OLDaily

Why micropayments will never be a thing in journalism
James Ball, Columbia Journalism Review, 2020/06/15

The reason, according to James Ball, is that people won't pay for average content unless it's bundled. "Readers would like to pick the very best content and pay less for it than they would if they subscribed. But no organization—media company, television network, or record company—can produce only hits. Nor should they try." The same is probably true for learning resources. People would prefer to buy only the highliughts of, say, a course, but no course can be 100 percent highlights.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Decentralization Off The Shelf: 7 Maxims
Eileen Wagner, Karissa McKelvey, Kelsie Nabben, 2020/06/15

This is a good article that looks at many of the (often unspoken) issues inherent in decentralized systems and communities, sometimes offering answers, but just as often leaving lingering questions. The seven maxims cover collaboration, design, infrastructure, developer onboarding, trust models, sustainability, and governance.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

5 Things People Are Learning –And 5 We Aren’t– About Online Learning In 2020
Cristian T. Duque, LMS Pulse, 2020/06/15

This is a bonus 'two listicles in one' article. The lesson's we're learning are all fairly obvious, though the last ("Support is everything... Against all better judgement, the best support system for teachers out there seems to be Facebook and the sprawling ecosystem of Facebook Groups") is worthy of note. The set of lessons we're not learning is better and more interesting, ranging from the obvious (your failure to "deliver on the experience online is not evidence enough to prove it is impossible" to the concerning ("learning organizations have poor or deficient risk management process" and "education, especially higher ed, continues to be financially unaccountable").

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Unpacking ‘the new normal’ in ELT
Philip Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2020/06/15

This article isn't cohesive, but it's an interesting look at accounts of 'the new normal' from various sources. Will it be online? Will there be social distancing? Will in-person schools take a hit? The answer is "yes and no" to all of these. And then there's this: " t is highly unlikely that online study will be the ‘new normal’ for most of these students (although we may expect to see attempts to move towards more blended approaches). There are many reasons for this, but perhaps the most glaringly obvious is that the function of schools is not exclusively educational: child-care, allowing parents to go to work, is the first among these."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Embracing the metaverse: Roblox’s ambitious vision for building online worlds
Janko Roettgers, Protocol, 2020/06/15

A metaverse is "a persistent online world that offers participants a wide range of experiences and avenues for self-expression." This article is focused on Roblox, though there are others - Minecraft, Fortnite, No Man's Sky - that attract loyal and persistent communities. "The metaverse is inherently a social place. It's this shared experience. So your identity becomes important. This ability to be able to have social interactions and maintain and actually make friendships becomes super important. What the internet is for information, the metaverse is going to do for social connections."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]