OLDaily

Presentation
Learning and Teaching in a Pandemic: Opportunities, Challenges and Lessons Learned
Stephen Downes, Sept 14, 2021, TILT Annual Learning and Teaching Conference (ALTC) 2021, Online, to Nottingham, UK, via MS Teams

In this presentation I draw on my experience and coverage of stories of learning and teaching in the pandemic to bring together the best of what we learned over the last two years. From the perspective of three conference themes: 1. Active, Collaborative Learning, 2. Digital Tools and Technologies, and 3. Learning Communities, I look at where academics and universities excelled, where they struggled, and where they adopted new practises that may have a more lasting impact. I summarise these into ten core lessons we learned about learning and teaching during the pandemic, three challenges facing us as we leverage these into a better 'new normal', and three concrete opportunities for action we can take to facilitate improvements in learning, based on these lessons.

[Link] [Slides] [Audio] [Video]

Feature Article
Considerations on the Framework for Ethical Learning Technology
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, 2021/09/14

The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) Framework for Ethical Learning Technology (FELT), discussed in this white paper is divided into four major areas: awareness, professionalism, care and community, and values. I look at each in turn, to consider each point in turn.

[Link] [Comment]

Continuing Savings from Past OER Grants (Second Report)
Open Oregon, 2021/09/14

This is pretty typical. If you need a report to document a return on investment (ROI) for an open educational resources (OER) project, here you are: "In the OER grant programs for which prior data is available, the estimated cumulative student savings is $14,108,853, or about $12 in student savings per program dollar spent. For these four grant programs, savings have tripled over the past two years."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

ALTC 2021 – Ethics, joy and no gobackery
Lorna Campbell, Open World, 2021/09/14

This is a short summary of the ALT-C conference held last week in the UK, and I'm covering it mostly for the inclusion of "the launch of the ALT Framework for Ethical Learning Technology," and the focus on ethics that "was a central theme that ran throughout the conference." I always ask of such frameworks whether this is a thing that people will do, and will it get us where we want to go? Also worth a mention is Lou Mycroft’s keynote. "Lou acknowledged that the ethics of accountability and KPIs will not be changing any time soon...  However there is still a place for hope and joy. In a sector that currently appears to be exercising all its considerable power to pull us back to old entrenched ways living, working, being, learning, we need to use our own hope and joy to keep driving change forwards."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Radical Eyes for Equity: Moving from “All Students Must” to “Each Student Deserves”
P.L. Thomas, National Education Policy Center, 2021/09/14

Back in the days of the eduSource project I used to have a slogan: "enable, don't require." That should be, I think, the watchword for any work on equity. "When SoR advocates call for 'all students must' (for example, systematic intensive phonics for all students and universal screening for dyslexia), they are misrepresenting what we know about teaching and learning: There is no universal silver bullet for 'all students.' Best practice structures promote research and evidence as a spectrum, a range of practices for every teacher’s toolbox; best practice also recommends that instruction begin with individual students, their demonstrated known, unknown, and misconceptions."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How we can all decolonize the journalism internship process
Kathy Lu, Poynter, 2021/09/14

There are some really good points here, but I'm also left with some lingering questions. The good points revolve around the critique of a Washington Post advertisement for intern applications that stipulated applicants much have had prior experience in a major newsroom and be a junior, senior or graduate student. "The Post is looking for students with incredible connections and privilege. Because how else could you have had experience in a 'major newsroom' by the time you’re a junior?" It's how the people with privilege acquire new privilege. But how does this become an issue of decolonization? Here's what we read: "This is the result of decades of newsrooms being shaped by a colonist (read: white, middle- to upper-class people) mindset... (but) if you truly want to attract people with a range of life experiences, you have to be more inclusive and empathetic in your hiring process." Well, I agree. But I don't think 'colonist' is the word that applies here.

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