OLDaily

Doctoral education from its medieval foundations to today's globalisation and standardisation
Jean-Claude Ruano-Borbalan, European Journal of Education, 2022/07/27

I have a certain interest in the concept of the doctorate, mostly because it represents a gap in my academic record. This article places the doctorate in its historical context while observing that it is undergoing substantial changes. It was rooted in an aristocratic and guild tradition, was reformed in the 1800s, but still represents an emphasis on individual scholarship and apprenticeship. It also requires deference to authority, a deference still evidenced in some of the rituals surrounding the defense of a dissertation. Today, though, a new model is emerging, based on more collaborative approaches to research and and based in a collection of papers rather than a lengthy individual dissertation. Good article; well worth a read.

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Authenticity and political correctness
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2022/07/27

Here's the core message: "A common mistake is presuming that a person's instinctive reactions are their 'real, authentic' self. They are not.... Doing and saying the first thing that comes into your head doesn't make you more authentic – it just makes you an insensitive idiot." Or in slogan form: "As Heraclitus once said 'dogs bark at things they don't recognise'. Be less dog."

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RedCritter Launches CritterCoin, the First EdTech Solution to Leverage NFTs
eSchool News, 2022/07/27

You may recall he idea of 'houses' in schools from Harry Potter (10 points to Griffindor) though of course it predates the books by generations (my own high school tried it in the 70s with limited success). In this item, "CritterCoin guides schools through sorting students into Houses and identifying the behaviors they want to reward. Schools then design their own digital coins and teachers award them in real time when students demonstrate positive behaviors." Do school houses need NFT pets? Obviously not. Will they catch on? The jury is out. (p.s. put me in Ravenclaw).

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And we’re off
Doug Peterson, doug - off the record, 2022/07/27

Doug Peterson comments on the Ontario government's post-covid plan. It's based on 'catching up' and (in my view) getting back to the way things were as soon as possible. This isn't a surprise - even during the pandemic it was evident that the first response would be to return to pre-covid conditions. Peterson makes the point that the government should maybe have negotiated with stakeholders before announcing the plan, which is a fair point. But they will have to deal with them eventually, especially as people start to miss some of the good things that happened over the last to years.

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Who Is the Theranos of Education?
Mary Jo Madda, EdSurge, 2022/07/27

Theranos, as this article suggests, "not only wasted millions of dollars, but put some patients' health in jeopardy." It served as an object lesson of the dangers of a 'fake it till you make it' methodology. So who is the Theranos of education, asks Mary Jo Madda. She offers two candidates: AltSchool, which "sought to create a network of microschools buoyed by a technology platform containing self-paced courses and curriculum"; and Knewton, an adaptive learning platform whose "founders oversold the potential of their adaptive software."

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