GNU social: Federation against the social model of Twitter
Manuel Ortega, Las Indias in English, 2015/04/10
I haven't seen GNU Social but it might be worth looking it, as it offers a networking model more akin to the one I favour. "The Facebook and Twitter socialization model, the FbT model, is like a large plaza where everyone can shout their slogans, while barely listening to each other," says this article, which can be contrasted to (what it called) the federation model, in which "the intimate relationship between the value of a conversation and the trust that has already been established within the nodes. More...

Integrating Social Learning in the Workplace
Sahana Chattopadhyay, ID & Other Reflections, 2015/04/10

Important advice: "The catch is that “social learning” cannot just be implemented or enforced. One cannot inset social learning in the training calendar and feel happy about it." It's not the sort of thing that can be imposed from the top down, writes Sahana Chattopadhyay. More...

Innovation and the Novelty Factory
Tim Klapdor, Heart | Soul | Machine, 2015/04/10

À propos of my recent talk on innovation, "Horace Dediu posits a taxonomy which I think is extremely useful to help discern innovation and reduces some confusion:

Novelty: Something new
Creation: Something new and valuable
Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful

Why is this useful? It helps distinguish actual innovation from mere novelty. More...

How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, 2015/04/10

Now let me put this in context: Dennett (author of Consciousness Explained  and The Intentional Stance) is one of the world's most respected philosophers today. He, probably more than anyone else in the world, knows how a good argument works. Here is his method (and, I might add, my method):"

1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, 'Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.'
2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism."

What do you think the point of OLDaily is. More...

Why More Education Won’t Fix Economic Inequality
Neil Irwin, New York Times, 2015/04/03
The only real way to address income inequality is to directly address income inequality. And in my view, most education 'reform' efforts are tactics designed to obscure this fact. "See? We are doing something about inequality. We are focusing on testing and educational outcomes." No, it doesn't work that way. More...

Can You Trust Your Ears? (Audio Illusions)
ASAP Science, YouTube, 2015/04/03
Optical illusions are common. Audio illusions are less so. But in a set of examples this short video show how we can hear the same tone or sound in different ways. For example, the McGurk effect demonstrates a case where the same sound is perceived as either 'bar' or 'far' depending on what you're looking at. More...

5 Stages of Workplace Learning (Revisited Again)
Jane Hart, Learning in the Social Workplace, 2015/04/03
People planning workplace development programs should take a version of this chart and make it their roadmap for the next five or ten years. It basically describes the transition from a dependence on formal learning to a deployment of informal learning, and it also maps the sift from centralized control to decentralized control. More...

The Beauty of the Block
Audrey Watters, Personal Blog, 2015/02/02
I blocked and unfriended someone yesterday for warmongering. He was only the latest of dozens - maybe hundreds - of people I've blocked in the last few months. I was like Audrey Watters: "I didn’t used to block. I’d unfollow. I’d ignore." But now I block because I don't want this in my life. And I don't block because it's simply unpleasant. More...

Is it Time to Change Tracks with Your LMS?
Jeffrey Roth, Social Learning Blog, 2015/02/02
Sometimes I forget that organizations still have learning management systems (LMSs). But of course that's silly: beyond a certain size, they all have learning management systems. Sometimes they have several (in one case I studied, dozens!). More...

Major publisher retracts 43 scientific papers amid wider fake peer-review scandal
Fred Barbash, Washington Post, 2015/03/31
This has been in the news for the last week or so. To me it suggests peer review is struggling to maintain its viability. Thee main scandal is a ring of people who manipulated the peer review system to support each others' works. More...