OLDaily

8 reasons why my students lead their own conferences
Rayna Freedman, eSchool News, 2019/04/15

This is an example of what I would call good online learning - indeed, just good learning in general. The setting is parent-teacher conferences for fifth-graders. The only people not there are the students! So this teacher had the student manage their own conference, presenting their work and interacting with both parent and teacher (and sharing their portfolio with caregivers who cannot attend). I would expand this as much as I could, having students manage their own learning activities as much as possible. Sure, they would mess it up - at first. But let them see examples of how it's done, given them responsibility for parts of conferences (like, say, conference reporting, or maybe recording the video archives), let them try it a few times, and they'll pick it up.

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How $5 Billion Could Provide a Great Education for Every Kid on Earth
Tom Vander Ark, Getting Smart, 2019/04/15

The program outlined in this article - community conversations, new school models, dual enrollment, private schools, competency systems, etc. - is just a good way to waste $5 billion (or $30 billion, or whatever). The problem isn't quality. The problem is access.

How would I spend $5 billion? I'd put into the hands of educators and communities, mostly in Africa. Maybe a million $5000 projects. Something like that. Ask them to form linkages with each other. Ask them to source locally where they can. Digital is important; there should be last-mile and community access projects. Owned locally, managed locally. No money for Harvard or Stanford or MIT, no money for consulting companies or think tanks - indeed, just the opposite, I'd be asking all those wealthy education reformers to match that money, without tying strings to it.

Everybody is focused on giving people fish, or teaching people how to fish, but I'm a crazy-minded technologist, I want to make sure everyone has, and can make, their own fishing equipment.

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In which I finally stop using Patreon
Fluffy, Plaidophile, 2019/04/15

Tnhe title refers to the author (someone called 'Fluffy'), not me - I considered but never did use Patreon. I was about to, but their misstep a year ago scared me off, and I never did set up a creator account. And I can certainly feel Fluffy's angst about "using a platform, Patreon, that had absolutely no integration with outside sources. There was no way to republish RSS on Patreon, there was no way to subscribe to Patreon via RSS, it doesn’t even provide a way for a creator to export their own content off the platform." Also, "they’ve also been showing signs of collapsing under their own weight of needing to pay back their venture capital... How long will it be before they start increasing their cut, delisting underperforming creators, taking on more exclusive content distribution deals with top-tier earners?" I will eventually open a tip jar again (if for no other reason than to supplement my retirement income or to attend conferences) but it probably won't be Patreon. Via Aaron Davis.

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How Do We Get Middle School Students Excited About Science? Make It Hands-On
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 2019/04/15

I don't understand why parents have to send children to 'alternate schools' for this. I studied science and technology at a public school in Ontario several decades ago and had plenty of hands-on experience (though admittedly, despite my best efforts, I never blew up a chem lab). We did physics experiments, biosphere studies, industrial design - a whole host of things. And it wasn't just Activity Day stuff - we made scientific notebooks and presented our results. It's not hard to make science and technology hands-on, it doesn't require special schools, and I think it's something most students (at least, those around here) are still doing. I never forgot those early activities, and what I learned is that it is the approach and process - being curious, asking questions, testing theories, talking about ideas - that matter, not the specific set of facts.

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Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering (ICICLE)
IEEE-LTSC, 2019/04/15

As I type this I'm listening to Dave Cormier's video presentation to OER19 on pro-social - this came right after Bon Stewart passed on George Siemens's denouncement of the concept of 'learning engineering'. I first encountered the term last year when it was proposed as an IEEE-LTSC project. I tried to warn them about just how bad the term sounded, but to no avail. This page - the Industry Consortium on Learning Engineering (ICICLE) - is the outcome of some of that work. Note well: "ICICLE seeks participants to join this activity, that include but are not limited to, education and training technology vendors; textbook and eLearning media publishers; corporate HR/training departments; digital platform vendors (PC, tablet, phone, VR, AR); related industry associations; educational institutions; and government agencies." See also this EDUCAUSE article from last September.

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Treating Persons as Means
Samuel Kerstein, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019/04/15

I found this the day after writing my own short post on 'value' but it serves nicely as a clarification of the concept described by Kant on treating people as ends-in-themselves and not means. First posted on Saturday! this article in the Stanford Encyclopedia explores that idea. "The entry begins by focusing on the roots in Kant of discussion of treating persons merely as means. It then considers (morally neutral) notions of using another or treating him as a means, notions that are less straightforward than it might seem." By 'less straightforward' what we mean is a bunch of cases where people argue that it is ethical to treat people as means. That's the way it usually goes.

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OER19 - Programme
ALT, 2019/04/15

OER19 sessions - now 22% open! 14 of the 62 sessions are recorded - the rest you would have had to travel to Galway, Ireland, on order to watch them in person. I know that's a bit harsh, but I've been recording my presentations for 15 years now, and I would think that the people running a conference on open educational resources would have figured that out. At least (according to Simon Horrocks) we have Martin Hawksey and Harry Lamb to thank for the few sessions we actually do have that were recorded. Look for the little 'YouTube' logos next to the sessions (sessions consist of two or three short presentations, usually).

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