OLDaily

The principles behind European Schoolnet Academies courses (I): the theory of connecting individuals
Benjamin Hertz, European Schoolnet Academy, 2020/09/21

Someone recently asked me for examples of connectivist courses, and I couldn't really answer because it's not something I keep track of. This article, though, offers some insight as it describes how courses in European Schoolnet Academies are designed. "A key aim of most our courses is to establish meaningful connections between education professionals," writes Benjamin Hertz. Additionally, "teachers need to play a key role in shaping their own professional development for it to be meaningful and effective." I wish the article said more, but at least there's a point of contact for those who are interested.

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Online ABC Learning Designer in a (Google) spreadsheet
François Jourde, Carnet de François Jourde, 2020/09/21

This post describes a learning design assessment tool based on the methodology ABC Learning Design and that builds on Diana Laurillard's six learning types (or design patterns). "The tool provides feedback on each design by showing the amount of learning time designed, and a pie chart of the proportion of each of the six learning types in the design. The teacher can then decide what adjustments to make." It's pretty simple, and the types are of course by no means comprehensive, but it does serve as an aid that promotes good practice.

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Reports of Higher Education’s Death Have Been Moderately Exaggerated
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2020/09/21

The art of predicting what will happen with higher education after the pandemic is now a cottage industry, but it should be no surprise to see all pundits arguing that it will be neither extreme (ie., not 'everything changes' and not 'nothing changes'). This article is a good analysis of the in-between, and makes some telling points. For example: "some of the students who are taking the year off won’t come back." That seems undeniably true, but the key question here is 'how many', and if the economic consequences are what we think they'll be, the answer is 'lots'. There will be impacts inside institutions as well. We haven't yet hit the real economic fallout of the crisis, which will be significant. It seems reasonable to assert that "colleges will need to make budget cuts ranging from 15% to 30% over the next one to three years." And in many ways, technology won't fix this. As Feldstein says, "scale is not the answer". Rather, growth (or in this case, preservation) will be accomplished "not so much by scaling as by diversifying, and by rebalancing the academic portfolio."

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Yes, the statement "Black Lives Matter" belongs in the classroom
Christina Torres, Ed Week, 2020/09/21

This response by Christina Torres more than makes up for the hate in the original (paywalled) post. She makes a number of good points.Here's one: talking about race has "resulted in difficult, beautiful, and rich conversations with some of the best people you'll ever meet: my 8th grade students. I have students who disagree with me about politics, and we all survive!" Here's another, and this is even more important: "Teachers don't just teach 'content.' We never have. For generations, we have also taught our students to listen, share, and be empathetic. Teachers don't just help students understand themselves and the world around them, we also model how to have constructive discussions with one another." A society that has lost that core capacity is a society in deep peril.

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An H5P Branching Scenario That Might Break the Boat
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2020/09/21

This post at once introduces you to a BCcampus project called the kitchen and also dives deep into the weeds of creating an immense branching scenario game in H5P, an LMS plugin that helps you create, share and reuse interactive HTML5 content and applications. Alan Levine's article is full of working examples (H5P embeds right into web pages) and a link to a Google spreadsheet used to organize the content. P.S. a video of H5P under the hood.

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