A Philosopher-Grammarian Gets Something Right
Chronicle of Higher Education, 2017/09/07
Michael Dummett wrote some of the most dense prose I ever had the displeasure of reading, so it's hard to imagine enjoying his book on grammar. But as Geoffrey Pullum writes, although Dummett's book contains a fair degree of crank, it also offers some surprisingly lucid advice on defining parts of speech. More...

More Or Less Technology In The Classroom? We’re Asking The Wrong Question
Cathy Davidson, Fast Company, 2017/09/07
I'm not sure whether Catrhy Davidson's description of MOOC as "Massive Open Online Courseware" is a deliberate commentary or an accidental oversight. I prefer to think it's the former, especially in the context of her denunciation of tech hyperbole. More...

8 Ways UX Design Theory Transformed My Approach to Course Design
John Spencer, The Synapse, 2017/09/06
Nice article from John Spencer applying elements of user experience design (UX) to the design of online courses. I like the graphic (though it bothers me a little that the text does not follow the same order as the graphic). More...

Domain-Driven Design Reference: Definitions and Pattern Summaries
Eric Evans, 2017/09/06
This post is the very tip of a huge body of knowledge. At the beginning of the 20th century L.E.J (Bertus) Brouwer developed a theory of "intuitionist" mathematics incorporating the idea that math is a creation within the context of a Weltanschauung, or world view. In the late 20th-century rejection of logical positivism in favour of constructivist theories we see the development of alternative logics, including intuitionist, or constructivist, logic, where "constructive proofs correspond to functional programs and vice versa" related to a state space or model. This supports in turn a design methodology where "Multiple models are in play on any large project." This is the world of domain driven design (DDD). More...

Mozilla and the Washington Post Are Reinventing Online Comments
Michael Deangelo, The Mozilla Blog, 2017/09/06
I had a look at the code and it looks like it's still a bit of a project to install. But I like the distributed approach ("every organization using Talk runs its own version of the software, and keeps its own data. ") and I like its approach to data. More...

I used to think social media was a force for good. Now the evidence says I was wrong
Matt Haig, The Guardian, 2017/09/06
This article conflates the social harm caused by social media ("the same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart") with the personal harm caused by social media ("inspiring feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and self-loathing"). Maybe internet addition and filter bubbles have the same underlying pathology, but aside from both being associated with social media I don't see the connection. More...

The Massively Open On Air Courses (MOOAC): Contextualizing MOOCs in Africa
Rebecca Yvonne Bayeck, e/merge Africa, YouTube, 2017/09/06
Education in Africa faces numerous challenges: infrastructure, affordances, teacher shortages and distance. MOOCs can be deployed to address these issues. But few African students actually attend MOOCs. Access to the internet is still very limited (about 9 percent) in Africa. More...

Revised Community of Inquiry Framework: Examining Learning Presence in a Blended Mode of Delivery
Jessica Pool, Gerda Reitsma, Dirk Van den Berg, Online Learning (OLJ), 2017/09/05
The Community of Inquiry model (CoI) postulates three types of presence: social, teachning, and cognitive presence. These presences can be direct, or they can be mediated through technology (such as books or digital communications). More...

Theories and Frameworks for Online Education: Seeking an Integrated Model
Anthony G. Picciano, Online Learning (OLJ), 2017/09/05
I don't think this article is nuanced enough in some important ways, but it is interesting in its own right and serves as a breezy introduction to some of the major theories of learning and pedagogy. It begins by defining what a theory is and then identifying three major branches of theory: behaviourism, cognitivism, and social constructivism. It then looks at "extensions" of these approaches, including the Community of Inquiry and Connectivism. More...