OLDaily

More than marks
Doug Peterson, doug - off the record, 2018/09/17

One of those formative experiences that you have when you're young came for me when I attended a Model Commonwealth conference at Ashbury College in Ottawa. Ashbury is a private school in a chi-chi part of the city with a reputation and tuition fee schedule that ensured I would never go there. It was clear students there had every advantage, and if you're an Ashbury student you're probably going to university. A far cry from Osgoode Township High School, out in the country. So, yeah, as Doug Peterson says, it's no surprise to read about a university’s secret list to judge applicants by their high schools – not just their marks. But here's the kicker - here's what I learned this and other events at Ashbury: the private school kids weren't any smarter than we were. They just got more support, and special privileges. It's a lesson I never forgot. #smallstories

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Defining high-quality project-based learning
Emily Liebtag, eSchool News, 2018/09/17

eSchool News articles are frustrating because there's virtually nothing to them (and then that's spread out over two pages). But in this base we have an exception, not because the article is great, but because we get some links to a warren of services and resources. I'll mention two in particular, the Framework for High Quality Project Based Learning, from the HQPBL website, and an article, Defining High Quality PBL: A Look at the Research, by John R. Mergendoller at the Buck Institute for Education. If you look at the whois for both organizations you see the usual list of the same partners and foundations (I wonder whether anyone has mapped them all). Related: Ben Williamson, The tech elite is making a power-grab for public education.

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The seven tools of causal inference with reflections on machine learning
Adrian Colyer, The Morning Paper, 2018/09/17

Adrian Colyer has found a delicious paper (The seven tools of causal inference with reflections on machine learning Pearl, CACM 2018) that works (for me, at least) on multiple levels. Here's the story: " To understand why? and to answer what if? questions, we need some kind of a causal model. In the social sciences and especially epidemiology, a transformative mathematical framework called ‘Structural Causal Models’ (SCM) has seen widespread adoption." OK. But contemporary machine learning and artificial intelligence are capable only of associative inference. But what about reasoning requiring interventions, and what about predictive and counterfactual reasoning? So, given all this, what would an SCM combining graphical modeling, structural equations, and counterfactual and interventional logic look like? Could we build a machine learning version? And what does this tell us about the structure of contemporary research models?

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Enhancing Phonological Awareness, Print Awareness, and Oral Language Skills in Preschool Children
Laura M. Justice, Paige C. Pullen, 2018/09/17

I admit that I've been sceptical of the hypothes.is annotation service, but this is a very nice example of an annotated PDF using gentle yellow highlighting. I'm still not sure how this would work with large numbers of people doing the annotating, but for a small number of users, or for display purposes (like this) it seems to work really well.

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Paulo Freire (1921—1997)
Kim Díaz, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018/09/17

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new article on Paulo Freire. The article emphasizes the influences of Hegel and Marx on Freire, as well as that of his parents. "His early ideas were of cooperative decision-making, social participation, and political responsibility.  Freire did not see education as merely a way to master academic standards or skills that would help a person professionally. Instead, he cared that learners understood their social problems and that they discovered themselves as creative agents."

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4D-Printed Aquatic Plants Spring to Life in “Hydrophytes” by Nicole Hone
Andrew LaSane, Colossal, 2018/09/17

If you're wondering what your students will be creating next... how about these 4D printed aquatic forms. In 4D printing we have the usual three dimensions, plus an additional dimension of movement (in this case enabled using pneumatic inflation in water. “They can respond to external forces such as gravity, water ripples or currents, and interaction with people or other 3D prints in real life,” Hone said. “Their man-made composite materials behave uncannily similar to living organisms.” Right now they're mostly eye-candy, but no doubt useful applications for 4D printing will be found.

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Grow with Google provides opportunity for all Canadians
Sabrina Geremia, Google Official Canada Blog, 2018/09/17

According to this announcement, Google is "furthering our commitment to helping Canadians prepare for the future of work by launching Grow with Google, an initiative to help Canadians acquire the digital skills they need to grow their business or get a job." They're "partnering with Canada Learning Code to provide Canadians with free tools and training." And they're "bringing our Professional IT Support Certification Program to Canada." There's a list of events associated with the initiative, including one in Iqaluit. The announcement makes a particular point of showing how Syrian refugees in Canada were able to make a new beginning through the web.

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JAMStack
Jamstack.org, 2018/09/17

A 'JAM stack' is a website built from three major components: Javascript, which runs in your browser; APIs, which are abstracted server-side processes; and templated Markup that is built at deploy time. The key advantage is this: "When your deployment amounts to a stack of files that can be served anywhere, scaling is a matter of serving those files in more places. CDNs (Content Distribution Networks) are perfect for this, and often include scaling in all of their plans." Here are some examples. A JAM stack is typically deployed using a static site generator which retrieves the files it needs from repositories like GitHub.

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Applying 'Winners Take All' To Higher Ed
Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, 2018/09/17

This is a short review of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas.  "This is a book that thoroughly skews the elite view of progress, social change, and the appropriate role of the market in society. This a book that utterly takes apart the self-regarding culture that pervades elite gatherings such as TED Talks and the Davos World Economic Forum." I think Joshua Kim meant 'skewers', not 'skews'. Either way, worth a look.

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