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

Metaphor, ambiguity, and conceptual blending
Open Thinkering, 2024/06/05

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Metaphor, similarity and conceptual blending are central concepts in human cognition, and not the niche topics they are sometimes represented to be. When we talk about processes of learning, inference and discovery, it is to these - and not abstrations and generalizations - to which we should turn. This post is also a good platform to plug Doug Belshaw's other blog on the topic.

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A Research Agenda for Canadian Higher Education, Part 1
Alex Usher, HESA, 2024/06/05

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Most of the research proposed here sounds pretty reasonable, though it might be worth surveying what other research is being done by other groups, since this article seems to suggest that little to nothing is happening. I would especially welcome research on access by income levels and by program. I'm less enthused about research into quality, not because I'm opposed to quality, but because the definition of quality is so vague that such research often verges into advocacy rather than measurement. My only other major thought on this piece is that it is very much devoted to traditional educational practices - typified by the comment that "the biggest area of student experience, though, is what happens in class." I don't think that was true even in my time and in this era of online learning I think it's even less true.

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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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