OLDaily

A Close Reading and Analysis of the New York State Computer Science Learning Standards
Gerald Ardito, International Journal on Integrating Technology in Education, 2022/04/06

The world needs more close readings of standards documents (a fact that suggests how lightly they are read by the people required to apply them). This close reading (15 page PDF) illustrates, for example, that "the language used to articulate high level goals and objectives articulated in the executive summary of the standards document, such as interdisciplinarity, addressing the learning needs of all students, and equity of access, is mostly absent from the articulation of the standards themselves." And as is so often the case, "the language used in the standards heavily addressed Bloom's lower level thinking skills (such as identify, discuss, and explain) and less so Bloom's high level thinking skills."

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Accessibility Guidelines for VR Games - A Comparison and Synthesis of a Comprehensive Set
Fiona Heilemann, Gottfried Zimmermann, Patrick Münster, Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2022/04/06

I don't think this is the greatest article in the world but it is at least reasonably comprehensive and points to a significant issue arising in the near future: accessibility in VR systems. It's focused on games, which is a leading adopter of VR, but of course the considerations apply to all applications, including educational applications. It notes the major accessibility issue I've already face: the difficulty wearing glasses using a VR headset. Oculus provides an adapter, but for me, it is useless. Other issues include use by people with movement limitations. The article surveys a number of accessibility guidelines, including especially the Game Accessibility Guidelines (GAG). Image: Belén Agulló, Mario Montagud and Isaac Fraile, Making interaction with virtual reality accessible.

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The Open Voice Network
2022/04/06

From the website: "The Open Voice Network is a neutral, non-profit industry association dedicated to the development of the standards and ethical use guidelines that will make voice worthy of user trust. It operates as a directed fund of The Linux Foundation, and is independently funded and governed." As audio voice interfaces are added to all manner of devices and services, greater interoperability is needed. The Open Voice Network is working towards a worldwide Voice Registry System (VRS), similar to the Domain Name System (DNS).

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Goodbye, world!
Adrian Pohl, OER World Map Blog, 2022/04/06

The OER World Map is in need of rescue. It was originally funded by UNESCO, but with that funding ended the North-Rhine Westphalian Library Service Centre will cease support at the end of the month. So it needs a new home. The map is a database of 6608 entries listing people, organizations, publications, projects, and more. You can view the actual map here. Perhaps there's a way to merge it with OER Knowledge Cloud, which is a very good listing of OER-related publications.

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