OLDaily

Open science: Now is the time for Canadians to speak up
Dick Bourgeois-Doyle, Canadian Science Publishing, 2020/05/07

In our corporate newsletter today I read that "The Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) has just posted a paper Toward a UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science: Canadian Perspective to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO to support discussions for the development of a Canadian position on key issues and to provide input to the UNESCO consultations." It's a well-written document making the case for open science and offering insightful commentary on how it would work and some of the issues around it. Dick Bourgeois-Doyle discusses this policy document in this blog post. "The recent drive for open science reflects a desire to renew the contract between science and society in the face of the so-called post-truth era and global issues such as climate change, income inequality, and, now, the pandemic," he writes. Count me as an enthusiastic supporter, and long-time advocate, for open science in government research.

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The Cost of Homework
Clint Lalonde, BCcampus, 2020/05/07

For most students, all school work is home work these days. But when we get back to something like normal, homework will resume, and so this look at homeworks systems is useful and relevant. What are students using? According to this BCcampus survey, "the top three commercial homework systems in high use in B.C. are MyLab by Pearson, Connect by McGraw-Hill, and MindTap by Nelson (Cengage)." These are expensive, costing anywhere between $50-$105 per student. This "can impose a significant financial burden on students who are required to use them." So BCcampus is looking at open source alternatives to commercial homework systems. It will be interesting to see what they come up with,

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Policy for Online Teaching
N.B. Jumani, International Islamic University, LinkedIn, 2020/05/07

This is a 50-page document embedded into a LinkedIn post and is more of a detailed how-to guide than it is a policy document. It was written for the International Islamic University in Pakistan. It described e-learning in general, the learning management system (and in particular Google Classroom), videoconferencing, course preparation, and assessment. It also contains a number of sample forms and templates. There's no link to the PDF but if I get one I'll update the post.

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Remote Learning and Stone Soup
Chris Dede, Learning Policy Institute, 2020/05/07

Overview article describing how education is (and should be) adapting. Chris Dede writes, "Theory and evidence show the benefits of using innovative teaching strategies based on current knowledge about learning. These next-generation instructional models are characterized by:

• utilizing collaborative, guided learning-by-doing to complement passive learning-by-assimilation;
• providing students agency to include their personal interests in what they are learning, and infusing these into the curriculum to be covered;
• complementing high-stakes tests with diagnostic/formative assessments that measure a broad range of knowledge and skills useful in life; and
• involving many types of people as “teachers” in various life settings of students, extending learning outside the classroom and beyond the school day."

He continues, "educational models based on these strategies and implemented by well-prepared teachers produce outcomes that are more equitable and effective, as well as better suited to what students need for success in life."

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Phuoc Nguyen’s One Page Wonders
Chris Coyier, CSS-Tricks, 2020/05/07

This is a two-paragraph article, so be sure to follow the links. The focus is on the CSS resources provided by Nguyen Huu Phuoc on various websites. "Like this one with over 100 vanilla JavaScript DOM manipulation recipes, this similar one full of one-liners, and this one with loads of layouts." And this React PDF Viewer, which is not free, but worth looking at because it's good.

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COVID-19 Has Changed Corporate Learning Forever
CHECK.point eLearning, 2020/05/07

This article is written from the perspective of Fuse, a learning resources company, and feels a bit like an advertorial, but it's still interesting. The author argues, "to survive and thrive, companies can't just wait for the normal command-and-control instructions and ideas generated from yesteryear to come from the top." This becomes clear when companies are changing policies and business models on a dime. "The old ways of spending twelve weeks building a course and rolling it out electronically or face to face seem antiquated, with the practical need to which everyone must now respond."

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