OLDaily

Personalizing performance, not learning: lessons from mass customization
Edward Boon, Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Chief Learning Officer, 2020/09/28

I don't think the authors completely considered how readers would react to their use of cows as an analogy for personalized learning. Still, in an odd way, it works: "the specific feed mixture and the milking schedule is individualized at the point of feeding and milking, tailoring diet and schedule to each particular cow." These cows have more freedom than the average schoolchild! The authors advocate "an approach called adaptive customization that moves the point of personalization in the production and supply process as close as possible to the end user... he means by which learning is transferred into improved workplace performance can be conceived as a process." The article needs, I think, to explore more precisely what we mean by learning and development personalization techniques and tools. They need (in my view) to be open-ended and promote user agency. Just as for the, um, cows.

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The UnMOOCing Process: Extending the Impact ofMOOC Educational Resources as OERs
José A. Ruipérez-Valiente, Sergio Martin, Justin Reich, Manuel Castro, Sustainability, 2020/09/28

This post presents "a process that we call ‘unMOOCing’, in which we transform the resources of a MOOC into OERs." Now of course MOOCs should all be open educational resources (OER) in the first place (it's in the name!) but of course certain private MOOC companies have (as they say) 'pivoted' to closed open resources. "Through the unMOOCing process, course developers can find new audiences for their learning resources. Republishing content in new formats facilitates reuse by other educators and assures that course content remains accessible even after a MOOC finishes." The bulk of the paper describes and assesses an actual process of unMOOCing; "the two unMOOCed materials that were considered as most useful (presentations and contents in a PDF) were downloaded by 90% of the learners." From a special issue of Sustainability on the future of open education.

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Home-worker… care-work… self-care.
Maren Deepwell, 2020/09/28

These days I work from home full time, but I've always had a home office and spent a lot of time working at home, a holdover from my university days. Like Maren Deepwell I have adopted some self-care mechanisms over the years, and while mine are different, they still have the same emphasis on self-care, because it's too easy to burn out, whether working at home or in the office. But I've also discovered that self-care is a luxury you get only once you've achieved a measure of stability. Until then you can't - or won't - let up. So I think of self-care as an equity issue. Part of that equity is being able to give yourself permission to (say) take a day off. And part of it is being able to afford to.

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