OLDaily

Provincial governments get an incredible bargain from universities
Alex Usher, Twitter, 2021/10/20

Alex Usher offered this Twitter thread (short form writing like this really suits him) discussing eductaional funding in Canada and focusing on 'the hustle' responsible for almost a third of their revenue, "that is, money for which competition of various sorts is required.  That's money from donations, from contracts, sales...and Ottawa." The funding from provinces is even lower than reported here, because Usher doesn't appear to factor in federal transfers to provincial governments. But the main thing here is that hustle money is volitile - it can grow or shrink rapidly, depending on economic variables. This, says Usher, creates "the need to grow or shrink parts of the university quickly." The problem here isn't simply that academic staff would resist this (though of course they would). The problem is that this creates volitility in an instution performing a core social function, which is really the last place you want volitility.

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UX design has a dirty secret
Fast Copmpany, 2021/10/20

The secret is called 'UX theatre'. It's when " designers are asked to pretend to do the work of design and aren’t actually permitted to do the work of design." or when "we’re asked to facilitate workshops in which staff pretend to be users because it’s cheaper and faster." The problem, of course, is that "the end results don’t meet user needs, which generates complaints, returns, poor reviews, and even lowered profits." User experience (UX) is often what distinguishes professionally design commercial products from their open source counterparts, because it is often the most difficult and expensive part of software design.Poor UX often also distinguishes one-off design (such as a university website).

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OpenEd21: Embracing Open for All: Initiatives in Support for Kw’seltktnéws
Clint Lalonde, Ed Tech Factotum, 2021/10/20

Clint Lalonde has been blogging summaries of presentations at OpenEd21, which is happening all week this week. This is a valuable service and should be recognized. "The Secwepemcstin term Kw’seltktnéws means that we are all related and interconnected with nature, each other, and all things. It guides Thompson Rivers University’s institutional vision statement and flows through all we do" (TRU really seems like my sort of place). The presentation summarized here outlines the university's support for interconnectedness, including "an Open Education Working Group to 'foster and support a culture of Open Education initiatives at TRU”.

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Nine UK schools start scanning children’s faces to take their lunch money
Tom Williams, Metro, 2021/10/20

Privacy advocates are concerned that it normalizes intrusive technology. "It’s normalising biometric identity check for something that is mundane. You don’t need to resort to airport style [technology] for children getting their lunch." I think this is true, but in a world that already relies on photo ID I'm less concerned than I might be. And there's a benefit in that people on assistance aren't singled out in a very public way. My main concern is that facial scanning is fragile; add a little thing like pandemic facemasks and it breaks down (or, worse, the need for scanning forces people to remove their masks in a crowded indoor environment). I think near field communication (NFC) cards work just fine.

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MOOCs Are Back
TeachOnline.ca, 2021/10/20

I would argue that MOOCs never went away (though there was no shortage of articles declaring that MOOCs are dead). In any event, there is no denying their surge of popularity over the last 18 months, for obvious reasons. This is a good thing, and not just for MOOCs, as it's introducing people to online elarning in a way that isn't merely remote learning (aka 'lectures by Zoom'). And MOOCs are leading people to higher education. "As the boundaries between continuing education and for-credit learning blur further, more MOOCs will be accepted for transfer into diploma and degree programs."

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Terms of Service; Didn’t Read
2021/10/20

My presentation at Open Learning this week focuses on building a MOOC that doesn't require registration, and for that matter, dispenses with as much counting and tracking as I can get rid of. Why? Well - ask youself, how would a typical educational application or service rate on the tos;dr website. Probably an 'E', the lowest possible rating, along with such companies as Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Do they track you? Sell your data? Change terms arbitrarily? Edit or remove content without consent? So I think it's worth the time trying to imagine how to do online learning without scoring an 'E'. The service dates from 2012 but still makes its point.

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Culture Amp Acquires Disco, And A Funny Story
Josh Bersin, 2021/10/20

This post from a couple weeks ago is less about the news in the headline and more of a way to introduce readers to CultureAmp, a company that makes tools that encourage employee engagement, mutual support, and company culture. Disco (formerly called GrowBot) was a Slack plugin that was "an AI-based 'nudging' system that helps you and your team pay attention to each other, support each other, and develop each other over time." You can see how this related to online learning and performance support, and it lets us think of a softer and more social approach than traditional classrooms and remote learning applications.

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The future is hybrid
Wendy M. Grossman, New.Wars, 2021/10/20

"'Next year, we'll be able to see each other in person!'" says the host. Unnoticed, about a third of the attendees wince. They're the folks in Alaska, New Zealand, or Israel, who in normal times would struggle to attend." Count me as among the wincers. Sure, pre-pandemic I got to travel a lot, but that was only through invitations to speak, which meant that I was basically never returning to conferences. During the pandemic, however, I have been treated to a virtual wealth of conferences, and even though I have to pay for are coming in at a much lower cost. That's why the future is hybrid. (This post also has commentary on employee activism at tech companies and the absurdity of depicting 'view source' as a form of hacking).

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