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by Stephen Downes
Feb 24, 2017
Three recommendations to enable Annotations on the Web
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 2017/02/23
Web annotations have been a longtime dream of many, but for many it was fool's gold - tantalizingly close, but ultimately worthless. We've seen a slew of efforts - web post-its, side-bar wikis, dual-column pages, and more. Now the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has come out with recommendations, including "a structured model and format, in JSON, to enable annotations to be shared and reused across different hardware and software platforms." Will this be the standard that makes the difference? Image: ShowMe
The LMS Market is Quickly Losing Ground
Carol Leaman, Chief Learning Officer, 2017/02/24
About ten years too late, the LMS industry is in decline. "The self-paced e-learning market — defined by LMS, off-the-shelf content and services — is in steep decline and is expected to drop from global revenues of $46.6 billion in 2016 to $33.4 billion by 2021. According to the report: “In the current e-learning market, the single most unfavorable place to be is the LMS market, which is essentially imploding, particularly in the U.S. corporate segment that has a negative 33.9 percent growth rate."
Nietzsche For Tots
Justin W., Daily Nous, 2017/02/23
What I like about the current age is that people have started thinking about different ways of representing (and different audiences) for all sorts of information. Today we have by way of example Nietzsche in Shapes and Colors, "a board book aimed at introducing Nietzschean themes to children by way of simple phrases and beautiful illustrations, including naturalism." And why don't we teach young children about the wonders of nature, the varieties of perspective, and personal empowerment? I had to wait until I was in university before I discovered these things had names and weren't the products of my imagination.
Battle of the Classrooms: Apple, Google, Microsoft Vie for K-12 Market
Sydney Johnson, EdSurge, 2017/02/23
As this article suggests, it's probably no coincidence that Google, Microsoft and Apple each have a product named 'Classroom'. Though all are listed as 'free', each requires the purchase of an expensive application or software suite. The products are being targeted aggressively at schools (especially in the U.S.) and the companies have created associated 'classroom' communities. The tools are mostly used to help students collaborate on documents and to submit homework assignments. Related: are we innovating or just digitizing traditional teaching?
Language ArtsTechnology in School Who Says I Don't Like to Read? Sparking a Love of Digital Books Across Detroit
Deborah L. Winston, EdSurge, 2017/02/23
This article describes the deployment of MyOn in the Detroit public school system. MyOn provides access to a library of 13,000 titles for young readers. It works "by initially prompting students to take an interest inventory to decide what types of books they are interested in reading, and a placement test to determine reading ability." We are told that "since adopting the platform, the district has seen the number of books being accessed and read by our students increase dramatically." Interestingly, MyOn has no Wikipedia page. Previously a division of Capstone, it has just been sold to Francisco Partners, a private equity firm. More coverage of MyOn from various media.
The Copyright Lobby’s IIPA Report: Fake News About the State of Canadian Copyright
Michael Geist, 2017/02/22
Michael Geist writes about this year's annual misrepresentation of the state of copy protection and media in Canada by the the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a lobby group that represents the major lobbying associations for music, movie, software, and book publishing in the United States. In particular, he focuses on three areas:
The state of Canadian Piracy, which the IIPA reports as rising, when in fact the Business Software Alliance’s annual report last showed Canada at its lowest software piracy rate ever The notice-and-notice system, which the IIPA says is not receiving full compliance from ISPs, and which hurts licensed services, when in pact there is nearly full compliance by ISPs, and licensed services are earning strong returns in Canada Fair dealing, which the IIPA has attacked on several grounds, but which consistent with fair dealing regimes around the world, and are more stringent than many, including fair use in the United StatesAs Canada routinely states every year, "Canada does not recognize the 301 watch list process. It basically lacks reliable and objective analysis. It’s driven entirely by U.S. industry."
Kaltura Launches Lecture Capture Solution
Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology, 2017/02/22
This is just something I want to keep handy for when I talk to people who already have a Kaltura system running. It seems like a pretty easy way to make a lot of learning resources. Or course the quality and value might vary, but creating something is infinitely better than creating nothing.
The Challenge of Non-Disposable Assignments
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2017/02/22
Non-disposable Assignments (NDAs, though he agrees a better acronym is needed) are assignments that ase seen by more than just the student and the person grading them. They can be thought of as open educational resources, but the status as OERs connotes qualities that may not be there. The challenge of NDAs is to create these assignments in such a way that they are actually non-disposable, and not just disposable assignments published in an open way. "It takes a lot of effort to move past the first impulse of writing ones that sound like they are answering a question or a series of questions. Those have an odor of 'disposable-ness'."
Anthony Johnson Brings 'Johnsonville' to Life
Richard Chang, THE Journal, 2017/02/22
My grade 8 class created a model society. I was one of the two banks in our community. It was too much work, I didn't clear the cheques, and the town economy collapsed. But the idea was sound in principle. Later, as part of my MuniMall project, I created something called MuniVille, which again could be a simulated environment for town managers and elected officials. Once again, my ambition far exceeded my abilities, though fortunately no economies collapsed (and the MuniMall community I developed ran for the next ten years). So I like the concept of Johnsonville as described in this article and wish founder Anthony Johnson the best in his "world where each student must find a job, pay the bills, pay mortgage and taxes, and learn by doing projects."
Looking (again) to Domain of One’s Own
Martha Burtis, The Fish Wrapper, 2017/02/22
it's good to see a look at a project some time after it has launched and some time after it has (largely) passed into new hands and new ownership. Such is the case with this post on Domain of One's Own. "As faculty have continued to integrate DoOO into their classes, students have continued to engage with the project in a variety of ways." Fer what it's worth, I've been working recently on properly virtualizing gRSShopper - basically setting it up in a complete self-sustaining box that can be easily ported to new environments. I have applications like Domain of One's Own in mind (not that I've told them any of this).
25 Years Without a Raise
Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, 2017/02/22
Adjunct instructors at Youngstown State University threw themselves a party this week to mark 25 years without a pay increase. "It’s 'fair to say that our president and provost recognize that that's a problem and, while we are facing some difficult budget challenges like most in higher ed, [we’re] committed to trying to rectify that situation," said university spokesperson Ron Cole. It's hard to see how you could recognize something as a problem and do nothing about it for 25 years. A more honest statement would probably say something about how embarrassed they are by this situation and how much they wish it hadn't attracted international attention. Image: Michelle N.
Philosophy and the Illusion of Explanatory Depth
Justin W., Daily Nous, 2017/02/21
After reading this I was motivated to look up how a toilet works on YouTube. I'm fairly confident I understand the mechanics, but I don't really have an explanation. Why doesn't the bowl simple lose water when the flapper is opened; why does the water rush out as though it is being sucked out of the toilet? Everything in the toilet is actually pulled uphill. I think it has something to do with pressure differentials or gravity (the way a siphon does) but I'm not sure, and the videos didn't help me. And that's why this article is interesting. Knowing the facts doesn't give me the explanation, which is why a mere presentation of the facts doesn't change (or inform) opinions. "Confronting and working through the complicated details of an issue... may be the only form of thinking that will shatter the illusion of explanatory depth and change people’s attitudes."
Bots: What you need to know
Jon Bruner, O'Reilly, 2017/02/21
This is a pretty good overview of the current bot ecosystem (which contains far more than bots) along with a good graphic drawing out the major contenders and relations between them. "Bots use artificial intelligence to converse in human terms, usually through a lightweight messaging interface like Slack or Facebook Messenger, or a voice interface like Amazon Echo or Google Assistant. Since late 2015, bots have been the subject of immense excitement in the belief that they might replace mobile apps for many tasks and provide a flexible and natural interface for sophisticated AI technology."
Four Reasons Why a Library Makerspace Makes Perfect Sense
Robert Schuetz, Nocking The Arrow, 2017/02/21
If a library isn't really useful for storing books any more (because who needs books when entire libraries can be stored on a single flash drive?) then what can we do with the space? In this article Robert Schuetz suggests using it to create a makerspace (what we used to call a project room, workshop or lab). "School media centers provide open, flexible space," he writes. "Collaboration, interaction, and hands-on engagement need space for versatility and movement. Visible, transparent learning will ignite curiosity and interest from teachers and students." At a time when governments are closing schools maybe they should be thinking of providing better community support instead.
Have Spare Time? Try To Discover A Planet
Joe Palca, NPR, 2017/02/21
I spent an hour last night searching for a planet. I did not discover one. I did, however, look at lot of bad photographs of stars (at least, to me they were bad photographs; they might be state of the art for all I know). It's a project called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Basically they show you sequences of four photos from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. Spot the moving dot and you win the prize of being the person to discover the mysterious tenth planet. What's interesting about this project is that it requires the human eye (and human pattern detection).
4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump
Dale Beran, Medium, 2017/02/21
Celebrating the fail is the new win. This is the core value being embraced by 4chan members, alt-right supporters and Trump voters. That's the thesis of this insightful and well-argued essay by almost-loser Dale Beran in this long but engaging read. Those who hold to the (often empty) promise higher education offers should consider this perspective. It forms part of the narrative of failure that defines a substantial body of young men, the same men who constitute things like Anonymous and Gamergate. I am not sympathetic with the 4chan perspective, but I can understand it, having lived through the same broken promises, the same periods of extended unemployment, the same challenges and the same frustrations. But instead of embracing failure I embraced diversity and equality, and found myself a cause to fight for.
Source: Getty Images Top Hat Raises $22.5 Million to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill
Gerrit De Vynck, Bloomberg, 2017/02/20
Bloomberg offers coverage to this Canadian company that has set up an online bookstore for textbooks. Many of the offerings come from OpenStax (Rice University's former Connexions service) and are offered for free while the rest appear to be authored using TopHat's own authoring tool ad sell for various prices. Presumably the company has something else going for it, or they're just a really swell bunch of guys, to account for $40 million in venture capital funding. Top Hat CEO Mike Silagadze "started by selling software tools to professors that help them engage their students, such as smartphone apps that let them tell lecturers if they understand new concepts in real-time."
Trust Score (Beta) for Ethereum
Nantium OÜ, Decentralize Today, 2017/02/20
I agree with Nantium OÜ that "decentralization will lead to a more fair society where monopolies lose their stranglehold over some of our key economic sectors (and possibly even government sectors)." I'm less convinced that trust is a key part of this, but I'm willing to listen. In any case, what OÜ has done is to create a (beta) trust mechanism for Ethereum. Basically, it uses the same mechanism for trust as it does for payment: "you can file a complaint through an Ethereum contract that will ultimately penalize the other party’s score." This mechanism has already been suggested for credentials, such as academic achievement or badges. I'm more inclined to think that trust (and achievement) will be derived by AIs mining publicly accessible data. But we'll see.
Global Sentiment in L&D
Donald Taylor, 2017/02/20
Donald Taylor has released the results of his 'global sentiments' survey of around 800 people in learning and development from around the world. The main result is that personalization is the top trend, collaboration is dipping, microlearning is becoming more important, and alignment with business (including showing value) is becoming a core concern. I found it odd that all the charts were (to me) backwards, running chronologically right-to-left instead of left-to-right.
Geek Career Paths
Tim Bray, Ongoing, 2017/02/20
The is a cogent and clear article (laced with some off-colour language because it's tech) on what tech people (programmers, developers, designers) should think about doing later in their careers. The advice was accurate so far as my own experience can attest. Keeping up to date in tech is hard work, because it's constantly changing. The biggest jump for most tech people, I think, is the jump into people-oriented positions, like management or sales. The biggest risk for tech people is exposure to toxic environments, like the world of venture capitalism. And government isn't as bad as people say. Image: Mcleans.
These are the science concepts you need to know to understand political life in 2017
Akshat Rathi, et.al., Quartz, 2017/02/20
These concepts don't all relate to education, and their importance most certainly isn't limited to political life, but it's a good list and educators should be aware of all of them. Here's the one-minute version:
Scepticism - "a willingness to evenly assess the scientific evidence available." Iatrogenesis - illness “brought forth by the healer," like the opioid epidemic Social cost of carbon - the damage each ton of CO2 emission costs society Clean coal - expensive, but "captures the carbon dioxide and buries it" Gene drives - increase a gene's chance of being inherited CRISPR - being widely used to manipulate DNA with extraordinary precision NgAgo - new tech which might manipulate DNA with even greater precision Confrmation bias - the tendency to select information that supports our existing beliefs IPFS - makes copies of everything instead of relying on links PFOA - unregulated cancer agent turning up in drinking water Neonicotinoids - the pesticide that caused widespread bee colony collapse SETI - search for extra-terrestrial intelligence using powerful new toolsNow you's caught up. :)
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Copyright 2017 Stephen Downes Contact: stephen@downes.ca
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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