OLDaily

What role will MOOC platforms play in UK universities online futures?
Neil Mosley, 2022/05/31

While some 50 U.K. universities are still partnered with MOOCs, the last few years have brought significant changes to the sector - Coursera has become a "global learning platform", EdX was bought by 2U, and according to Neil Mosley "FutureLearn has struggled to transition." So where does the future lie? He offers four scenarios: revenue and brand awareness, furthering the research agenda, furthering the teaching agenda, or supporting lifelong and professional learning. I find it interesting that he doesn't really see the university adapting to the MOOC or online learning generally (cf Jon Dron or Bryan Alexander, also in today's OLDaily).

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Basque Wikimedians create Ikusgela, a platform for free education videos
Theklan, Diff, 2022/05/31

As this article reports, "Ikusgela is a project specialized in pedagogical videos. Its aim is to increase the presence of the Basque language on the web and to complete the scope of Basque Wikipedia." I was recently asked during a talk what I thought of MOOCs being created in different languages, and my comment applies here: it's essential. It's the only way we will be able to see different topics represented from diverse perspectives, leading to what I hope is a fluid and productive global conversation.

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The 10 best microphones for recording eLearning voiceovers
Kris Taylor, TaughtUp, 2022/05/31

This article does sponsorship properly. There's a disclaimer at the top of the page, and the affiliate links are clearly marked in yellow text, with terms of the affiliation (though it would be better if the disclaimer linked directly to the affiliate disclosure page, so I didn't have to search for it). As for the recommendations, I can confirm what it says about the Audio Technica mic (which I bought in Austin in 2009, taking a photo of this bird from the parking lot). I can also echo the comments about the Blue Yeti and the equally bad Blue Snowball.

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Plagiarism Checker Alternatives to Turnitin (for K-12)
Med Kharbach, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2022/05/31

A note to Med Kharbach: the place to put the "this is a sponsored post by PlagiarismCheck" is at the top of the page, so we know right away that it's advertising, not hidden away at the bottom, where it's viewed only after we've finished the rest. Image: science.org

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The problematic metaphor of the environment in online learning
2022/05/31

This is quite a good paper, and though it will take some time to read, the effort is rewarded. In a nutshell, Jon Dron argues that virtual learning environments (ak learning management systems), when designed along a course and class model, lose too many of the affordances or a physical campus (for example, people don't leave the course through a corridor, they just leave). A person's 'learning environment' is their own self, not some digital construct. He suggests some ways to improve this design (which I heartily endorse): "to allow synchronous and/or asynchronous dialogue to occur on every page or screen of the system... To allow at least some parts of the system to be free of roles... (and) "courses are just one of many kinds of organizational unit, with selectively permeable boundaries through which others can pass, or with which they can overlap." You can't really do this in an LMS, and other attempts (like the personal learning environment or Educause's NGDLE) have fallen short. Still, "the focus – both digitally and pedagogically – should be on making it possible for learners to assemble the services into their environments themselves, in order to avail themselves of the support they need, when they need it, for the purposes they intend." Image: Imgur - it showed up in my search for 'nple ngdle', a perfect illustration.

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Rocket.Chat Leverages The Matrix Protocol for Decentralized and Interoperable Communications
RocketChat, 2022/05/31

This is just a press release, so be warned about the marketing hype. What's significant here is the reference to Matrix, "an open network for secure, decentralized communication," which in many ways is similar to ActivityPub, the protocol used for decentralized social networking services such as Mastodon (the difference is that Matrix is oriented more toward chat rooms while ActivityPub is oriented toward microblogging). If you don't want to use RocketChat you can host your own Matrix-based chat server using Conduit, "a lightweight open-source server implementation."

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Cognitive and Human Factors in Expert Decision Making: Six Fallacies and the Eight Sources of Bias
Itiel E. Dror, Analytical Chemistry, 2022/05/31

It's easy to dismiss this paper because it appears at first glance to be of limited depth, but I think this would be a mistake. Itiel Dror argues that experts commit six overall fallacies that minimize the force of cognitive biases, ranging from the idea that bias stems from a few corrupt or unethical people to the idea that experts can overcome biases by mere willpower. Having laid out this groundwork he then describes eight major sources of bias, ranging from issues in the data and the context to issues involving human nature and human perception. "People's beliefs in various fallacies about bias prevent a proper understanding of bias, which in turn precludes taking steps to fight it. Understanding biases and acknowledging them enables discussion about their sources and to develop means to minimize their impact."

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American higher education enrollment declined again, continuing a decade-long trend
Bryan Alexander, 2022/05/31

"At the big picture level," writes Bryan Alexander, "[t]otal postsecondary enrollment, which includes both undergraduate and graduate students, fell a further 4.1 percent or [by] 685,000 students in spring 2022 compared to spring 2021." Was a lesson learned? No. Alexander writes, "Personally, I am struggling mightily to avoid hollering 'I told you so!' Far too many times I've been the only person in a room or event pointing this out, and warning people about the futures it might entail.  Also, for twenty years (!) before that (!) I've been telling academics to get online and helping them do so."

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