OLDaily

10 shortcuts made possible by .new
Ben Fried, Google Blog, 2019/11/15

Google has been in the process of creating a new .new top level domain with the intent that such URLs will take you directly to a specific content creation tool. However, instead of allowing users to pick their own content creation tools (which is the way it should work) Google is going through a process of selecting winners. Thus, for example, docs.new will open in Google Docs, story.new opens the editor on Medium (which is a very bad choice), and sell.new goes to eBay. No word on where things like blog.new and course.new will go - but I have no doubt some people will be disappointed no matter how Google awards these domains.

Just for fun I made a single web page that links to all of these - though many of them won't load yet, some won't load ever in an iframe, and (in Firefox) a number are blocked by content security policies. But wouldn't it be nice to have a page like this that captures the URL of whatever you created and allows you to send it wherever you want (I wanted this for LPSS but nobody was interested in content creation)? Or to save what you created to your own (cloud or local) repository? Why can't we have something like this? See also, Wired, the Verge, enGadget, Quartz, CNet.

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Adopting Microlearning for Custom eLearning Development of New-age Workforce
Anubha Goel, G-Cube Blog, 2019/11/15

This is basically marketing content but it's useful to see how the current trend in corporate learning - microlearning - is being presented. It touts a benefit of "a bit-sized approach... to ensure custom content development." Following the link took me to some case studies, including this one touting a "Windows 8 tile-based interface". Not exactly a selling point. But the tile selection was interesting, including one that pointed to Twitter - if it were just a link to Twitter, who cares, but if it were a custom Twitter interface showing only content using (say) a specific hashtag, well then that's different.

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Getting My Head Around Noodle Partners
Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, 2019/11/15

It's hard not to be suspicious of an article as fawning as this one, but it's also really good reading, might actually just be an honest impression, and provides a valuable insight into an online program management (OPM) company, Noodle Partners, that takes on an anti-OPM stance. The article mostly recounts "a small Academic Roundtable that the company hosted this summer at their Manhattan headquarters... their leadership team was able to actively participate in the conversations as colleagues (rather than as a vendor)." Maybe these are valuable, but I'll believe they're not marketing hen they start including vocal critics like Audrey Watters. See also this keynote from founder and CEO John Katzman.

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The best way to blog in 2020
Ben Werdmuller, 2019/11/15

I can endorse pretty much everything Ben Werdmuller says about blogging in this post, including his recommendations for blogging platforms. But this is the bit that's the most important: "When you blog, you're building up a body of work that represents you online. It's a gateway into your thought process more than anything else. So do what moves you.... The only thing that's really important is that you keep doing it. I can tie every single major advance in my career to blogging. It's been hugely important in my personal life, too. I couldn't recommend it more." Same here. I wouldn't have a career without blogging. And for all my professional output, my blog posts are the best of me.

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Google reveals ‘Project Nightingale’ after being accused of secretly gathering personal health records
Mary Beth Griggs, The Verge, 2019/11/15

Google says it was all above board - after all, the program was mentioned in an earnings call earlier this year -but they still didn't tell people their data was being collected, nor did they anonymize the data (quite the opposite, in fact). Google responded that "it’s standard industry practice for a health care provider to share highly sensitive health records with tech workers under an agreement like the kind it signed." Well, maybe it shouldn't be. And we have to ask, when Google does other things - like this Freddie Mercury singing competition - what other data is it collecting? When it buys FitBit, what does does it do with the data? And, of course, what about the deals its making with school boards? Sure, maybe it's all legit - but running it as a secret program sure doesn't convey that impression.

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