OLDaily

Presentation
Personal Learning: Taking Ownership of Learning Online – Part 2
Stephen Downes, Sept 10, 2020,

Stuff coming...

The LAVA Model: Learning Analytics Meets Visual Analytics
Mohamed Amine Chatti, Arham Muslim, Manpriya Guliani, Mouadh Guesmi, Preprint, 2020/09/10

This article introduces the Learning Analytics and Visual Analytics (LAVA) model "as a conceptual framework through which VA can be seamlessly integrated into the LA process." The idea is to extend trhe human in the loop approach used in LA to include VA as well. "The concept of VA," write the authors, "can be better understood based on the sense-making loop for visual analytics... A visualization is presented to the user based on the initial analysis of the dataset... the user drives the analysis process to draw new insights and accumulate knowledge through exploration. The user can interact with the visual representations to get a better understanding of the data through the different possible views."

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Salesforce Releases Photon Natural Language Interface for Databases
Anthony Alford, InfoQ, 2020/09/10

The gist here is that natural language questions are automatically translated into structured query language (SQL), that is, a format that is recognized by databases. In cases where the question cannot be translated, the system engages in a dialogue to narrow down the question. The program has access to the database's 'categorical' columns. "Photon uses a strategy called semantic parsing which converts the natural-language question into a logical form---essentially translating human language into programming language statements. Photon's parser is based on a neural-network whose input is a natural-language question concatenated with the database schema, and whose output is an SQL query." Another step forward...

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Dashboards in your inbox – Revisting tips on emailing inline Google Sheet chart images with Google Apps Scrip
Martin Hawksey, MASHe, 2020/09/10

Martin Hawksey shares a nice Google Sheets hack where he has the spreadsheet collect data from various sources, compile it into a dashboard-style image, and have it automatically sent to him by email. He cautions, "The embed url used in this solution isn’t officially documented and as such Google may close/modify this without any notification." But more to the point, "This script is also hopefully a starting point for you to really go to town with the layout of your emails and include multiple charts and other html layout." He provides links to an example and scripts.

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Programação aberta CIET:EnPED 2020
CIET:EnPED 2020, 2020/09/10

Videos of the presentations from the recent  conference are now available, including my own, which greatly benefits from Portuguese and Spanish (Spain) captions. Other presentations include Som Naidu, The Idea of Open Education (In English, with Portuguese and Spanish captions), Ruth S. Contreras-Espinosa on Gamificación (Spanish, multilingual captions), Teresa Maia e Carmo
Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades (Spanish, multilingual captions). These are quality talks from a wide range of scholars from around the world.

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The future of school may be outdoors, even after the pandemic
Sarah Bridge, David Common, CBC News, 2020/09/10

Count me as a fan of outdoor school (even if by 'outdoors' we mean inside various other buildings, just not in schools). It's funny - one of my most memorable 'outdoor' school activities as a a class visit from our school in a small rural village to the 'slums' of the By-Ward area in Ottawa. Learning outside school makes it immediate and personal. "Gibson suggested educators ask themselves, 'What's the math in that tree? What's the science in that tree? Where are the arts in that tree?' She believes it's all there. Holding classes outside in the community is not only possible, Gibson said, but is 'crucial,' even beyond the pandemic. Curriculum, she said, is 'supposed to be what children need to function in the world, not just inside the building [and] not just inside their homes.'"

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Images of Learning through Music: The Sounds of Cognition
Laura Ritchie, International Journal of Management and Applied Research, 2020/09/10

I think this is key: "By accessing concept knowledge directly through representation and then experience, the need for translation of technical or theoretical material is bypassed." This is in contrast to, say, constructivism, where there is a focus on 'making meaning' by constructing theory and models. And it eliminates the ambiguity created by these more abstract forms of learning. "One of the most effective aspects of this practice is that people cannot refute the fact that they have accomplished these things. It is not a conceptual or theoretical discussion or learning experience, and so there is added meaning in the experience." (10 page PDF)

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