OLDaily

Presentation
Personal Learning: Taking Ownership of Learning Online – Part 4
Stephen Downes, Oct 19, 2020, Maskwacis Cultural College,

[Slides]

Presentation
Personal Learning: Taking Ownership of Learning Online – Part 3
Stephen Downes, Oct 19, 2020, Maskwacis Cultural College, Online, Via Zoom

[Slides]

‘Don’t Get Gaggled’: Minneapolis School District Spends Big on Student Surveillance Tool, Raising Ire After Terminating Its Police Contract
Mark Keierleber, The 74, 2020/10/19

This article describes concerns being raised about Gaggle, "currently used in hundreds of districts across the U.S., relying on artificial intelligence and a team of moderators paid as little as $10 an hour to scan billions of student emails, chat messages and files each year." The author does note that Gaggle says it "cannot guarantee security and confidentiality through its services” and “may choose to turn over” student messages to the police. Critic Marika Pfefferkorn says “My concern was that they would replace physical policing with technological policing" and that Gaggle “has the potential to further criminalize students.” These are, to my mind, valid concerns.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

JSON Schema for JSON-LD
Phil Barker, Sharing and learning, 2020/10/19

A lot of this work on learning resource metadata is still relevant, though we certainly don't see it in the mainstream any more. The industry doesn't help itself; as Phil Barker writes, "I’m discussing JSON, RDF as JSON-LD, JSON Schema, RDF Schema and schema.org; which are all different things." For our purposes, Javascript Object Notation (JSON) Linked Data (LD), or JSON-LD, os probably the most important. As Barker says, "one of the factors in the big increase in visibility of linked data over that last few years has been the acceptability of JSON-LD to programmers familiar with JSON." Anyhow, this article descends into the weeds pretty quickly - you don't have to follow everything but it's important to remember that this is the plumbing that makes (and will make) a lot of learning applications work together.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

New PLOS pricing test could signal end of scientists paying to publish free papers
Jeffrey Brainard, Science, 2020/10/19

The original model established by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) was to charge authors to publish papers. These papers would then be made available to everyone for free - in other words, they would be made open access (the real kind of open, not the fake 'open' we see elsewhere). This model has always had its issues; it was inequitable, for one, and is difficult to make sustainable. The new model being piloted would have institutions, not individuals, pay the publication costs. "The fee is based in part on how many papers all researchers at all institutions in the tier have published in recent years in the journal, either as corresponding or contributing authors." It's a model that should be watched closely by producers of open educational resources.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Coursera Explores a $59/month Pricing for Its Catalog Subscription
Dhawal Shah, Class Central, 2020/10/19

The price of 'open' is $US 59 per month, at least in the world of Coursera. I think maybe it's time to stop using the word 'MOOC' to describe these providers, because they're really nothing more than just another publisher charging money for online content (indeed, they're more expensive than most such providers; even the New York Times costs less than half that amount). Dhawal Shah notes that the rollout has been very uneven, isn't consistently documented, and doesn't appear to be available to everyone.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Open Letter: Children Are Subjected To Behavioural Advertising – End It!
Mie Oehlenschlager, Data Ethics, 2020/10/19

Online behavioural advertising "involves tracking consumers’ online activities, across sites and over time in order to deliver advertisements targeted to their inferred interests." Directed at children, it can be especially effective. This has led a mixed group of individuals and agencies mostly based in the U.K. to write an open letter calling for "an end to behavioural ads to those individuals platforms know are – or are identified as – under 18." The write, "There is no justification for targeting teenagers with personalised ads any more than there is for targeting 12-year-olds."  In Canada, the Privacy Commissioner recommends behavioural advertising not be extended to forms of tracking that cannot be controlled by individuals, and also that it not be extended to children. "It is hard to argue that young children could meaningfully consent to such practices, and the profiling of youngsters to serve them online behaviourally targeted ads seems inappropriate in such circumstances." Image: FTC.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Stand Against Proctorio's SLAPP
Ian Linkletter, GoFundMe, 2020/10/19

You may recall that a learning technologist at UBC, Ian Linkletter, has been sued by Proctorio, a student surveillance company ostensibly for posting links to videos published by the company on YouTube (but more likely because he has been a vocal critic of Proctorio's practices - Linkletter calls the lawsuit a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP)). Over the weekend, Linkletter launched his defense with a statement to media and a fundraising campaign. In just a couple of days he raised more than $20,000 from the community. Yes, I contributed.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Learning theories timeline: key ideas from educational psychology
Jonathon Thomas, myBRAINisOPEN, 2020/10/19

This is a pretty nice resource. We should not (as the title suggests) that it is weighted toward educational psychology, so it's not going to include a lot of what we might normally consider educational theory (examples: Jay Cross on informal learning, Anderson et.al. on Presence, Hattie on effect size, Moore on transactional distance, etc.,etc.) - but in fairness, the website as a whole includes these and many more. I like how it is colour coded to identify different theoretical strands. I think it's good that connectivism is included; I would also lobby for a listing for 'knowledge as recognition', that is, the idea that "We're not teaching people what to know, we're teaching them how to see, which is a very different enterprise." But maybe it's too soon for that.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]