OLDaily

Education publisher Pearson to phase out print textbooks
BBC News, 2019/07/18

Pundits have been platituding over the last few days in response to Pearson's announcement that it will phase out print-based textbooks. To me, the only surprise about this announcement is that it took so long to make it. In any event, it is accompanied by the usual less-than-forthright statements: that it will stave students money, that it will be more convenient, that it will lead to better learning, etc. In fact, what we'll see are higher costs and a market that shifts from ownership (and sharing and reselling) to subscriptions and licensing. And as Bill Rosenblatt says, "the move to digital-first doesn’t really complete the digital transition of higher ed content: it’s still based on units called 'textbooks,' no matter how they are delivered." More from Bloomberg, the Guardian, CBS News, EdScoop, Copyright & Technology, Inside Higher Ed, Slashdot. Next up: Alexa reads textbooks to you, from Pearson.

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On TikTok, Teens Meme the Safety App Ruining Their Summer
Louise Matsakis, Wired, 2019/07/18

The app Life360 sounds like a great way to bring parents a sense of security and piece of mind, but according to this article, "adult supervision has turned into adult surveillance." And they're reacting, according to Wired, by spoofing it on TikTok (which is, btw, the place where young people are going after quitting Facebook and Instagram). "n addition to location sharing, Life360 lets family members see how fast people in their circle are driving, how much battery their cell phones have, and more." Think of it as training for their future in a surveillance-driven world. Via Aaron Davis.

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A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies on Learning Analytics Dashboards: A Self-Regulated Learning Perspective
Wannisa Matcha, Nora’ayu Ahmad Uzir, Dragan Gašević, Abelardo Pardo, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, Research Gate, 2019/07/18

I ran across this paper (21 page PDF) from earlier this year while searching for something else, and it makes a comment that is striking: "a great majority of the existing dashboards (68%) are atheoretical in their choices of indicators and content to be shown." The result, say the authors, is that "without building on what is already known about learning and teaching and instead, using design- or data-driven approaches will likely result in ineffective or even deteriorating effects on learning. Unsurprisingly, several authors have already reported negative effects of existing LADs on learning." For example, dashboards need to know about the tasks learners are engaged on, they need to know about relevant standards and goal-setting, and they need to support metacognitive modeling. They should also incorporate what is known about motivation and self-determination theory. To account for all this, "the paper defines the model for user-centered learning analytics systems (MULAS). MULAS consists of the four dimensions that are cyclically and recursively interconnected including: theory, design, feedback, and evaluation." Don't miss this one.

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A Sim of a Sim
Clark Aldrich, Association for Talent Development, 2019/07/18

"The early premise that computer game-like simulations would be highly appropriate for education is intuitive," writes Clark Aldrich, "however, it broke down in practice." It costs millions to develop fun simulations. And "for today's environment, it is the wrong solution—most academic, military, or corporate entities do not need or want a deep, 30- to 60-hour educational experience that fully engages 30 percent of the audience." So what's the response to this? Short sims - or as Aldrich says, a sim of a sim. I think he has a case here.

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Policies and Actions of Accreditation and Quality Assurance Bodies to Counter Corruption in Higher Education
Irene Glendinning, Stella-Maris Orim, Andrew King, Council for Higher Education Accreditation, 2019/07/18

I encountered this report (78 page PDF) while looking up a journal soliciting manuscripts by email. If you just looked at the front page you might think the title is "Corruption in Higher Education", since that's the part in bold text. Reading through the results (it's actually a very quick read) you will see that corruption is a widespread problem. But. The report is based on interviews of Accreditation and Quality Assurance Bodies (ACAB) and the responses constitute a total of 69 individuals. Many individual questions are left unanswered, so the number of responses is often much lower than that. So at best I would say the results are suggestive of a problem, but that actual evidence would be needed to pinpoint how much of a problem it is, where it occurs, and what forms it takes.

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