OLDaily

Open Educational Resources in the Commonwealth 2021
Commonwealth of Learning, 2022/02/11

This report (44 page PDF) is based on a survey of educators in various Commonwealth Countries. The demographics (327 usable responses from 38 Commonwealth countries) are pretty diverse, but I have to wonder about the selection of respondents, because we read that "54.7% of the respondents had completed the Understanding Open Educational Resources online course," which can't be true of the wider population. Can it? The course evaluation report states that "a total of 1,419 participants have successfully completed the course". Or that "Over 40% of respondents had never used OER in augmented reality or virtual reality mode (AR/VR)," which means almost 60% have, which again can't be true. Right? Overall, the results suggests that educators are very aware of and very engaged with open educational resources in general ("an overwhelming proportion (85.7%) of the respondents are aware of OER"). But as much as I would like this to be true, the data in this survey feels really suspect to me, and I think we have a case here of 'selected', rather than representative, respondents. I would be delighted to be proven wrong.

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VR Really Has a Kid Problem
DataEthics, 2022/02/11

OK, I don't want to jump on any bandwagons here, but I think a reasoned and cautious statement of these concerns should be taken seriously. The first concern reflects a concern with social media in general: data collection and misuse by social media companies. To use Oculus, for example, you have to sign up for a Facebook account. And right away, that raises warning flags. A second concern has to do with the nature of VR itself. It's a medium that allows you to change your appearance, to behave differently, and to experience strong sensations, as in “Meta aims to be able to simulate you down to every skin pore, every strand of hair, every micromovement." And "minors were regularly exposed to graphic sexual content, racist and violent language, bullying and other forms of harassment on VRChat’s platform, which is typically accessed through Meta’s Oculus headsets." So - let's aim for some caution here.

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Learning analytics – Less planning more science?
Colin Beer, Col's Weblog, 2022/02/11

Colin Beer's core argument here is that "the implementation challenges with learning analytics are actually a subset of the broader challenge whereby our organisations are increasingly autocratic and reductive in their approach to decision making and problem-solving." He's probably right. He adds, "with learning analytics specifically, we should be looking for ways by which we can be less prescriptive, more agile, and more inclusive of more people, particularly in the design phase." If I had to summarize in one sentence my own conclusions after some 50 hours of video looking at the topic, this is about what I would say. The trick, as always, is saying it well. Image: Tony Bates.

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Universities: The often overlooked player in determining healthy democracies
Marc Spooner, Academic Matters, 2022/02/11

Marc Spooner writes, "A country’s tolerance and respect for academic freedom serves as a key indicator of the health of its democracy; let’s not ignore this important warning." He focuses in this column mostly on the American experience, and indeed there has been some pushback in that country. But here in Canada, with demonstrations in the streets and all manner of expression running rampant, I'd say our democracy is in pretty good shape. If universities want to keep it that way, and in passing to preserve academic freedom, I would say they should be focused on serving the community, not themselves, and promoting free expression and job security and a decent wage for everybody (even service workers and teaching assistants!) and not just professors.

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L&D Global Sentiment Survey 2022: the long shadow of Covid-19
Donald H. Taylor, 2022/02/11

Reskilling and personalization were down, while collaborative learning and coaching were up. And these four topped the chart in a year that to me signifies retrenchment and slow progress. And then there's this: "L&D knows what to do, but is striving to obtain the resources, technology, support or engagement to make it happen. If there was a sense last year that there was a major piece of work to be done reskilling and upskilling employees, this year that is tempered by the sheer scale of the task." Companies have simply not made the investment over the last few decades, and the strain is evident. And it's not just in learning: I see the same trend in infrastructure and digital technology, which are also straining against the weight of too little investment and overstretched capacity.

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No, Google isn’t making college degrees obsolete
Ben Wildavsky, Work Shift, 2022/02/11

"It seems reports of the demise of the bachelor’s degree have gotten ahead of the facts on the ground," writes Ben Wildavsky as he reports on a study (30 page PDF) released by the Burning Glass Institute. "Last year nearly eight in 10 information technology postings at Google and more than seven in 10 at Apple specified a bachelor’s or above." That said, the report begins with the following observation: "Employers are resetting degree requirements in a wide range of roles, dropping the requirement for a bachelor’s degree in many middle-skill and even some higher-skill roles." In particular, "Some 46% of middle-skill and 31% of high-skill occupations experienced material degree resets between 2017 and 2019." The trend described in the report is the opposite of the interpretation offered by Wildavsky. Which is why you should always read the report.

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Best from the Brightest: Key Ideas and Insights for L&P Professionals
Will Thalheimer, Tier1 Performance, 2022/02/11

The blogosphere loves a good clip show, and that's what we get here in this presentation of 54 people as 'thought leaders' offering their favourite contribution from 2021 and a brief though on trends for 2022 (notwithstanding the fact that we're more 10% of the way through the year). I've followed many of these people for a number of years, but others are new to me, and that's a useful contribution made by this article. As usual, allow me to point out that this learning and performance community is just one of many such communities, each with its own focus, target audience, and definition of relevance and expertise.

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The Diffusion and Social Implications of MOOCs
Valentina Goglio, ResearchGate, 2022/02/11

I was only able to find the the concluding chapter to this book openly accessible online, but it is well worth the read. It essentially offers a comparative analysis of the MOOC phenomenon in Europe as compared to the United States. Nor surprisingly, it highlights the difference in organization: the economic and commercial model that prevails in the U.S. (and to a degree, in the U.K.) and the institutional model in Europe. It notes that Europe, much more so than the U.S., has sought to preserve open access. Most interestingly, there's an analysis of the role MOOCs play for students in the two regions: in the U.S., there was more emphasis on the acquisition of skills as an advantage in the job market, while in Europe it was "social closure and signaling, consistently with the overall institutional framework."

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The UTS “EdTech Ethics” Deliberative Democracy Consultation: Rationale, Process and Outcomes
Simon Buckingham Shum, University of Technology Sydney, 2022/02/11

The full report (33 page PDF) is worth a read as it's a good description of what the authors are calling a 'deliberative democracy' process. The idea is to create a 'Deliberative Mini-Public' (DMP) representing various segments of the society (in this case, University of Technology Sydney) to discuss and agree on outcomes. The DMP is governed by a selection process and set of principles that "produces a certain mindset in the room, which is very different to that resulting from
a selection process governed by election." To my mind, the process pretty much ensures that the results will be mostly what the organizers desire because any actual conflict of personalities and politics has been eliminated by definition. I say this from experience, having participated in many such meetings over the years in various capacities. In any event, the ethical principles that emerge as an outcome are completely unsurprising: accountability, fairness, equity and access, safety and security, human authority, justification and evidence, and consent.

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