OLDaily

OER Commons Intros Authoring Tool
Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology, 2020/01/07

According to this short article, the OER Commons has launched a new authoring tool, Open Author. It "consolidates the functions of three other utilities from OER Commons: the Resource Builder, Lesson Builder and Module Builder," says the article. You have to log in to use it (or sign in with Clever, a single-signon for schools - a bit of marketing there, I think). I created a test resource on how to create a resource using the tool to see how it worked - it's very basic (the metada submission is the most complex piece). Watch out for licensing, which defaults to CC-by. Also, there's a non-standard 'educational use permitted' licensing option (whatever that means). What was missing? I couldn't find any way to search for and reuse existing OER content while creating my own OER.

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The bava an A-Lister at Long Last
Jim Groom, bavatuesdays, 2020/01/07

"Do you remember when blogging was a thing and there were A-lister bloggers?" asks Jim Groom. Well, this isn't like that. This post describes a site that tests your web security - I ran it on my site as well and watched it test for various vulnerabilities and backdoors (disclosure: I'm hosted at Reclaim Hosting). And I too am an A-lister.

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Platforms and big data in ELT – a look back at the last decade
Philip Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2020/01/07

This post mostly looks at the sad saga of Knewton. "It was clear, from very early on (see, for example, my posts from 2014 here and here) that Knewton’s product was little more than what Michael Feldstein called ‘snake oil’. Why and how could so many people fall for it for so long? Why and how will so many people fall for it again in the coming decade, although this time it won’t be ‘big data’ that does the seduction, but AI (which kind of boils down to the same thing)?" The real impact of data and AI, in my opinion, will come when it supports creativity, and not mere content consumption. That will happen, but it would require product developers to reconceptualize their understanding of education, so it might not happen any time soon.

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Holistic EdTech & Diversity
Antoine Patton, InfoQ, 2020/01/07

Antoine Patton takes his audience at QCom through what he calls a 'diversity sprint'. He outlines the problem not only of inclusion in a mostly white and male workforce, but also the problem companies have of accessing a diverse range fo applicants. After all, education is expensive and poverty is hard. There's no real conclusion - we hear from five participant groups with ideas around community centres and apprenticeships - but as Patton says, "if you work at a company who has a budget around diversity, try to encourage them to ingrain education into that.

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Is there an international market for Canadian online learning?
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2020/01/07

"The most recent national survey of Canadian post-secondary institutions," writes Tony Bates, "concluded that ‘ultimately, the majority of online students are from the same province in which the institution is located.’" However, by contrast, "Canada has been doing extremely well in recruiting campus-based undergraduate international students in recent years." Though there are reasons why this doesn't translate to online learning, Bates writes "I still believe there is a potentially huge and profitable international market for Canadian online programs, particularly at the professional masters’ level." Maybe. But Alex Usher disagrees. "Even if, like me, you don’t believe the international student market is a 'bubble', you’d better believe that competition for those students is going to intensify... the days of easy growth in this area are mostly over." Right.

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What’s the Problem with Learning Analytics?
Neil Selwyn, Journal of Learning Analytics, 2020/01/07

This article (9 page PDF) sets out a number of major concerns about the use of learning analytics and sets the stage for a discussion of the subject in an invited dialogue in the SOLAR Journal of Learning Analytics. Selwyn argues that he looks "beyond the assertion that learning analytics is essentially apolitical and objective" and suggests that "While you might not agree with every one of these contentions, they all illustrate the inherently political nature of learning analytics." Responses follow from Paul Prinsloo, Rebecca Ferguson, Carolyn Penstein Rose  and Alfred Essa. Image via Debbie Morrison. (p.s. if anyone has a translation of the Latin paragraph in Prinsloo's paper, please send it along - Google translate produces nonsense (maybe it's just lorem ipsum).

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