OLDaily

Graphical Application Profiles?
Phil Barker, Sharing and learning, 2022/03/11

Phil Barker writes, "I've long wondered whether it would be possible to convert the source for a graphical representation of an application profile (let's call it a GAP) into one of the machine readable RDF formats." After noting that lucid chart allows CSV export, he was able to whip up this demonstration. "The key to the magic is that on export as CSV, each page, shape and arrow gets a row (and) I can read it into a python Dict structure using python's standard CSV module," he writes.

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Unrivalled opportunities: The International Baccalaureate
Peter Fidczuk, The PIE News, 2022/03/11

This is one of those articles that comes along from time to time, talks about the International Baccalaureate program, how advanced and challenging it is, and how "today's International Baccalaureate students are tomorrow's changemakers" and how 'it's a comprehensive, challenging framework that allows students to flourish intellectually, physically, emotionally and ethically, helping them to succeed above their non-IB peers." Nice, hm? I knew about IB when I was in high school and tried to join the program, but was made very aware the fact that as a middle-class student in a regional high school in rural Ontario, such things were not for me. Maybe things have changed. But this article, a sponsored post from IB, gives no indication that they have.

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What is a law of nature?
Marc Lange, Aeon, 2022/03/11

There are some truisms about laws of nature. For example, everything obey them. It is impossible for them to be broken, and any object must obey them. Except, "although all these truisms about the laws of nature sound plausible and familiar, they are also imprecise and metaphorical." They're not like laws that 'govern' at all. Rather, "Scientists discover laws of nature by acquiring evidence that some apparent regularity is not only never violated but also could never have been violated." What this means (roughly) is that we cannot imagine a stable and consistent world in which the law of nature doesn't hold. This article goes into great detail about what that means, exactly.

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4 Design Imperatives for Effective Learning Design
Rose Benedicks, eLearn Magazine, 2022/03/11

The four design imperatives outlined in this article are as follows:

1.     Give learners their own learning journey
2.     Connect learners with each other so they can learn together
3.     Captivate and challenge learners
4.     Realize value and use measurement to improve the journey and outcomes

While these are reasonable in their own right, a lot depends on the interpretation. For example, does a student's "own learning journey" include their own destination, or do all roads lead to the same outcome? Is connection with other learners optional, or are they pushed together in a forced fusion of interests? How are learners challenged, with the carrot or the stick? There's a good discussion of all of these in the article, but the questions do bear being asked.

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Contiguous identities: The virtual self in the supposed Metaverse
Michael Saker, Jordan Frith, First Monday, 2022/03/11

To day, in order to use Facebook (aka Meta) VR technology (for example, Oculus) you have to sign uo with a Facebook account. What are the implications of this? This paper examples the issue and argues "the virtual self currently being forged in Meta forms a connective tissue between (1) early accounts of online communication enabling the body to be left behind and (2) more embodied approaches to identity in the context of digitality" and thus "the virtual self is not a singular entity per se but forms a contiguous connection between the lived experience of VR and data gathered through social media about the identity associated with said experience." This connection between social and virtual identity will become more significant over time, and issues related to Facebook's role in shaping that identity will become more pressing over time. As the authors suggest, "very little in Meta's history suggest that choices will be made that benefit users' freedoms and privacy over shareholders' interests." Image: CNBC.

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