OLDaily

Humans Wanted
Royal Bank of Canada, 2018/04/11

The gist of this report (44 page PDF) is that while technology is eliminating a lot of jobs, it won't eliminate work. But we have to be aware of what new skills and abilities the future workplace will require. Among the skills considered most important: active listening, speaking, and critical thinking. The first was a bit of a surprise - but was also the key skill I used in my last two research projects. You should read the Tony Bates summary, as he uses more words than I can here and thus provides a much more comprehensive outline. He also references UBC's Digital Tattoo showing how these skills overlap into our personal lives. In the same context, you might look at the recently released Business Council of Canada skills survey (28 page PDF) which reaches many of the same conclusions. See also Alex Usher's summary and discussion.

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What is an Empirical Educator?
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2018/04/11

I think the phrase 'empirical educator' is clever marketing and a not-bad attempt to capture the ideas of "efficacy, evidence-based, research-backed, data-informed, etc." under a single rubric. Philosophically, I am also an empiricist, in the classical sense (as compared to, say, 20th century empiricists, also known as logical positivists, or even its 20-21st century alternative, constructive empiricism). So maybe there's something interesting here. What we get is a "taxonomy of levels" (naturally, because the taxonomy of levels is the apex of education research). And (sorry) not a very good one, classifying between intuitive, mindful, meta-cognitive and social empiricist educators. These may be different ways of being teachers, but they are not different ways of being empirical. I think that if you're going to appropriate a term with hundreds of years of history behind it, you should do so more literately.

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How to Host a Student Media Festival
Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, 2018/04/11

I love the idea of a student media festival. We read "We tell people, 'It’s in Hollywood! It’s coming to accept awards, and it’s the Oscars for kids,'" which I guess is good marketing, but the big difference between a media festival and the Oscars is that the photos are actually shown and the videos are actually viewed. The main point here is that students are acting as creators and are sharing their media with each other and with Festival attendees. This sort of engagement creates lasting memories and lasting learning. "What I love about the festival," says manager Mike Lawrence, "is that kids actually get celebrated for their creativity while they’re learning. And they get to come down, and we have a microphone for them." The post is an audio interview with transcript.

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YouTube and Facebook Are Losing Creators to Blockchain-Powered Rivals
Camila Russo, Bloomberg, 2018/04/11

The idea of blockchain-enabled alternatives such as DTube is that viewers can pay for content directly through tips or subscriptions, thus avoiding the tracking and advertising pervasive on platforms like YouTube and Google. But a quick look at DTube shows the risks as well - scam links in the comments, for example, or unsavory videos on the home page. Yes, it can be worse than YouTube out there.Still, as the article notes, " The less centralized platforms keep more power—and potentially, privacy—in the hands of creators and users, says Ned Scott, who runs the Steem-based social network Steemit." That's why I'm on Mastodon, not Facebook, and distributed marketplaces like LBRY (read more).

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Designing Projects so Students Have High Quality Project Based Learning Experiences
Jamie Back, Getting Smart, 2018/04/11

This post begins by referencing some different types of project-based and design-based learning and then in the main body lists "the six criteria outlined in the recently-released Framework for High Quality Project Based Learning (HQPBL) — Authenticity, Intellectual Challenge and Accomplishment, Public Product, Collaboration, Project Management, and Reflection." These are to me mostly reasonable (as always, I like to position 'cooperation' as an alternative to 'collaboration' for those people like me who don't get on well in groups but still want to interact with other people).

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