OLDaily

50+ UGC Approved Online Degrees from India's Top Universities
Dhawal Shah, Class Central, 2020/07/15

As Dhawal Shah says, "Though this might be seen as a response to the pandemic... India’s online degrees were made possible by regulations approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) back in 2018." What's worth noting here are the costs for these degrees - "The most expensive ones, like IIT Madras’ BSc or Amity University’s MBA, cost half as much as Georgia Tech’s online degree. And the cheapest one, IGNOU’s Bachelor of Tourism, costs 10,200 Rupees or about $135." This is the price range we should be expecting worldwide, not just in India.

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Three CSS Alternatives to JavaScript Navigation
Blake Lundquist, CSS-Tricks, 2020/07/15

I decided the other day that my web pages - more than 30,000 of them - are too heavy. So I'm creating static pages for every post, and I've decided these should be as lightweight as possible, mobile-first and responsive, and functional without even a hint of Javascript. So for navigation I've opted for the third of the three solutions in this article, the hamburger menu. I still need to figure out what to do with images, which right now are too large and load too slowly. And I want to include some contextual information, for example, categories or keywords, under the post text. I'm open to any and all suggestions. Take a took at this test page for this post and give me your comments.

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Welcome to Diff, a community blog for the Wikimedia movement
Adora Svitak, Diff, 2020/07/15

Diff is a new blog for Wikimedians. As they write, "The scope of the Diff blog is news about the Wikimedia movement, for the Wikimedia movement. Check out our first two posts, on Wiki Her Story and Juneteenth." What's interesting about this blog is that submissions are reviewed. "After you have set up your account, you can create a new article and submit it for review." So that sort of makes it a publication. I can see a niche here for formal recognition of blog posts - if I were to do a similar thing, what I'd change is that I'd require posts to have been published on the author's blog first and then nominated for inclusion in the reviewed blog by the authors of previous posts in the blog.

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Google announces 100,000 scholarships for online certificates in data analytics, project management and UX
Abigail Hess, CNBC, 2020/07/15

As the story says, "Google announced three new online certificate programs in data analytics, project management and user experience design... Google says it will consider all of its certificates as the equivalent of a four-year college degree for related roles at the company." More. The response from some in higher ed? "I can feel the rage building. Hey Google instead of trying to address educational inequality by dismantling higher ed in the middle of a pandemic maybe you could f****in **fund scholarships** in higher ed." But what do they expect? Donald Clark asks, "Are we finally seeing the flip away from Universities towards a balanced educational landscape... It needed a plague?" And George Siemens comments, "the growth of capability assessment outside of universities is one of the most significant trends."

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Israeli Data Show School Openings Were a Disaster That Wiped Out Lockdown Gains
Noga Tarnopolsky, The Daily Beast, 2020/07/15

Israel had virtually eliminated the Covid outbreak. Then it reopened schools and the pandemic came back with a vengeance. “Adults, including teachers and other employees, brought it into schools, which are, in the end, closed spaces, he said, underscoring the finding that middle-school children proved to be the most dangerous vectors." Fair warning.

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Five lessons learnt from Bangladesh's experience responding to COVID-19
Md. Afzal Hossain Sarwar, Iqbal Hossain, Tom Kaye, The EdTech Hub, 2020/07/15

What characterizes Bangladesh's technology response during the pandemic is the variety of tools used to support online learning, including television, internet, mobile phone, and radio. This philosophy of using multiple pathways is essential where not everyone has access to all services, and its continuation even after the pandemic is one of the five lessons learned in this post. Other lessons included a collaborative response based on the government’s philosophy of equity and inclusiveness, the ability to overcome stigmas about using technology to support education, and moving away from traditional pedagogies like rote learning.

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ACE Framework
Robin DeRosa, Plymouth State University, 2020/07/15

This is a link to the ACE framework - ACE standing for 'Adaptability, Connection, and Equity' - in use at Plymouth State University. "ACE elevates three characteristics that are clear, context-sensitive, values-driven, and mission-aligned; we can use them to plan assignment-, course-, and institution-level responses to crisis (such as COVID-19) in the areas of our university that are connected to teaching and learning." (I've referenced this elsewhere, but it doesn't show as a duplicate link in OLDaily, so here it is). Here's a larger version of the image, a grid of ACE-informed practices.dd

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