Mobile augmented communication for remote collaboration in a physical work context
Jana Pejoska- Laajola, Sanna Reponen, Marjo Virnes, Teemu Leinonen, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2017/12/15
This report documents "field studies in actual work contexts to map how participants solve physical tasks with remote help powered by augmented video calls, and examined how the drawing feature was used in these contexts... augmented video calls enhance remote collaboration by allowing workers to point at task objects and locations, thus potentially improving informal workplace learning." It's interesting to see how far back work in this field goes - some of the early references date from the 1990s. More...

Key themes in mobile learning: Prospects for learner-generated learning through AR and VR
Claudio Aguayo, Thomas Cochrane, Vickel Narayan, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2017/12/15
"Mobile learning still requires the theories, methodologies, and practices of its own as a field," write the authors. "We also see a need for mobile learning to be conceptualised around ever-changing learning affordances and educational settings, rather than focusing on static structures such as content-delivery approaches, while embedding it within the scholarship of technology enhanced learning." All of which makes sense to me. More...

New post
Moodle News, 2017/12/15
Short article in Moodle News pointing to some interesting resources about a forthcoming MoodleNet: "Users and enthusiasts can follow the developments on a dedicated blog at blog.moodle.net, maintained by Doug Belshaw. There is also a (very preliminary) white paper available here." More...

Trends in the Future of Learning
Stephen Downes, Dec 15, 2017, Learning Futures Workshop, Gatineau, Quebec

Work in the future will require higher levels of analysis, access to experts, and greater autonomy. How can the College@ESDC equipped itself for what’s coming? What form(s) is learning, and especially operational training, likely to take in 10-15 years. More...

Modern copyright law can't keep pace with thinking machines
Andrew Tarantola, Engadget, 2017/12/14
Copyright meets artificial intelligence. Who owns the product when one part is responsible for the digital input or data used by an AI, while another cerated the AI. More...

Big Data in Education book launch
Ben Williamson, Code Acts in Education, 2017/12/14
I haven't read the book (and probably won't unless there's an open access version) but this assertion is interesting. More...

How Artificial Intelligence Is Shaping the Future of Education
PC Magazine, 2017/12/14
This is an interesting look at artificial intelligence in education (at least, a very traditional classroom-based education) but you have to read the article very closely to distinguish between what the systems will do and what the systems currently do. This is important because there is some distance between them. More...

A 5-Step Guide To Help You Spread Social Learning Throughout Your Organization
Juliette Denny, 2017/12/14
Mostly I think this is a really bad guide, but it's bad in some interesting ways. One is the distinction between achievement and accomplishment Marc Prensky talked about last week. The suggestions here recognize achievement - "get 50 headshots" or "play the game for 10 hours" - which are simple accumulation measures, rather than actions that produce tangible good outside the learning environment. More...

Macmillan Learning Offers Educators Support for Open Education Resources via the Intellus Platform
Macmillan Learning, PRWeb, 2017/12/14
The hashtag to follow on this is #openwrapping. We had another announcement today of a publisher taking OER and wrapping commercial software and services around them, thus effectively enclosing the open resources. More...

The Learning Alliance Inventory: Instrument Development and Initial Validation
Daniel T. Rogers, International Journal for
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2017/12/13
As usual I don't think much of the actual research (the data set consist of psychology students at a midwestern university, and the result evaluated is effect on GPA). But the concept of the 'working alliance' is intriguing. "In his 1979 paper, Bordin argued that a working alliance occurs when one person makes an effort to change and another person serves as a facilitator of that change." More...