OLDaily

6 Insights About The Future Of Learning Inspired By How Engineers Train Robots
Cristian T. Duque, LMSPulse, 2019/06/10

Training a robot these days is effectively to train a neural network - we don't give robots 'programs' any more. So it's no surprise that there's a lot to be learned about learning from the way researchers teach robots. This article lists six of them (there's nothing quite so alluring as a listicle). Overall, what you'll learn is that I've taken some of my best ideas from how neural networks are trained: learning is iterative, takes practice, uses models and examples from experts, and can involve a lot of play.

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Bring back working papers
Jim McGee, McGee's Musings, 2019/06/10

I am sympathetic with Jim McGee's objectives here. "It can be difficult to distinguish a back of the envelope calculation from an SEC-ready filing when both are printed in 11-point Arial." Software developers have developed tools for versioning and iteration toward a final outcome, but "I am hard pressed to identify other knowledge workers taking advantage of those tools or practices." The problem is that other fields of endeavour aren't working toward a specif outcome and the process is often not linear or iterative. One might thing of these posts in OLDaily, or the mess I call my blog, to be working papers. But they may collectively lead nowhere until, one day, suddenly they do.

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What the World Needs From Education
Marc Prensky, Medium, 2019/06/10

Marc Prensky knows how to make a big statement. Here's his latest:

"People, In the future, will increasingly mean newly empowered symbiotic human hybrids who can, as individuals and teams, apply the strength of their unique blends of human and technology components to creating new and positive value and solutions to local and global problems.

“The big issue for the world is not to create more or new jobs, but to figure out effective ways for people to be compensated for whatever series of world-improving projects they want and choose to do.”

Can't say I disagree with him. See also: The No-Collar Workforce, Deloitte.

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Why Self-Organizing Teams Don’t Work
Cliff Berg, LinkedIn, 2019/06/10

The title of this piece should probably say "When Self-Organizing Teams Don't Work", since the author is describing the conditions under which self-organization fails, not arguing that it is never successful. What happens is, "half the time, new teams experience serious conflict." At this point one of several things may happen. Sometimes a leader emerges, and these "ad-hoc leaders achieve their de-facto leadership role by dominating discussions. Those who are quiet and thoughtful will often shut down when there are aggressive and vocal people present." That has often been my experience with groups, which is why I prefer a looser structure. Leadership, in this context, should be about orchestration rather than direction.

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Review of Language, Form(s) of Life, and Logic: Investigations after Wittgenstein
Kristijan Krkač, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2019/06/10

Though over the years I've referenced Wittgenstein on numerous occasions (another instance from my blog over the weekend) I have been hesitant to dive more deeply into that connection. This review makes it clear why: there's no shortage of different ways to read Wittgenstein, and no shortage of commentators offering different perspectives. I don't want to get into disputes about whether Wittgenstein really said such-and-such. Meanwhile, the discussions continue, and this review chronicles one aspect of them.

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