OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

Defining Ourselves and Our Community
Ann, All Things Pedagogical, 2023/11/27

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Something I've learned over the years is that most people don't use the right words most of the time. Sometimes their errors betray a misunderstanding of categorical theory (using 'All are not' instead of 'Not all are', for example). Other times it's a misunderstanding of reference (mistaking 'intention' and 'intension'). Or whatever. There are many ways people can be wrong. This includes referencing a community where (as Ann says) "judgment or misleading terminologies were used like 'wheel-chair bound' and 'confined'." The point here, though, is that it is inappropriate to leap to a correction based on an analysis of the language used. "If that analysis was not part of the project itself, a question like that could be read as a critique of the awesome work the project was doing, instead of a way to bring up modelling inclusive language practices." The best advice I can give to activists is "let it go" and to "tend to one's own practices, not others'". And that's why I like this post.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Mastering DOM manipulation with vanilla JavaScript
Phuoc Nguyen, 2023/11/27

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This si the sort of development resource I think should get more love. You don't need to install complex web frameworks to learn these examples of Javascript HTML document object model (DOM) manipulation. Everything you need is already in your browser, and all you need to do is write some plain text script. "Get ready to master DOM manipulation with vanilla JavaScript." Via Tom Woodward.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Ethics has no foundation
Andrew Sepielli, Aeon, 2023/11/27

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Andrew Sepielli offers us a pretty good defense of a non-foundational account of morality based in a pragmtist approach to reasoning. I'm no foundationalist about morality, in the sense that I don't think you can offer a conclusive set of reasons supporting this or that moral theory. But by the end of it, Sepielli's account seems to reduce to some sort of a priori knowledge, which is even less plausible than foundationalism. But Sepielli wants to offer us a form of moral ralism as well - that is, he wants to say that there is a definitive 'yes or no' answer to questions of right and wrong. I am not nearly so confident. I think I can tell a good story about how we come to have our moral beliefs, but explaining why we have the views we do falls far short of proving that they are true. (Image: Flo, from the NY Times, picked at random because my overly-sensitive office network feels that Aeon's image URL https://images.aeonmedia.co is "suspicious" and wouldn't display it with the article. I can't even.)

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Theory-based Science Communication at Comic Cons
Lisa Lundgren, Emily Slater, Man Zhang, Kadie Kunz, Gabriel-Philip Santos, EdArXiv, 2023/11/27

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On the surface this paper (16 page PDF) appears to be simply about science communication at comic conventions (ComiCon), which seems like an interesting way to take the learning to where the people are. It takes a turn when you realize the 'theory' in the title references political theory. And, they say, "political polarization and politically-induced status quo bias are based in 'traditional' science communication efforts in which people are coming to events and spaces with the goal or understanding of seeking out science." So the advantage of science communication at ComiCons is the lack of this 'political' framing. And that's what the authors studied. It's hard for me to imagine a world in which the only reason people seek to learn about science is to further their political agenda, but that's life in some societies, I guess. Image: TheNode.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

H5P Across Canada - A Canada-Sized Under Estimate
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2023/11/27

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Alan Levine was asked a simple question: "They wanted as much as I could share about the breadth of H5P use across Canada." H5P is a plug-in add-on you can use to create interactivity in your web pages. Levine calls it "one of the purest forms of OER in my book." Levine didn't just answer the question, he called on the community. This resulted in a comprehensive answer - and it could be even more comprehensive if you help. If you use H5P, go to the Google document and add your information. And if you don't, go to the document anyways to see Levine doing what he does best: delivering a complete and comprehensive answer to a simple request.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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