OLDaily

Feature Article
The Fabrication that is OER
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, 2018/07/16

We have created a beautiful world of billions of images, videos, articles and messages that we've shared back and forth with each other since the 1980s and this world is our heritage and our legacy. This is the world that we need to protect - not to institutionalize, but to make it so that it can never be institutionalized, but freely used to create and share anew so long as there is a world to do it in.

[Link] [Comment]

Merging work & learning to develop the human skills that matter
Joe Deegan, Nathan Martin, Pearson, 2018/07/16

This report (44 page PDF) posits that we're entering a Now marks the transition to a "third wave" of education. The first wave was about access, the second wave was about quality, and now the third wave is about what the authors call "'demand driven education'  — where programs focus more strongly than ever on ensuring graduates are job-ready and have access to rewarding careers over the course of their lifetimes." That actually sounds like the opposite of demand-driven education, but let's continue. "Demand-driven education adapts to the needs of the learner and the employer. It responds to signals from society to ensure alignment between desired qualifications and available training." There's a lot of room here for scepticism, but read the report and see what you think.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Still Amusing Ourselves To Death
Dean Shareski, Ideas and Thoughts, 2018/07/16

Dean Shareski reflects on how Neil Poistman's warnings about television also apply to social media. The warnings were certainly accurate for television, as the emergence of fake news channels and mass delusion have shown. What aboutonline media? These magnifiy the falshoods spread by television and have offered little remedy. Television "was not a format designed for serious topics that required depth and time," says Shareski. "Although I didn’t have the context I made a similar argument about social media." So - OK. But does this apply to all digital media? I don't think so. Shareski says "Utilize the right spaces for the right purposes. Social media, in my view, has always been best to socialize. This space has always been best to think out loud. Face to face extended times with the right people can be fruitful places for deeper discussions."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Science / Fiction
Carol Black, 2018/07/16

I think this is a really important article, and not just because of the more contentious statements it makes when it discusses "'evidence-based' education, scientific racism, & how learning styles became a myth." As readers know, I have addressed the topic of learning styles over the years and have clashed with learning styles debunkers who seem to think its really important that we treat them as a myth. My analysis is slightly different from Carol Black's, but we agree on the basics: there is widespread agreement that there are differences in cognitive style, and the argument that "learning styles don't exist" is based on bad science.

"If you review the writings of the most vocal learning styles 'debunkers,'  you quickly find that they are almost always simply advocates for traditional, teacher-controlled direct instruction. They tend to favor a traditional 'core knowledge' curriculum, traditional forms of discipline, and they adhere to a traditional IQ-based view of intelligence. It's important to note that the debunkers' claim is thus based almost entirely on studies of teacher-controlled direct instruction; they don't involve scenarios where learners have agency... Education researchers would do well to know that adults in cultures all over the world maintain that direct instruction is in fact the least effective approach to learning  –– and should be avoided whenever possible... "

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

HTTPS explained with carrier pigeons
Andrea Zanin, freecodecamp, 2018/07/16

Web security is one of those arcane topics that defies simple understanding. This article tries to bring it down to earth using pigeons. "Bob sends a pigeon to Alice without any message. Alice sends the pigeon back carrying a box with an open lock, but keeping the key. Bob puts the message in the box, closes the locks and sends the box to Alice. Alice receives the box, opens it with the key and reads the message." Now of course there's mathematics involved in the design of the lock and the key, but this explanation gets us off the ground. Right?

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Measuring the impact of OER at the University of Georgia
Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/07/16

This article reports on a study (15 page PDF) reporting that students who receive open educational resources (OER) earlier in the course obtain better course grades. "Switching to OER increased the number of A and A-minus grades students received by 5.50 percent and 7.73 percent, respectively. The number of students who withdrew or were awarded D or F grades (known as the DFW rate) fell by 2.68 percent." This is definitely the sort of study that should be critically assessed and replicated before its conclusions are taken as a statement of fact, as the authors acknowledge (they write, "it  is  probable that the adoption of the OER-based textbook served as a catalyst to further the instructors’ engagement with their own teaching").

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]