FGP - The Cairo Genizah site is used by Genizah researchers in all fields of Jewish Studies: Biblical Literature, Rabbinic Literature, Prayer and Liturgy, Humanities and Sciences, the History and Culture of Jewish Society in the Mediterranean Basin in the medieval era. The site preserves images of all the Genizah fragments accompanied by extensive information : Identifications, catalog records, bibliographic data, transcriptions, translations etc. The site includes advanced visual tools designed specifically for the project. More...

The Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) of Toronto, Canada carries out many of its activities in a Joint Venture with the Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP). The aim of this Joint Venture is to further the Society's (FJMS) goals of educating the public through the study and research of Genizah fragments, manuscripts and early printings as well as other books and documents as they relate to Judaism and Jews.By using advanced software systems freely accessible to everyone, anywhere, anytime. More...

Moocs can still bring higher education to those who really need it
Diana Laurillard, Eileen Kennedy, Times Higher Education, 2017/12/18
For something that's supposed to be dead, MOOCs are still very much alive. And according to this articlee, they have more potential for the future. "Moocs are still multiplying and branching out into new forms of accredited learning experiences," write the authors. More...

Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking
Mara Hvistendahl, Wired, 2017/12/18
This article descibes China's embrace of electronic payments using WeChat and Alipay, and discusses its extension into personal credit. It them suggests a linkage between various plans to allocate people 'social credit' according to their social behaviour (for example, whether they were charged with offenses, whether they disrupted spociety). More...

Pearson Open Sources Equella—Properly
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2017/12/18
The most interesting bit is the pair of disclosures at the bottom of the article. What is the "yet-to-be-announced e-Literate project" being sponsored by Pearson? What is the other "yet-to-be-announced e-Literate project" being sponsored by Unicon. More...

Focusing on the Process: Letting Go of Product Expectations
Jackie Gerstein, User Generated Education, 2017/12/18

This post draws a useful distinctoon between viewing education as a product and viewing it as a process. More...

Kamadia: Why I didn't get a PhD – and why you shouldn't either
Aly Kamadia, Ottawa Citizen, 2017/12/18
I don't have a PhD but I have a PhD education - that is, I completed all the coursework for my PhD, passed five rigorous comprehensive exams, and prepared a dissertation proposal. I also spent four or five years teaching classes as part of my graduate assistantship. More...

5 Ways to Teach How the Brain Learns
Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, 2017/12/18
I was expecting this to be pop pseudoscience, and while it's a bit pop, the five things seem pretty solid to me. They are: you can't learn when stressed, learning is based on similarity, learning requires repetition, the brain changes and adapts, and assessment (and hence reflection) is important. More...

Fake news and Facebook: Campaign kicks off to help Canadians separate fact from fiction
Clare Hennig, CBC News, 2017/12/15
This is an example of the deployment of education outside the usual channels. The public service message has been around for as long as there are ways to send messages (1950s radio dramas are full of them). Does the PSA actually work? There's a case to be made. Canada's Participaction program has a longstanding history of promoting fitness. We all remember the sounds from the Hinterland Who's Who program. And over the years the government has produced 86 Heritage Minutes to inform Canadians of our hgistiory and culture. More...

The Fake News Culprit No One Wants to Identify: You
danah boyd, Wired, 2017/12/15
I waver back and forth on the topic of institutions. On the one hand, I find that they are capable of significant harm, as they concentrate power and authority and and easily usurped to work for an elite. Exhibit A: the university system. But by the same token, institutions create the fabric of society, without whiuch we exist only in a dog-eat-dog world of feudal authority. Whatever your views, institutions are being challenged in 2017. We have Umair Haque, formerly of Harvard Business Review, writing that American institutions are broken and near collapse. More...