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Stephen's Web ~ Link
OLDaily - Text Edition by Stephen Downes Mar 01, 2017
Towards insertables: Devices inside the human body
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I think I would choose some other term than 'insertable'
but I would certainly agree that this represents a new
device classification. An 'insertable' is a piece of
technology one inserts inside one's body (for example,
sub-cutaneous electronic door keys). They are distinguished
from 'implants' in that they are non-surgical and
removable, not medically necessary, and non-specialist.
Educational uses for such technology might include personal
identification (for access to records from remote systems),
cues and reminders (I'll call this category 'twitches'),
and eventually, direct neural access to data, messages from
other people, and visual information (for augmented
displays in artificial lenses).
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Social Networks and the Building of Learning Communities:
An Experimental Study of a Social MOOC
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What I like about this paper it its honesty in reporting
negative results. "We have not managed to generate a strong
learning community either during the course or at its
completion: the networks were created around teachers'
feedback, learners basically commented once per topic and,
after the course ended, people did not return to Facebook
or to the forum to participate." We can now ask: why not?
The low number of participants? Their preference for
traditional instruction? Weaknesses in course registration
procedures? From the IRRODL special issue
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/84 on
advances in research on social networking in open and
distributed learning.
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Why Do Academics Use Academic Social Networking Sites?
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I wouldn't link to this except for the funding for
ResearchGate in the news today. It examines uses of this
site as well as Academia.edu and provides some background
information. I have two major criticisms of this study.
First, I question the use of 'the uses and gratifications
theory' to frame the research, on the ground that you don't
need a 'theory' to frame this enquiry, and especially not a
theory so empirically dubious. Second, I think the survey
could have been rather more ambitious than three
institutions in one (small) country, especially when
generating statistical (quantitative) results, and
especially when making claims like "this study points at
the centrality of the self-promotion and ego-bolstering
motive." From the IRRODL special issue
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/84 on
advances in research on social networking in open and
distributed learning.
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A Visual Explanation of Gerrymandering
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The diagram depicted here has been out for quite some time,
but it has always bothered me in a way. The central message
is correct - you can gerrymander electoral districts to
produce a win based on a minority vote. But how can you
have 'compact but unfair' distribution? It came back to me
today. The real message of this infographic is: 'compact
can be unfair'. I puzzled over it a bit, and then I
realized: the 'compact' diagram isn't really compact! It
shows five districts each 5 wide and two deep. That isn't
compact at all! The most compact would be 3x3 grids plus 1.
In a 10x5 region you couldn't get that exactly, but still
you could keep most squares in a district within 3 of each
other, as in my diagram, above. If I haven't lost you yet,
the lesson is this: don't take these infographics for
granted.
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ResearchGate announces $52m investment
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Many of my papers can be found in ResearchGate as the
company harvested them from various open access
repositories. It also sends me regular appears to upload
more, which I resist, because it's hard to search and use
unless you're logged in. Anyhow, it has received a large
investment from various funders (including Wellcome Trust
and Gates), which I hope doesn't turn it into another
Coursera desperate to monetize open access. "The latest
investment is partially going into this effort to store and
structure scientific data in ways that help scientists make
progress today and in the future." See also Business
Insider
http://uk.businessinsider.com/researchgate-raised-52-million-goldman-bill-gates-2017-2?r=US&IR=T
and New York Times
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Worth noting: article asserting
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more than 50 percent of the articles on ResearchGate
violate copyright
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Via Richard Poynder, Tom Bishop on GOAL
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5 Topics That Are "Forbidden" to Science
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This article lists five areas that are 'forbidden to
science'. I find it interesting that I am in some way
implicated in all five. Here they are (and how I'm
implicated):
messing with nature (yet I wear glasses, use a CPAP, and
take various drugs)
engineering the climate (yet I do it every time I get in my
car)
robot ethics (yet I envision and work on ethical robot
tutors)
secure communication technology (yet I encrypt my email and
work at a secure lab)
universal access to science (yet I work on that every day)
Now, yes, my involvement isn't exactly what they're talking
about. But that's a technical limit, not an administrative
limit. I would do all five of those things in a minute if I
could (especially the first, so I don't have to die).
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Online Learning
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This is a special report from University Business. It's
interesting in its own right, but readers may be interested
in the full-length interview with me on MOOC and the future
of online learning. A couple of notes: first, there's a
really bad typo on page 6, where it says MOOCs were
invented in 2005. They were invented in 2008. Second, it
mentions work by Tim Berners-Lee without referencing it.
What I'm talking about here is the Solid project
Linkwhich is working toward a
decentralized web. Otherwise it's an accurate
representation of what I said during the interview.
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