OLDaily

Boundary Crossing between Formal and Informal Learning Opportunities: A Pathway for Advancing e-Learning Sustainability
2021/05/31

This paper interprets of formal and informal learning in MOOCs using Activity Theory-based models and argues that "contradictions that could lead to the emergence of a new activity system to reconcile formal and informal learning 'cultural historical activity theory' (CHAT) elements." These elements could be said to be a boundary-crossing bridge between the formal and informal aspects of the MOOC. For example, "when a mediating artefact, such as a LMS,is not helpful as a communication tool among a community of learners," we could predict the emergence of an intermediary activity system, and if the "contradiction become unmanageable, tensions could escalate to a point where learners abandon the LMS altogether." We've seen that sort of behavior in the past were people working with Coursera or Udacity MOOCs developed their own learning community to make up for the lack of any such activity in the platform. I think the paper could be more clearly written, and it's not obvious what couching the discussion in Activity Theory buys us, but it's still worth a look.

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Mapping Assessment
Ron Ritchhart, 2021/05/31

This post proposes a way to map ( or categorize) different types of assessment based on two axes: one which ranges from 'people as they are' (ie., to use Ron Ritchhart's terms, low judgement) to 'people as they should be' (ie., 'highly evaluative'), and the other which ranges from embedded evaluation (ie., set in the flow of work) and evaluation that is set apart (for example, a formal test). It's a nice categorization but the post seems a little weak to me on what we would do with this mapping. Ritchhart says only that "the point of this mapping is not to label any of these sets of practices as good or bad but to map the terrain, to provide a bird’s eye view if you will, about what assessment can mean in different contexts." Which, really, tells me nothing.

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How To Write A Visual Style Guide for eLearning
Connie Malamed, The eLearning Coach, 2021/05/31

This is a really basic list and really only applies if you're designing templates for web pages, slide presentations or PDFs (if you're manually encoding any of this you're doing it wrong). It's useful because it serves to remind us of the detail involved in creating visual interfaces. In real eLearning design, of course, this is just the starting point. For web design, almost all of the elements described here would be incorporated into style sheets. Then you would add on a set of standard interactive elements (such as dropdown selections, search interfaces, breadcrumbs) and work up to macro elements of design (how to incorporate discussions, simulations, and maybe static content such as presentations of PDFs). So, like I say, a start. But you have to start somewhere. (p.s. don't click on the 'download now' link, it's not a download link, it's a third-party subscription link from leadpages.net. Here's a real visual design checklist from Blue Wire rather than the fake one this post provides.)

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AI is growing in higher education, but it isn't automating everything
Emily Bamforth, EdScoop, 2021/05/31

Somethings I just want to grab editors and say to them "Don't tell me that something doesn't do everything." Nothing does everything. And I blame the editor because in the very first paragraph of the story we have the much more narrow assertion that "AI is still serving as an assistant, not a full-time employee." Which is still a bit like "AI doesn't do everything" but at least now we've narrowed it down to the scope of a single job. But the thing is, even humans don't do everything, which is why is most every workplace we have more than one human. And when we say an 'AI is serving as an assistant' or describe 'AI as a teammate' we're pointing to a job that could be done by a human (maybe), but isn't. For example, in this article, we're talking about chatbots that help first-year students find information they need. And that is the interesting part of the article and what should be in the headline.

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How to Make Learning Stick
Eric Sheninger, A Principal's Reflections, 2021/05/31

As I read through this post it seems to me to be saying that the main rule here is 'use it or lose it'. Viewed from that perspective, this post can be read as describing various ways to 'use it' (for example, 'students teach students' and 'active application'. And there's also some attention paid to what we mean by 'it' - if there's too much 'it' (i.e., 'cognitive overload') then we never really get the change to use it. And then, at a meta-level, there are factors that would make students comfortable and willing to 'use it' - for example, 'tap into feelings' and 'embrace mistakes'. It's all the same sort of advice I see in posts on language learning. It all sounds so easy when we read it here - but we know it's not.

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Effect of three network visualizations on students' social-cognitive engagement in online discussions
Fan Ouyang, Si Chen, Xu Li, British Journal of Educational Technology, 2021/05/31

Social Learning Analytics (SLA) can be used to help students visualize what is happening in their courses. For example, an SLA dashboard can represent the graph of interactions with other course participants. An SLA tool named CanvasNet does this, for example. But does it help? This article tries to dig into this question by studying the impact of three types of graph visualization: the social network, the topic network, and the cognitive network (that measures the depth of the students' engagement with the content). The results? Well, it depends on which students we're talking about. For example, "when peripheral students were provided with social and cognitive information, they developed a better self-awareness of their learning processes and thus their engagement increased." But as usual this is a small study with limited applicability, so take the results as preliminary only.

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