OLDaily

Feature Article
A Look at the Future of Open Educational Resources
Stephen Downes, 2019/07/05

This paper explores the impact of four major types of technology on our understanding of OER: cloud infrastructure, open data, artificial intelligence, and decentralized networks. It is argued that these technologies result in a model of dynamic and adaptive resources that will be created at the point of need and will draw on constantly changing requirements and data sources. They will be created through distributed community-based processes, and they will support a pedagogy based on supporting student experiences rather than content transmission.

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Learning Engineering: A Caliper Example
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2019/07/05

This article is ostensibly about data interoperability, but mostly it's about defining the term 'learning engineering'. "Rather than a sketch, a wireframe, or a prototype, a learning engineer makes the graph, the dashboard, or the visualization into the externalization," writes Michael Feldstein. "For Herb Simon, as for Phil Long, these design artifacts serve the same purpose. They're the same thing, basically." Just so, Caliper statements - which describe learning achievements - are depicted here as learning engineering artifacts. "The Caliper language has become the externalization that we manipulate socially in the design exercise. There are two aspects of Caliper that make this work: (1) the three-word sentences are linguistically generative, i.e., they can express new ideas that have never been expressed before, and (2) every human-readable expression directly maps to a machine-readable expression." Oh, we've heard that before.

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Streaming TV is about to get very expensive – here's why
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian, 2019/07/05

This is a good lesson for those whose business plans included the words "the Netflix for educational resources." Netflix doesn't last. "The Netflix model was great for viewers, but it couldn’t last. The content creators got greedy and scared, and now they’re determined to drag things back to the bad old ways. They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split... which means that subscriptions will rise. Make no mistake: we’re the ones likely to get stiffed here."

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Pop Music Theory
Draw Music, 2019/07/05

What I link about the lessons in this online course (online guide? there's no registration or anything...) is that they embed working keyboards into the web page. So when they ask you to, say, try the different 'A' keys and ask you if you can hear how they are different versions of the same pitch, you can press the key and hear (or not) that they are different versions of the same pitch. No, these lessons won't teach you how to play pop songs on your computer. But they will certainly help you appreciate pop music that much more. Now I'm off to be my own Tangerine Dream.

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#BrandEd
Benjamin Doxtdator, Long View on Education, 2019/07/05

I am in agreement with the criticism of the books being criticized in this article. "As Mike Caulfield points out, the marketing mediums, such as Instagram, influence the commodification of pedagogy: 'what you’re struck with is the way the thinness of the signal plays to a certain thin and disconnected pedagogy, and how that pedagogy slowly seems normal to newcomers.'” Quite so. But it seems to me to be chintzy to then turn around in the same article and promote your own network - sure, Benjamin Doxtdator may not make any money from the Amazon links, but the authors of those books will, and in the branding game, it's all about mutual insider support - the practice he has just finished condemning. Image.

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China’s top two education players unleashing the full potential of AI-related initiatives
GETChina Insights, Medium, 2019/07/05

This article reports on AI+education companies in China that are "regarding AI as only a tool to achieve their educational business blueprint." What's interesting is that there is almost no mention of predictive analytics. "We need to improve the efficacy and resource sharing at first, making AI penetrate into all the scenarios of education, then think of changing the game and future." AI, in this scenario, isn't about making a quick hit - it's a longer term effort focused on the core mission of education itself

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