How to become a Bayesian in eight easy steps: An annotated reading list
Alexander Etz, Quentin Gronau, Fabian Dablander, Peter Edelsbrunner, Beth Baribault, arXiv, 2017/08/18
I learned about Bayes Theorem while studying probability in the 1980s, but I never imagined it would have the influence it has today. It's a mechanism for calculating the probability of X given Y. More...

Asleep at the Switch: Schoolhouse Commercialism, Student Privacy, and the Failure of Policymaking
Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar, Kevin Murray, National Education Policy Center, 2017/08/18
A new report from the National Education Policy Center (55 page PDF) argues that schools should be prohibited from collecting student data unless rigorous safeguards are put into place, that algorithms used in personalized learning should be openly available for examination, and that the use of such technology shoulds require thirs-party assessments for validity and utility, including examinations of the technology (including, presumably, data sets) for bias and error. More...

Evaluation of Edtech: What Technology Means to Educators Across America
Walker Sands Communications, 2017/08/18
This report (21 page PDF) is based on interviews with "500 U.S. education professionals". What do teachers want? Presentation tools, textbooks an d classroom technologies. What don't they want? Social learning, gamification, and maker tech. Barriers to tech include the concern that it is a distraction to learning and costs too much. More...

How SB Nation Profits Off An Army Of Exploited Workers
Laura Wagner, Deadspin, 2017/08/16
Full disclosure: I read one of the SB Nation blogs (Bluebird Banter) almost every day. I like it because it's a fan site; it's independent from the team in a way traditional news coverage isn't. So I'm reading coverage, not advertising and promotion. More...

Repositories of Open Educational Resources: An Assessment of Reuse and Educational Aspects
Gema Santos-Hermosa, Núria Ferran-Ferrer, Ernest Abadal, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2017/08/16
This study examines resources from 110 repositories. It should be clear that this post doesn't measure actual reuse, it measures only how suitable the resources are for reuse. Having said that, there are some issues with how the observations are presented (for example, licensing is divided between CC-by-NC-SA (42.4%) and "Any of the 6 CC licenses (27.1%)", which is an impossibility). But there are some interesting things. More...

Digital Learning Research Network
National Institute for Digital Learning, 2017/08/17
Helge Scherlund links today to the Digital Learning Research Network, part of Ireland's National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL). The Network "fosters a network of leaders and strong communities of practice at the forefront of research on new models of teaching and learning." Projects include Mahara analytics, MOOCs in open education, Lego innovation, and more. More...

If I Ran a Newspaper….
Jeff Jarvis, Medium, 2017/08/14
Universities and news media face the same challenges from digital media, and if the news media house is on fire - to use the analogy Jeff Jarvis uses in this detailed post - then universities occupy the house next door, to which the flames have spread. More...

Useful xAPI Queries eLearning Designers Should Know
Anthony Altieri, Learning Solutions, 2017/08/14
Good article with real code examples showing both how xAPI data is stored in a Learning Record System (LRS) and how queries can be executed on this data. More...

Learning through the Open Creation of Knowledge
Allison Littlejohn, Little by Littlejohn, 2017/08/14
This is a quick read exploring the idea of students creating and organizing heir own learning. As Allison Littlejohn notes, "Some Massive Open Online Courses have been designed around every learner also acting as a teacher and bringing knowledge to the network." Students don't always follow present objectives. More...