OLDaily

Don’t outsource your parenting to a spy lamp
Ted Mo Chen, TechNode, 2021/06/01

Making the rounds today is a Wall Street Journal story about ByteDance's new childminder lamp. Like most paywalled articles, the story spins old news you can get for free from more trustworthy sources. This article from TechNode covered the story back in February, describing Czur's Auramate and ByteDance's Dali. It argues that "these advertised 'must-haves' intrude on household privacy and throw obstacles to self-directed, cross-disciplinary learning." It offers one particularly telling example: "When 'bad form' (such as slouching) is detected, the lamp sends a voice alert and simultaneously preserves photo evidence." See also: TechCrunch, from last October (which doesn't include the spy angle), and EduTech from last April ("The message is that the technology can help parents both have a life and be responsible about their children’s education"). Image: QQ.

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Pixabay joins the Unsplash Image Licensing Earthquake
Alex Preukschat, PixelRockstar, 2021/06/01

The open licensing world is being roiled by defections from Creative Commons by image library services Unsplash and Pixabay. Instead of using CC0 (which is as near to 'public domain' as Creative Commons can get) they are now using their own licenses. At the centre of the dispute is the commercial republication of the images: "sites like Pixabay take images from Unsplash (and others), post to their site as if they were theirs AND use the platform to funnel users to buy their premium (Shutterstock) images." Similarly, "Getty has been accused of selling images in the public domain before." The new licenses, like Pixabay's, tell users, "Don't sell unaltered copies of an image. e.g. sell an exact copy of a stock photo as a poster, print or on a physical product."

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Google’s new voice recognition system works instantly and offline (if you have a Pixel)
Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch, 2021/06/01

This is a couple of years ago, but I still get inquiries when I use automated transcription during a talk. Specifically, what I use (and sometimes show) is Google's audio transcription, which is available in the voice recorder on Google Pixel phones. It types out what I'm saying as I speak. My own experience is that it is quite good, though it needs to better recognize the end of sentences. You can also try voice typing in Google Docs. This article offers a brief description and reference for more detail. Google's audio transcription is also available as a cloud service (more). In addition, Google's voice translation is available on Chrome and is still in early stages of development.

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FAIR Competence Framework for Higher Education
Yuri Demchenko, et.al., FAIRsFAIR, 2021/06/01

For the next two weeks I will be involved in a book sprint with FAIRsFAIR, an organization that promotes open data standards, based on the principles of data that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (as illustrated; see page 16 of the document). Our document will draw on various sources, including this book, which "provides the competences definition structure that allows easy mapping to a Body of Knowledge and set of Learning Outcomes that can be used for defining academic curricula." The competences include such skills as data management, research methods, analytics, business processes and data science engineering.

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The Open Science Training Handbook
Sonja Bezjak, et.al., FOSTER, 2021/06/01

From the website: the Open Science Training Handbook was written during a book sprint in February 2018. It is maintained in a GitHub repository and you can read the latest version in a Gitbook. This website on Zenodo has docx and pdf (191 page PDF) versions. "Bringing together methods, techniques, and practices, the handbook aims at supporting educators of Open Science. The result is intended as a helpful guide on how to forward knowledge on Open Science principles to our networks, institutions, colleagues, and students." It is hosted by the FOSTER Consortium.

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10 Key Actions to Ensure Micro-Credentials Meet the Needs of Learners and Employers
TeachOnline.ca, Contact North, 2021/06/01

Microcredentials, according to the article, "are designed to help close the skills gap and get people back to work. They also reflect a trend toward on-demand, short-form learning that is focused on skills, competencies and specific capabilities — a shift away from long-form learning, such as degrees and diplomas." All this may be true - but let's keep in mind that none of this is inherent to microcredentials. The ten points described here might apply to any learning, and not just micro-credentials, but the latter are topical today. And conversely, there's nothing preventing an institution from offering a microcredential in, say, Topics in Medieval Philosophy (which, by the way, would be way cooler than the title suggests - trust me).

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The Status of Microcredentialsin Canadian Colleges and Institutes
Colleges and Institutes Canada, 2021/06/01

I ran across this report (43 page PDF) while responding to a request for information. It's definitely worth sharing. Basically, "Colleges and Institutes Canada therefore undertook an environmental scan to ascertain how these courses are defined in Canada, what they look like and where they are being offered." What they found was very much a mixed field but also a great deal of interest. "Respondents saw them as an important component of their range of programs and agree that they should be stackable, flexible, validated and accessible to vulnerable populations."

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