similar thoughout, different enough to be noted, a stringing together of phrases, conjoined with commas).

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Has Google Become a Journal Publisher?
Kent Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen, 2018/06/11

The answer to this question is "no". But Google does publish a fascinating journal called Distill - this article on AI and Interpretation distracted me for a good fifteen minutes before I could finish this post. And Distill seems to bother Scholarly Kitchen writer Kent Anderson a lot. The Scholarly Kitchen is, of course, largely an advocacy blog for publishing companies, so the take is not unexpected. If Distill wants to be taken seriously, writes Anderson, "adding an editorial board, a management layer, and more of the things publishers do would only help if they are serious about having a true academic journal." But Anderson's problem is that Distill is already taken seriously. Distill doesn't need to adapt. Scholarly publications do.

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CORE becomes the world’s largest aggregator
Balviar Notay, JISC, 2018/06/11

According to this report, "As of May 2018, CORE has aggregated over 131 million article metadata records, 93 million abstracts, 11 million hosted and validated full texts and over 78 million direct links to research papers hosted on other websites." There's a link to a table comparing CORE with seven other open access paper harvesters: BASE, OpenAIRE, Paperity, SHARE, 1findr, OneRepo, and Unpaywall.

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What makes a great leader, explained in eight counterintuitive charts
Shane Snow, Quartz, 2018/06/11

I'm not so sure the charts are counterintuitive, but the eight 'magic quadrant' tables capture aspects of diversity and adaptability that contribute to great leadership (or, maybe, great groups). Though there are eight charts, the theme is consistent throughout: it's better if individuals have diverse core values, because this brings in a variety of perspectives, but they need to stick to them (otherwise they're just panderers and opportunists). But they need to be flexible on things that aren't core, willing to change strategies and adapt to changing circumstances. This is what allows people with diverse values to work together.

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