Mastodon is big in Japan. The reason why is… uncomfortable
Ethan Zuckerman, 2017/08/23
This criticism of Mastodon - which, full disclosure, I use regularly - is odd. Here it is: "Japanese users had been looking for a Twitter-like platform where they could share lolicon writing and imagery for some time." For those unfamiliar with lolicon (as I was", it "includes animated cartoons and 2D drawings of young men and women in a way that is undeniably sexualized." As Zuckerman says, "some advocates for distributed publishing will be disappointed that Mastodon’s growth is so closely tied to controversial content."
But where's the problem? I don't see one. More...

This amazing South-Bronx school grows 50,000 pounds of vegetables a year
Vicky Davis, The Cool Cat Teacher Blog, 2017/08/23
This is a sponsored post on Vicki Davis's site, but don't let that slow you down, it's a great post (if you read it on the website there's a really annoying blocker, just click 'No Thanks' and the story will reappear. Also, you have to scroll past the "Sorry, this promotion is not available in your region" box - I hope she's making lots of money from the advertising because we're certainly paying for it with a miserable reading experience). More...

The Bittersweet Convergence of Policy, Higher Ed and Tech
Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology, 2017/08/23
This article summarizes a panel at a recent BBWorld conference. The premise is that "even as technology continually promises to deliver a more effective education to a more engaged audience of learners, it hardly ever measures up." Instead, we see "a rush of bad actors coming in and providing subpar, poor-quality, crappy education, used by schools that are seeing this as a cheaper way to get folks through." But the "what I really want" response is equally bad - "What I really want — on our overhead projector, I want a rollof plastic, not individual screens." Yes, someone said that. More...

If you’re a startup, you should not use React (reflecting on the BSD + patents license)
Raúl Kripalani, Medium, 2017/08/22
React is a Javascript framewowrk for content presentation. I've never used React because using something release by Facebook felt a little, well, greasy. That intuition is substantiated by this post. More...

The rise of robot teachers
Melissa Jun Rowley, Cisco, The Network, 2017/08/22
This article describes Amy, "an AI-driven, robotic math tutor.... so far, Amy prototype has been trialled in 10 different high schools across New Zealand" (of course, everything is 'AI xdriven' thesde days - web services, coffee makers, shampoo...). The idea i that Amy examines student work and identifies where tghey made theifr mistake. More...

Amazon’s Alexa: Your Next Teacher #elearning
Cait Etherington, eLearningInside News, 2017/08/22
Don't panic about the headline. The story here is that learning management systems (including, among others, Instructure's Canvas) has hooked into the Alexa API, so they can not accept (some) voice commands, and give audio responses. More...