OLDaily

Reducing Friction in OER Adoption
David Wiley, iterating toward openness, 2020/02/10

In a roundabout way, David Wiley argues that courseware is for professors as the windows-based operating system is for the rest of us, and that resisting OER-courseware is like clinging to command line interfaces no matter how difficult they are for anyone else to use. "When all the OER, homework, supplementals, exams, analytics, and other tools are outcome aligned and well integrated in a learning-optimized platform, OER courseware is significantly easier to adopt than a PDF," he writes. "OER courseware can reach the overwhelming majority of faculty where they currently are – while simultaneously improving student outcomes and dramatically reducing costs." I don't know... if this is the state of play, then all I can say is that it makes me sad.

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Snake oil serendipity?
Matthias Melcher, x28's New Blog, 2020/02/10

Matthias Melcher offers a short post that draws a distinction between learning by making connections ourselves, and learning by means of connections made by a machine (doing keyword matchging or some such thing) and trying to draw an inference from the pattern of connections that emerges. The process is called 'Zettelkasten', which has its origin in the German word 'zettel', which stands for the slips of paper we would sort and match. This made me think of one of Wittgenstein's lesser-known works, Zettel (it only has a stub on Wikipedia), a collection of paper-slip notes where he talks about intentions and expectations and the role they play in language. I thought I might find it online (my copy is in my office) but couldn't locate a copy. But instead I found a link to the complete works of Wittgenstein. Get it while you can.

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LMS, Privacy, and Purpose Limitation: A response to Melissa Loble
Laura Gibbs, OU Digital Teaching, 2020/02/10

This post responds to Melissa Loble, Instructure's new Chief Customer Experience Officer, who wrote a post called Data Privacy: Our Current and Future Commitment. "Unfortunately," writes Laura Gibbs, "her post does not even mention the possibility of a data opt-out." She argues, " I think the purpose of data in an LMS should be limited to the courses in which students are enrolled, and any use of data beyond that purpose should be protected by a data privacy policy, requiring permission for reuse beyond that original purpose." But why take a course-centered view? Why not a student-centered view, and say "the purpose of data in an LMS should be limited to the student from which it is collected." After all, what is good for Instructure is surely good enough for the University of Oklahoma. Isn't it? Image: TalentLMS. Via Aaron Davis.

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Why educational research should remain mindful of its position: Questions of boundaries, identity and scale
Emma Wainwright, David Aldridge, Gert Biesta, Ourania Filippakou, British Educational Research Journal, 2020/02/10

I would be the last to say editors should not define the boundaries of what fits, and doesn't fit, into the pages of their journal. After all, that's what I do every day in OLDaily. But the editors of the British Educational Research Journal (BERJ) go further. "Journals are spaces of privilege, and editors occupy privileged positions. As editors we are faced with the challenge of acting as gatekeepers to the field." Well, no, no matter how benevolent the editors are in "seeking to encourage discussion that challenges boundaries, questions identity and considers scale." Journals - and journal editors - do not define the boundaries of a discipline. Indeed, we should be questioning the idea that disciplines have boundaries at all, and whether we would need the were it not for the limited space in traditional publications. Image: Quartz.

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