OLDaily

How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum
Gergely Orosz, The Pragmatic Engineer, 2021/09/29

This post looks at the management and organization of teams working on large scale development projects. What it represents overall is a move away from structured processes, like scrum, and more flexible approaches, including especially kanban. Scrum "helps rein in the stakeholders and educates them on software development processes, while giving the engineering team breathing room to execute," but when teams are focused and motivated, scrum rituals create more burden than support. In general, where we see success, "empowered and autonomous teams are the building blocks of all these companies. They are also the key differentiator between many companies in the tech industry." Also, "if you roll out project management methodologies that add heavy processes for the sake of reporting, then you’ll get more process, lower trust, and people gaming whatever reports you’re trying to produce." The same is true in education.

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Something Weird Is Happening on Facebook
Chris Ladd, Political Orphans, 2021/09/29

A reliable way to generate clicks, comments or follows is to ask a question. I see this tactic employed on Twitter all the time. On a popular Facebook page this will result in hundreds or even thousands of comments. According to this article, these comments are now being mined to extract useful (and personal) information. "Feed that kind of sentiment data through a machine learning algorithm and I could build a dataset on which to build a powerful disinformation campaign. Someone seems to think there’s value here, investing significant time and money by recruiting affiliate networks to distribute this content and gather results." Maybe. But what's the response here? Stop commenting? Block companies from creating pages? No - we need to develop a resistance to disinformation, so we can pick our sources more carefully, and respond more judiciously.

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Victoria Marsick on 'Informal' and 'incidental' learning. Technology (EPSS, LXPs, LRSs, AI, Data) now implementing her ideas...
Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, 2021/09/29

One of the things that becomes noticeable as Donald Clark writes about the work of more and more education researchers is that the field becomes defined less by a few towering figures and much more by what might be thought of as a chorus of voices each contributing a little to a much wider picture. The ones with good pedigree or good public relations get a lot of the attention, but the real work is done in the spaces between them. That's where I would place Victoria Marsick as she draws on a lot of earlier work on informal and non-formal learning and "provided the theoretical basis for future takes on informal and incidental learning that led to Gery and Cross and the technology that enabled this to happen." And the thing to remember here is that they aren't 'her ideas' so much as they are community ideas to which she has contributed (and the same is true for my ideas and anyone else in the field you care to name).

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A GRR Teaching Trick: Begin with the ‘You Do’
Sunday Cummins, Julie Webb, Middleweb, 2021/09/29

Students reach the middle years with a lot of experience and are ready to "employ the independent 'You do' phase of the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) framework, right from the start," write the authors. The framework (more) begins with focused lessons for inexperienced learners and proceeds through to a final 'independent learning' stage. This article describes one of the author's work using the model in class. While the framework is intended to be flexible ("moving back and forth as needed") it seems to me that we should expect all students to be able to learn independently before they finish secondary education. But that doesn't appear to be the case.

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Gathering Strength, Gathering Storms: The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) 2021 Study Panel Report
Michael L. Littman, et.al., Stanford University, 2021/09/29

This is a very good report. It is presented essentially as a snapshot of the state of the art of artificial intelligence in 2021, not so much from a technical point of view (though it does address technical questions briskly and with authority) but from the wider social perspective, looking at applications, perceptions, concerns and risks of the tchnology. The document is clearly written with attention to detail, logically structured, and rewards both a quick skim and a close technical reading. If you are working in the field of AI and learning, you should not miss this one.

From the report: "Our strength as a species comes from our ability to work together and accomplish more than any of us could alone. AI needs to be incorporated into that community-wide system, with clear lines of communication between human and automated decision-makers. At the end of the day, the success of the field will be measured by how it has empowered all people, not by how efficiently machines devalue the very people we are trying to help."

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Ontarians are getting digital ID this fall: All you need to know
Pragya Sehgal, IT World Canada, 2021/09/29

As the headline says, we're getting a digital ID this fall here in Ontario. According to the Ontario government web page, "you could use digital ID to prove your identity when you: make an age-sensitive purchase (like a lottery ticket), pick up a package at the post office, apply for government assistance (such as disability support) or benefits (such as CERB or EI), access and use vaccination records, (or) open a bank account." And more. Here are the details and standards. And there are obvious uses for education - not only applying for student assistance, but for verifying credentials or accessing learning resources. Now there are many ways a digital ID could be abused by both governments and industry; the web page takes pains to say that the digital ID is "not stored in a central database, not a tracking device, (and) not usable without your permission." This is the right way to do it, and I'll be curious to see more of the details as it's rolled out. More: CTV, Biometric Update. See also Alberta's digital ID.

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