OLDaily

How I Create My Weekly Newsletter (and personal curation tips you should steal)
Mike Taylor, 2022/03/01

Mike Taylor publishes a very good weekly newsletter and here he describes the process. It's very similar to my own. "Instead of going out and looking for stuff, having the stuff you want come to you is WAAAAYY better," he says. This is true to a certain extent. If you're not stretching yourself (for example, by researching and developing), the stuff coming in to you gets stale very quickly. The second part (which is also the hardest) is to filter the material, in order to focus on what really matters. Taylor uses Feedly Boards; I use a complex process that involves staging resources (from Feedly and elsewhere) in Pocket, and working from there. The third step is to share. Taylor finds this step the hardest. Our experience is the same, though: only a small part of the time I take to do my newsletter is the actual writing of it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

‘Technology doesn’t always make education better’
Audrey Watters, JISC, 2022/03/01

We won't blame Audrey Watters for the super-lame (and super-obvious) headline, even though the quotation marks make it seem like she says this in the article (she doesn't; I checked). What she actually offers is the more subtle point that "we want to do things better, and the technologies on offer aren't always the way to get us there." The technologies on offer, she argues, "take the required curriculum that is still standardised and still the same for everybody, and simply presents it to students to work through at their own pace." Better would be to "encourage students to have their own website or blog – a digital presence where they can build out their space and think about what that looks like for them, not just as future academics but as future citizens."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Videoconferences in higher education: The good frame
Alberto Ramírez Martinell, 2022/03/01

The good videoconferencing frame, according to Alberto Ramírez Martinell, is "is a frame with good camera angle, distance and speaker’s position, [that] a harmonic composition to watch" and that doesn't cut body parts in an awkward way. This description is based on a characterization drawn from observations of 1111 videoconference frames and a study of the video references and framing preferences of 6031 teachers. "The correct framing of the speaker in a videoconference helps to keep the focus on the educational message. So, engaging in its production is not only a matter of aesthetics but of good communication as well," writes Martinell. Interestingly, "television grammar has some influence on viewers perceptions towards the acceptance of what can be considered as a good frame, but the impact was less noticeable when teachers were producing their own video."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Trouble with Grades
Derek Bruff, Agile Learning, 2022/03/01

In this post Derek Bruff offers his thoughts on the first few chapters Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), edited by Susan Blum. It's another of those books you have to pay for, so I haven't read it, but you can find a short review here. There's a sense in which to question grading is also to question what we're trying to do in education: " Is our principle task as educators ranking our students for some outside observer? Or, as the authors of the book argue, is our principle task educating our students, that is, helping them learn and grow?" Bruff also recommends Bonnie Stachowiak’s recent interview with Josh Eyler on her Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

HyFlex: It’s About Equity, Opportunity, and Inclusion
Mary Burgess, BCcampus, 2022/03/01

This article is a transcript of a welcoming address at a recent virtual event, HyFlex ReAction, and should be read in that light, as fully half of it is about setting context (interesting reading if you want to get a sense of what is important in the current Canadian context). The bit about HyFlex is near the end as Mary Burgess outlines Brian Beatty's hybrid flexible course design model. On this model, HyFlex has four key elements (paraphrased or partially quoted):

• Learner choice - students choose the mode of engagement that works for them;
• Equivalence - the modes provide equivalent learning outcomes;
• Reusability - learning activity artefacts are captured and reused in other modes
• Accessibility - providing the technical resources and skills to equitably access all modes.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How Does Learning Take Place
Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, 2022/03/01

The second part of Tony Bates's criticism of my article on connectivism focuses on my discussion of other learning theories and on how learning takes place. This is my response.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]