OLDaily

Decision, Causality and Pre-Determination
Boris Kment, Philosophy and Phenomenology Research, 2022/10/18

On what basis should we make decisions. We read a lot in our field about evidence-based decision-making (EDT). "You should rank your options by the strength of the evidence they provide for outcomes you value." But there are good arguments, outlined in this paper (35 page PDF), against this approach. An alternative is causal decision theory (CDT), "the idea that you should choose one of the options that you regard as most likely to cause valuable outcomes." This too has its weaknesses. The problem lies in the complexity of the semantics of subjunctive conditionals and in particular whether you are taking into account facts about possible worlds that would be unaffected by your decision.

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Analysis of design elements in universal course shell templates of high-ranking universities
Angelos Konstantinidis, 2022/10/18

"Universal Course Shell Templates (UCST) can alleviate teachers' workload, support teachers in taking pedagogically sound decisions, and assist students in their engagement with the course," writes Angelos Konstantinidis. This paper (17 page PDF) compares UCST to identifies commonalities and differences ("I searched the official websites and I did individual searches too of the top 500 universities. From this search I managed to collect 19 templates only," he explained to me in a follow-up email). Even with such a small number, there is no unanimity of design elements (the maximum was '14' for 'assignments'). "Instructional designers should be cautious and refrain from succumbing to easy solutions," he writes. "This study has shown that the UCST could also perpetuate traditional, teacher-centered approaches, incorporate elements that are questionable from a pedagogical perspective, and provide a somewhat cluttered navigation menu."

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Learning hygiene: A standard for getting the basics right in learning design
Ger Driesen, aNewSpring, 2022/10/18

I'll credit Ger Driesen with coming up with the phrase 'learning hygiene' (in the sense where 'learning' is a noun), but while it is often claimed, I'm not sure there is a agreement "how effective learning works and how to design courses, training and e-learning in an effective way" and I'm quite sure it's not true that "a lot of material that seems to be designed and appreciated on only one dominant criterion: that it 'looks good'." It made me think of standards for 'web design', which made me think of Jakob Nielsen, which in turn caused me to look up Brutalist Web Design, and then to ask, is something like this where 'learning hygiene' would lead us? But in any case, I doubt such a standard exists; I've just read a paper (covered here) documenting universal course design templates from leading institutions, and while there are similarities, there certainly isn't any sort of agreement on a single standard.

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Our Relevant History With The Gates Foundation
Phil Hill, Phil on EdTech, 2022/10/18

Phil Hill has been writing what has turned out to be a series on how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation approaches ed tech. It began with a post on the Gates Foundation messaging machine, which we covered here. It was followed with an update suggesting Foundation research outcomes are predetermined. "They declare that building awareness and adopting courseware are crucial and produce results." The third item then offers "the longest disclosure post in EdTech history" detailing the history of the relationship between the Gates Foundation and MindWires, Hill's and Michael Feldstein's consulting company. "The Gates Foundation was going all in on scale, with courseware as the core, and they were creating the Digital Learning Solutions Network (DLSN) (more)." MindWires was sort of onboard for a while there, but ultimately decided to opt out. I can't say how much of their coverage was influenced by Gates funding at the time, but the Foundation certainly has a pervasive influence on ed tech, as this diagram shows.

P.S. it's pretty easy to criticize from the outside, and I do (because that's part of what OLDaily is about), but I do wonder how I would have responded had Gates thrown a few million dollars my way to support its work. Would I have felt I could 'influence them from within?' Would I have altered my OLDaily coverage to align with their priorities? I'd love to say I would have been above it all, but I know myself better than that. The patterns of messaging and influence are structural, they're built into the system, and it takes extraordinary restraint (or financial independence) to stand against them.

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