OLDaily

Repl.it Multiplayer
Faris & Amjad Masad, Repl.it, 2018/12/10

This is a really nice teaching tool, because it's a nice working tool. "Introducing Multiplayer: code with friends in the same editor, execute programs in the same interpreter, interact with the same terminal, chat in the IDE, edit files and share the same system resources, and ship applications from the same interface!" Open a new editor on the https://repl.it/ website and then click the Multiplayer icon (upper left) to get it started. Sadly, Repl.it doesn't support Perl (complains the last living Perl coder) (though there's a Python shell that will support a limited Perl).

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Teaching and Learning with Jupyter
et.al., Lorena A. Barba, GitHub, 2018/12/10

This is a comprehensive text that covers pretty much everything important about the use of Jupyter Notebooks in learning. As noted in these pages before, a Jupyter Notebook allows you to have not only the usual text and images, but also computer programs, such that you can view and edit the listing and see the output right on the notebook page. I have only one complaint about this textbook - it's written and published through GitHub (which allows for writing sprints and multiple authors) and is not itself a Jupyter notebook. It's so easy to read online - I wish the Jupyter Notebook functionality had been embedded and demonstrated right there and then.

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Is there a RSS revival going on?
Andy Sylvester, 2018/12/10

Short item raising the possibility and linking to some commentary suggesting it might be true. Some of us (ahem) never left RSS at all. In a world of social media algorithm-driven content streams I've considered RSS to be my secret weapon over the last decade. It allows me to see all the stuff that Facebook and Twitter don't profit from me seeing. We probably need a next-generation RSS for the revival to really take off, but it might just be a matter of time.

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New Bose AR Glasses give you audio Augmented Reality
Emory Craig, Digital Bodies, 2018/12/10

I can't imagine trying to read an AR screen on my glasses (my eyes have enough trouble with the real world) but augmentation-by-audio is something that could work for me. It's still pretty basic; " the glasses will use GPS and a 9-axis motion sensor to recognize where the wearer is and what they are looking at, and then connecting that location with informative audio." The content comes from Alexa or Siri or some such. What would help a lot is image recognition or RFID that would let it do things like read lables for me. One thing at a time, I guess.

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Highlighting passages doesn’t aid my memory, but speaking them does
Jon Udell, 2018/12/10

Neither highlighting nor speaking aloud has ever helped me (though if it works for Jon Udell more power to him). For me the secret has always been to reinterpret and reconstruct. When studying somehting really closely I would break it down and create an outline. Understanding the structure helped me remember the whole. To really understand something I would recreate it in my own words (or my own code, or whatever). That's the origin of this newsletter and most of my software projects.

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Creating and Implementing Alternatives to Traditional Textbooks
Cathy Bill, SoftChalk Talk Blog, 2018/12/10

The impetus for creating digital alternatives to textbooks was "both reducing cost and having control over the content." However I question Columbus State Community College's decision to use Apple iBooks. As Cathy Bill notes, "A little more than 50% of our student population has an Apple device. Therefore, about half of our students would not be able to access the material, unless they used campus computers." They provided access to Apple devices to those who didn't had them, but this misses the point - the Apple content isn't interoperable with anything but Apple devices. Which in my mind means that they're broken.

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Personality Prostheses
Alan Dix, Medium, 2018/12/10

The learning style sceptics say there are no learning styles. This is squarely contrary to the idea of 'personality prostheses' advanced by Alan Dix. The idea is, just as we use a lever if we're too weak to move a rock, we use other tools to help out other aspects of our character. If we have a desk, we each set up our desk differently, to accommodate our personalities. People are quick to make moral judgements about our character - maybe too quick. We have to work with what we've got. And if that means a prosthesis, either to support our legs, our eyes, our character or our learning - so be it.

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