OLDaily

Microsoft's Ebook Apocalypse Shows the Dark Side of DRM
Brian Barrett, Wired, 2019/07/04

This was nothing the opponents of DRM didn't predict, but that doesn't take away the sting. "While a handful of incidents have brought that reality into sharp relief over the years, none has quite the punch of Microsoft disappearing every single ebook from every one of its customers." You read that right. If you ever bought an ebook from Microsoft, your purchase is about to vanish into the ether. "Starting as soon as this week, it’s going to remove all purchased books from the libraries of those who bought them." If ever there was a good argument for breaking the digital lock and saving the ebook you bought, this is it. “This is why we call DRM media and devices defective by design, or broken from the beginning. There’s self-destruction built into the whole concept.”

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Blackboard Open LMS Roadmap And A Legacy Narrative Still Worth Living Up To
Cristian T. Duque, LMS Pulse, 2019/07/04

This article looks at the Blackboard Open LMS (BOLMS) (formerly Moodlerooms) roadmap which was released in June. There are "no exciting new features, only a diligent couple of ideas," writes Cristian Duque. The 'secret' for BOLMS, says Duque, is that "the online community that surrounds Blackboard is a wealthy and effective environment of collegial help and support that barely gets any recognition." On the other hand, Blackboard has tended to drop good ideas as quickly as it acquires them. "A pattern of good ideas that somehow stops mid-sentence starts to emerge," says Duque. Still, there's a rich range of services available in BOLMS, and this article is a good summary of them.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Hey, let’s create a functional calendar app with the JAMstack
Chris Nwamba, CSS-Tricks, 2019/07/04

By 'JAMStack' the author means 'Javascript, API and Markup'. Read more here. The idea of a JAMStack is that you can locate applications on different servers (or different locations in the cloud) and connect them. The trick in this application is in triggering time-based events without having to use server-specific cron jobs. The application mixes a React front-end, an 8Base GraphQL graph database, and something called 'durable functions' that remember the state from their previous execution and are what replace cron jobs. Of course it's always better if you work though the example, but even the first few paragraphs are useful if you want to keep up with current development methods.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

European MOOC Platforms Plan New Generation of Microcredentials
Manoel Cortes Mendez, Class Central, 2019/07/04

According to the article, "The initiative, called Common Microcredentials Framework, is spearheaded by the European MOOC Consortium, which comprises Europe’s largest MOOC providers:

• FutureLearn, which is based in the UK and has 9 million learners.
• Miriada X, which is based in Spain and has 4 million learners.
• FUN, which is based in France and has 1.6 million learners.
• EduOpen, which is based in Italy and has 54 thousand learners."

It would be interesting to see wider adoption of the microcredetnials framework by other MOOC providers, but I think it is unlikely companies like Coursera or Udacity want to cooperate with others.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Lumen Learning to Provide Delivery and Support for Carnegie Mellon's OLI Courseware
Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, 2019/07/04

According to this article, "Carnegie Mellon is working with open educational resources company Lumen Learning to provide delivery and support for courseware from the university's Open Learning Initiative (OLI)." The materials aren't exactly open: "Lumen's pricing for the course materials will match the cost of adopting them through OLI directly."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

A new system called BrainNet lets three people play a Tetris-like game using a brain-to-brain interface
Sarah McQuate-Washington, Futurity, 2019/07/04

You won't be seeing this as an app any time soon, but this development shows where the future of computer interfaces is headed (and in my eyes, also sheds some light on the nature of human consciousness). “Once the Sender makes a decision about whether to rotate the block, they send ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the Receiver’s brain by concentrating on the corresponding light... (For the receivers) we essentially ‘trick’ the neurons in the back of the brain to spread around the message that they have received signals from the eyes." Of course, I see a great future for systems like this for communication... with pets.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Book review: Open and Distance Education Theory Revisited
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2019/07/04

You will probably never read this book - as Tony Bates writes, "readers will see the irony of a book on open and distance education which costs US$45 for an electronic version and US$30 to download a single chapter, especially since the authors get no payment from the publisher." But do read this review, which makes an important point (and one I have observed myself): "I am seeing an increasing divergence between the ‘old’ field of open and distance education, and the newly emergent field of digital learning." The book was edited by Insung Jung.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]