OLDaily

Truth or Truthiness? Analysing a VR Study Using Gorard’s Sieve
Mirjam Neelen, Paul A. Kirschner, 3-Star Learning Experiences, 2020/07/08

What I like about this article is that the authors state very clearly what their grounds for criticism will be (specifically, Gorard’s Sieve), and then apply these grounds to their treatment of a PwC study on the effectiveness of virtual reality soft skills training. This clarity makes up for any deficiencies in the article, as it makes the grounds for disagreement easy to identify. For example, the authors give PwC a 'zero' for fairness because "instead of replicating the linear approach used in the classroom and eLearning intervention, the VR intervention was non-linear and more interactive." They assert, "If you want to compare interventions, the design needs to be exactly the same!" Now I disagree with this. The modality matters; affordances matter. You can't do exactly the same things. And we could talk about that, but what I appreciate is how easy they've made it to identify this specific issue, one among several I would have with this post.

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Oxford Common File Layout Specification
Andrew Hankinson, et.al., 2020/07/08

Just announced as version 1.0, the Oxford Common File Layout (OCFL) specification describes "an application-independent approach to the storage of digital objects in a structured, transparent, and predictable manner... addressing five primary requirements: completeness, parsability, versioning, robustness, and storage diversity." What caught my attention in the specification was the use of content addressing in the file manifest (recommending SHA512 encryption). OCFL lacks the coolness factor of the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) but they have the same mechanics at the core.

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A Survival Guide for Black, Indigenous, and Other Women of Color in Academe
Aisha S. Ahmad, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2020/07/08

Very good advice: "Talk to your aunties and other women of color whom you trust. Every single one of us has been told these same lies. Vipers are old news. We will help keep your eyes on your big vision, not on this petty tyrant. We will remind you of the research that inspired you down this path. That perspective will help shrink the viper down to size."

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2.5x Global MOOC Web Traffic
Holon IQ, 2020/07/08

Just for the record, "MOOC's attracted almost 500 million visits from learners around the world in the last 30 days." The short article continues, "MOOCs were never dead. This is not a come-back. Gradually, and accelerated by the circumstances of COVID-19, the current and potential role of MOOCs in the post-secondary landscape is becoming more widely understood.

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He, She, One, They, Ho, Hus, Hum, Ita
Amia Srinivasan, London Review of Books, 2020/07/08

What we need to understand is that everything is like this, not just language: "While no single individual can, by fiat, change the meaning of a word, groups of individuals, by changing patterns of usage, can... What words mean and which words exist is not up to any single person. But it is up to us, collectively." This is understood by conservatives, writes Amia Srinivasan, "who love to make fun of linguistic innovators as if they were divorced from reality, privately recognise and fear," just as it is understood by progressives, "in which too much hope can be invested." Anyhow, this is a long and interesting read about gender in language and especially in pronouns. And it shows how we teach and learn through every sentence we speak or hear. Every action we take both at once displays and informs our understanding of the world.

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