PISA 2015 Results: Excellence and Equity in Education
OECD, 2016/12/06
The PISA 2015 results are in, announced with a big splash this morning. Topping the charts across the three disciplines are Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Finland, and Canada, along with four Chinese cities and states. Interestingly, three Canadian provinces - Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia - are at the very top of the rankings. More...

Introducing Gomix
Anil Dash, Medium, 2016/12/06
I've spent the last few hours wrapping my mind around GoMix. As Anil Dash says, "Think of Gomix as sort of an App Store connected to CodePen connected to Heroku." And if that doesn't help you, well you understand why it's taking me a bit. More...

Factors Affecting the Acceptability of Online Degrees: Evidence from Two Arab Countries
Alaa Sadik, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET), 2016/12/09
When I've worked in the Arab world the question has come up frequently about the public perception of the quality of online learning. This study of respondents from the business sector in Oman and Egypt confirms that there are doubts about the quality of online learning in the region. More...

Online Learning Consortium Unveils Expanded Quality Scorecard Suite for Benchmarking Online and Blended Learning Programs
Press Release, Online Learning Consortium, 2016/12/09
According to this news release, "the OLC Quality Scorecard uses research-based benchmarks and standards of excellence to help higher education institutions evaluate their online and blended learning programs." More...

Reality vs the portrait of EdTech - #edtalk
Dean Groom, Playable, 2016/12/09
Dean Groom comments circumspectly about a phenomenon that has long existed in ed tech, the self-promotion of people in social media by people seeking to become recognized as authorities by dint of claiming ownership over words and inventions, forming self-referential circles of non-competitive entrepreneurs, and domination of various Twitter hastag discussions He writes, "It is a deliberate practice of seeking illusory power and influence based on nothing more than entertainment, names and naming." And it causes real harm. More...

CoverGirl's Influencer Chatbot Is Smart, Funny and Responsive
Emma Hall, Advertising Age, 2016/12/08
These developments usually ripple into education. "Mobile commerce will be colossal using bots," said David Jones, former Havas global CEO and founder of You & Mr Jones. More...

Frederick County’s Call to Administrators: Focus on the “Innovator” and “Early Adopter” Teachers, First
Kevin Cuppett, EdSurge, 2016/12/08
I am asked this question a lot: how do we convince staff in our institution or district to adopt an innovation? This article describes exactly the response I give: focus on the early adopters and enthusiasts, support them by bringing them together and providing resources, and have them serve as the model and insiration for the remainder of the staff. More...

Educational Content Development Process in "CleverUniversity": Our Dynamic Adaptive Hypermedia Environment
Ahmed Bouchboua, Rabah Ouremchi, Mohammed El Ghazi, International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (IJET), 2016/12/08
This is a pretty good paper, though readers will no doubt find significant flaws. The authors propose an architecture for a CleverUniversity learning management system based on modeling and then matching resources across three sets of models: the domain model, which classifies and orders the subject of enquiry; the learner's model, which classifies learning styles, and the pedagogic model, which proposes a set of teaching frameworks. More...

In Search for the Open Educator: Proposal of a Definition and a Framework to Increase Openness Adoption Among University Educators
Fabio Nascimbeni, Daniel Burgos, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2016/12/07
In an article dedicated to definition careful word use is most important, so it's not a good sign when the title says "in search for..." instead of "in search of..." More...

Students Want Their Personal Data to be Used to Improve the College Experience, Survey Says
Meghan Bogardus Cortez, EdTech, 2016/12/07
This is the sort of survey that gets repeated uncritically in news media like Ed Tech magazine. All we know of the methodology is that is was conducted "among" 1,000 university students in the U.S. who were sent email invitations and answered an online survey. More...