Presentation
Becoming Connected
Stephen Downes, Aug 25, 2017, Konferencja Pokazać – Przekazać, Warsaw, Poland
Objective: To present the core ideas of connectivism in both a learning and scientific context, in a sense unifying the ideas of discovery, interaction and education. Live stream: https://www.youtube.com/user/StephenDownes
Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: An Overview
Barry Zimmerman, Educational Psychologist, 2017/09/01
In her presentation (video streaming) this morning on self-regulation for novice adult musicians, Laura Ritchie referenced Barry Zimmerman's definition of self-regulated learning. The primary citation is Zimmerman's 1990 overview paper referenced here (15 page PDF). Zimmerman distinguishes between self-regulation processes and strategies designed to optimize those processes, identifies a "self-oriented feedback loop", and examines the reasons student shave for pursuing one strategy or another. The definition is also stated in his 1989 paper 'A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning' (probably paywalled where you are, though there's a copy on ResearchGate). This paper also has a detailed table of self-regulated learning strategies. The triadic analysis (pictured) makes me thing of Archer-Anderson-Garrison's account of teaching and learning presence, which shows how teachers and instructors can have a non-regulatory influence through a person's awareness of self, environment and behaviour. For a lighter introduction readers may want to look at Janice Jansol's slide presentation on Zimmerman.
Google’s Fighting Hate And Trolls With A Dangerously Mindless AI
Robert Epstein, Fast Company, 2017/09/01
I think there's a difference between 'getting things wrong' and 'mindless', and while the former is certainly a problem with Google's AI, and others, as argued in this post, I don't think that the latter is an issue at all. The article focuses on Google's Perspective software, which you can try for yourself. It has some easily verified flaws; one is that negative statements, however accurate, are viewed as "toxic", while nice statements, however abhorrent, are viewed as non-toxic. "The problem is that the algorithm doesn’t know any human history. It’s mainly looking for hot-button terms like 'evil' and 'scumbag.'" Quite so. It's too simplistic to be useful. But that is very different from "mindless". As the author admits, "smart algorithms are indeed helping medical doctors diagnose, they report, and they are also trouncing humans at the most challenging games humans have ever devised." They are literally 'mindless' but they are better at some things. If the anti-troll software starts working properly, it won't matter one whit that it's mindless.
Google unveils ARCore, its answer to Apple’s ARKit
Nicole Lee, Engadget, 2017/09/01
This article reports on a Google press release describing ARCore, an augmented reality development kit. Basically it delivers three features: motion tracking, environmental awareness (to detect flat surfaces), and light estimation, to get shadows right. Here's the developer preview, with kits for the Android Studio, Unity and Unreal development environment. "You can see some examples already on Google's AR Experiments showcase, and it looks like Epic Games, Niantic (the maker of Pokemon Go) and Wayfair are already on board."
Information in the ecosystem: Against the “information ecosystem”
Timothy B. Norris, Todd Suomela, First Monday, 2017/09/01
This is a detailed analysis and c riticism of the 'information ecosystem' metaphor. The authors argue that human societies are not ecosystems and that the use of the metaphor obscures important elements of communities and human interaction. For one thiing, quoting Richard Stallman, "“It is inadvisable to describe the free software community, or any human community, as an ‘ecosystem,’ because that word implies the absence of ethical judgment.” Additionally, the use of the 'ecosystem' metaphore does not capture the idea that data and markets are human constructions and are based in judgements and theories. "An ecosystem is not purposefully made by organisms for material exchange." Moreover, "To reduce an ecosystem to the human-made, such as an information ecosystem, denies possibilities of spiritualism and non-quantifiable relationships that are found in nature." Good article. Set aside some significant time for it.
Why the cost of education may end up far higher than many students expect
Brenda Bouw, Globe and Mail, 2017/09/01
The answer to the question in the headline is 'because you're going to have to continue to upgrade your skills and development after graduation.' As the article says, "It's not just the fact that you need the extra training after school, but the shelf life of your knowledge is also significantly shorter" (this is the same poll as reported here yesterday, but with a newer press release (5 page PDF) and as usual the newspaper does not link to the original source). But rather than question the need for such high fees, the article is essentially an advertisement for Registered Education Savings Plans (RESP). "Two in five Canadian students entering PSE say that they have no savings and two-thirds do not have an RESP." The reason for that isn't that they're careless, despite what the article suggests. The reason is that you can't save tens of thousands on minimum wage employment. You cannot save your way to prosperity if you're poor.
Warsaw
Stephen Downes, Flickr, 2017/08/31
I'm back from Poland and have stuff to share. For today, it's photos from my visit - Warsaw, where I spent most of my time, but also from short side-trips to Krakow and Lodz. Enjoy! :)
Education and employability: Can the gap be closed?: CIBC report
Benjamin Tal, Royce Mendes, CIBC, 2017/08/31
According to this report (5 page PDF), "students are starting to get the message as more enroll in high-demand, high-paying fields of study but momentum is hindered by rising tuition and an inflexible system." programs leading to higher-paying jobs are beginning to cost more as tuiotion fees rise. Also, "the simple reality is that the current education system is not flexible enough to fully accommodate the needs of today’s students.... The system ought to be flexible enough to combine passion and practicality. A much higher level of collaboration between colleges and universities is clearly needed."
German publishers are joining forces against the duopoly
Jessica Davies, Digiday, 2017/08/31
On discussion lists recently the subject of personal identification schemes has resulted in considerable debate - should, for exam ple, ORCID be required by funders, or should the principle of an open, distributed and non-proprietary scheme be encouraged. Meanwhile, acyual web users are facied with an increasing number of sites requiring that they use their social media IDs - especially those from Facebook and Google - with the consequence that they surrender their privacy. In Germany an effort is underway to establish a third-party identification system that opreserves privacy and reduces the overhead required for authentication. This has been prompted by new data privacy regulations (General Data Protection Regulation) which will be enforced starting next May. According to the article, "The sign-in platform will be marketed to consumers as 'Verimi' — a mix of the English words “verify” and “me.” A dedicated website explaining the service and how to use it is starting to familiarize people with the initiative before the product’s launch."
How Microlearning Will Shape the Future of Work
Alex Khurgin, Association for Talent Development, 2017/08/31
This post explores the timing of microlearning in the workplace. It's a good point. The centrepiece is the pair of diagrams of mis-aligned and aligned microtraining (figures 2 and 3). The overall point applies to learning generally, I think: that it needs to be aligned to the current interests and motivations of the learner. Failing to do this creates an environment where learning is a distraction from the events and work of the day, rather than something helpful and supportive. As Alex Khurgin writes, "The moments of need become motivational anchor points surrounded with microlearning experiences and resources. They also present entry points for difficult challenges like addressing bias by tying them to specific events, such as an upcoming interview."
Globe brings e-learning to Quezon City public schools
BrandRoom, Inquirer.net, 2017/08/31
What's interesting about this development effort in the Philippines is the combination of internet, pedagogy and hardware. "Schools covered by the program receive a) infrastructure support and free internet for 2 years, b) Project-Based Learning and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) training for teachers, and c) a GFS mobile cart, which contains gadgets like netbooks, tablets, projectors, and Globe Prepaid Pocket WiFi that can be used to teach different subjects both inside and outside the classroom." I think it's a step forward to realize that simply using computers in a traditional classroom will not result in the best benefits from the technology.
Richard Florida Is Sorry
Sam Wetherell, Jacobin, 2017/08/30
I'm not sure how much of this I agree with, but there is an element of truth to it. "The rise of the creative class in places like New York, London, and San Francisco created economic growth only for the already rich, displacing the poor and working classes.... hen the rich, the young, and the (mostly) white rediscovered the city, they created rampant property speculation, soaring home prices, and mass displacement. The “creative class” were just the rich all along, or at least the college-educated children of the rich."
Mike Boyd Videos
Mike Boyd, YouTube, 2017/08/30
This is some fun, but with an interesting point. The Metafilter summary reads as follows: "Mike Boyd is a Scottish lad who challanged himself to learn many specific skills. He documents the actual time it takes to 'master' them (or at least achieve a certain milestones of mastery). So far he uploaded 35 videos." Now it's not mastery in the szensze of 'to master physics'. But it's still an interesting experiment in self-learning.
Assessing Learning Outcomes: Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking and Written Communication Skills
Vera Beletzan, Melissa Gabler, Paula Gouveia, Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2017/08/30
When I think about my own intellectual history I can think of several keystone events in which I received explicit guidance in critical thinking (and writing) which advanced my thinking significantly. One was reading Eleanor Maclean's Between the Lines. Another was reading Darrell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics. Another was a close reading and analysis of one of my papers given to me by Jon Bordo, a philosophy professor. Another was verena Huber-Dyson's Philosophy of Mathematics class. Each of these forced me to think about thinking. And that's the point of this report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (50 page PDF). "Students’ critical thinking and written communications skills show the most improvement when they are explicitly taught... the skills need to be taught consistently and over a longer period of time to see significant gains and these types of courses should be positioned strategically throughout each program of study."
Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education
Van Davis, Blackboard Blog, 2017/08/29
This post announces and summarizes a new publication (44 page PDF) of the same name. It's a bit of a misnomer, as it is in essence a set of thirteen interviews with academics on the future of education. It's interesting reading, but if I had to characterize the interviewees with a single word, it would be "executives" rather than "futurists", and their view, collectively, is steadfastly rooted in the present. Without irony, Van Davis writes, "erhaps Mike Abbiatti... summed it up best when he opined, 'If we can, in some way, move higher education into an organization that has a true conversation across the continuum of the organization...'" Cue the heralds.
Obtaining Permission to Blog With Students
Kathleen Morris, The Edublogger, 2017/08/29
I may sound like a bit of a crank when I say this, but I think it's ridiculous that you should have to seek permission in order to blog with your students. We (most of us) don't live in dictatorships! Yet nonetheless, Kathleen Morris writes, "Your first step before introducing blogging into your classroom will be obtaining permission from your school, and parents or guardians." She also describes how you should talk about ho you will use blogging, why you want to blog, and what guidelines and privacy settings you will have in place. I understand the caution but I don't think it's warranted, and it sends students exactly the wrong message.And speaking of students, I find it interesting that they are the one group of people Morris did not say we need to obtain permission from.
Hypercard Archeostackology
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2017/08/29
"Can I say," asks Alan Levine, "that like Ward Cunningham, experiments in Hypercard led me to the web?" Probably. Levine doc uments his early experiments with Hypercard, some of which were interesting and other of which were, in his words, a mess. "The bigger projects worked well because they had solid content, pedagogy and instructional design behind them. And a lot of the work in Hypercard seemed to take me on a path to the web." Good read, and it's useful to remember that a lot of the concepts were around before there was a world wide web.
International Standard Name Identifier (ISO 27729)
International Standard Name Identifier, 2017/08/29
While publishers are pushing standards like ORCID, this is the ISO standard for names. "ISNI is the ISO certified global standard number for identifying the millions of contributors to creative works and those active in their distribution, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, performers, producers, publishers, aggregators, and more." It's a distributed system. "The ISNI database is built from many databases worldwide, and based on linking through matching algorithms. ISNIs are assigned when there is a high level of confidence in matching new names to existing names in the database." My ISNI is 0000 0003 8266 307X. See also Wikidata's page. Am I freaked out about this? No - I am deighted to have my own identity.
All the routine jobs
Kate Bowles, Music for Deckchairs, 2017/08/29
This is a lovely post that looks at the (unattributed) nature of routine work. It's a bit like the art derived from Google book scanners, showing how the work of the invisible is essential to the product(s) we see today. And what happens when robots replace them, as Toby Walsh suggests they will? Will we end up with "fidget spinners of higher education," asks Kate Bowles? "It’s not just the overblown claims made about their transformative potential by the vendors who are excited to sell them to us, but because of all the ways they normalise a particular body type, and in doing this prepare to humiliate any student who doesn’t fit the mould, literally." Lovely.
Explained simply: How DeepMind taught AI to play video games
Aman Agarwal, Medium, 2017/08/30
I think the concept here is a good idea - take a complex paper on AI and rewrite it so most people can understand it. And it more-or-less works. We certainly get a sense of the accomplishment: they trained an AI to play different games by using only the game as input - no rules, no hidden data, just game input. But this post uses the phrase "that is self-explanatory" far more frequently than such a post shoud (a dozen times, at least). And most of the time the paragraph that the author thought was self-explanatory wasn't. So while I give the post high marks for idea, I would grade it much lower on execution. And yet - it's still worth a read, especially if you think mmachines can learn how to do complex things all by themselves.
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Copyright 2017 Stephen Downes Contact: stephen@downes.ca
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.