OLDaily

Caring in Practice, Caring for Knowledge
Johanna Funk, Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2021/09/10

"The focus of this study," writes author Johanna Funk, "was to refine the concept of care and compassion pedagogy whilst developing a sustainable model for caring for knowledge as higher education professionals." It does this in the context of "the redevelopment and evaluation of a unit of learning called Cultural Capabilities" during the pandemic. It raises such concepts as 'knowledge authority', which is "the practice, role, and responsibility of Aboriginal custodians to care for knowledge," and ways of consensus that include ‘dissensus’, or ‘going-on doing difference together’. There's an empirical element to the paper, but with questions this complex and numbers this low it's hard to assign the findings and credence. The recommendations (for example, "universities need sustainable ways to embed cognitive compassion for knowledge, learners, and staff, such as in training required of all staff" similarly lack depth and foresight). What is of value here is the discussion. This paper is part of a JIME special collection on Learning from Lockdown: challenges and benefits.

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Ready Or Not, Facebook’s New Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Are Here
Andrew Heinzman, ReviewGeek, 2021/09/10

Strictly from a design perspective, I don't see Facebook's new RayBan sunglasses as an improvement on Google Glass. And I imagine people will have a similar experience, being unable to avoid fixating on the unwavering video cameras staring them in the face. " Unlike Google Glass or Facebook’s experimental Project Aria glasses, Ray-Ban Stories do not feature any built-in displays or crazy AR software. They won’t replace your phone, though they will help you shoot hands-free video using two discreet 5MP cameras and three microphones. The frames also pack two personal speakers for taking calls or listening to music." So I'm not really seeing much value there, though as usual marketing could change everything.

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The Incentives to Publish No Longer Reward the Web’s Creators
Rand Fishkin, SparkToro, 2021/09/10

I'm not going to deny observing the phenomenon described in this article. "The major social, discovery, and amplification platforms have reduced the value of externally-published content." Or to say the same thing another way, "The incentives for content creators is clear: make stuff for our platform. Native video. Native images. Native text posts. Don’t you dare link out. Or we’ll crush your reach." Now we need to understand what constitutes 'incentives' on this account: links, shares, visibility, engagement. Rand Fishkin suggests that the options are essentially limited to playing the platforms' game, trying to keep some space for oneself, or focusing on high-engagement contacts, like email followers. I would argue that the biggest change people can make is in changing where we read.

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Salon is closing comments for good. Here's why
Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon, 2021/09/10

I found this reading my 'one free article' on Digiday (I use a combination of Firefox plus some plugins that gets me past most subscription barriers) but decided to link to Salon's announcement directly. They don't explain why directly but you can read it between the lines: "moderating, kicking trolls and spammers to the curb." They recommend you talk about salon articles on social media. And they're placing their bets on email newsletters. This is all part of a wider shift in the online publishing world. As advertising revenue collapses, publications are seeking to lock in paying subscribers. But moving all comment and discussion to social media sites is like jumping from the frying pan into the cesspool. Nothing good for Salon or any other publication will come of that.

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Mindsets: the state of the art
Philip Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2021/09/10

I'm somewhat sceptical about the concept of 'mindsets'. At best, I would characterize them as 'beliefs' or at best, 'frames' (in the sense George Lakoff uses them). But some mindsets seem to be particularly important to some educators, to the point even that PISA evaluated them in its 2018 study. For example, they asked students to respond to the statement "Your intelligence is something about you that you can’t change very much." Well, you may believe one thing or another, and it depends a lot on what the word 'intelligence' means, but this to me is an empirical question. But the response is supposed to reveal whether someone has a 'growth mindset'. The idea - and it's discussed a bit in this article - is that the correct mindset might lead to better educational outcomes. Well what if it does? What if believing a false thing led to better outcomes?

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An Australian court ruling makes publishers legally responsible for every idiot Facebook user who leaves a comment
Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab, 2021/09/10

There has been a lot of debate not just in Australia but around the world about how much liability content publishers have for comments (including tweets, posts, whatever) that appear on their sites. The publishers like to argue that they are 'common carriers', like the phone company, and merely platforms. In places like the United States, they are protected by a law called 'section 230', which gives them the right to moderate content, but doesn't require them to. Some pundits, like Jeff Jarvis, call it "the 26 words that created the internet". So if Facebook (say) is not responsible, who is? How about the news organizations that create Facebook pages? In Australia, companies even pay a 'tax' for news content. Or are they protected by the same common carrier provision? That's what this article is about.

I can see why people defend the law. It removes most of the risk of publishing online for everyone. People who could never dream of publishing now had a platform, whether it was Blogger, Facebook or TikTok. But it also created a system in which nobody was responsible for content, with the resulting ocean of invective and disinformation we see online today. I wonder what sort of internet we would have if (a) each person or company were legally responsible for whatever appeared on their site, but  (b) each could actually have their own site, and (c) there were legal protections and mechanisms to prevent expensive trials and lawsuits (in other words, justice for everyone, not just those who can afford it). Pie in the sky, I know. But I wonder.

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