OLDaily

Aggregated knowledge from a small number of debates outperforms the wisdom of large crowds
Joaquin Navajas, Tamara Niella, Gerry Garbulsky, Bahador Bahrami, Mariano Sigman, arXiv, 2018/12/21

This paper (27 page PDF) looks at alternative methods of obtaining a consensus from a group of people (aka 'the wisdom of crowds'). While it's true that a crowd can outperform an individual, the authors suggest that dividing the crowd into small groups of five, and having the five come to a consensus, can when averaged produce better results than average produced by the large crowd. This is the basis behind a lot of 'small group' methodologies, such as the world cafe. "This  result supports political  theories postulating that authentic deliberation, and not simply voting, can lead to better democratic decisions," the authors write.

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The 'Future Book' Is Here, but It's Not What We Expected
Craig Mod, Wired, 2018/12/21

The main point the author wants to make is that, despite all the technology, the book hasn't really changed. "The Future Book is here and continues to evolve. You’re holding it. It’s exciting. It’s boring. It’s more important than it has ever been. But temper some of those flight-of-fancy expectations. In many ways, it’s still a potato." Sure. For those people still reading and writing text-based narratives, the book hasnt changed. But for the rest of us, things have changed a lot.

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Blockchain Could Rewire Higher Ed. But Should It?
Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge, 2018/12/21

This post contains the most unusual explanation of blockchain I've seen. "That whole MARC code and the ISBN numbers on every book is managed by the U.S. Library of Congress and that ensures that no two books end up in the same spot on a bookshelf. So in essence, what I'm doing is I'm checking out the book and checking it back in without taking it for good.... So blockchain is exactly the same thing. It allows me to check in and out my transcript or other smart contracts, but I can't change it. And no two contracts or no two transcripts can end back in the same spot that they left. And therefore, it's a secure mechanism to make sure that people aren't using other people's information or data." If that explanation works for you, great, but I think it suffers the problem of explaining something complex with reference to something evn more complex.

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If we’re serious about lifelong learning and re-framing learning around the creation of new knowledge through action, it will require us to re-think our educational institutions from the ground up.
John Hagel, Edge Perspectives, 2018/12/21

"If we’re serious about lifelong learning and re-framing learning around the creation of new knowledge through action, it will require us to re-think our educational institutions from the ground up," writes John Hagel. "Rather than pushing content to students who are viewed as passive recipients, we’ll need to embrace a pull-based model that focuses on creating environments for people to discover and pursue their passions and helps them to connect with others who share these passions." In other words - what we've been saying here.

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