The CWiC Framework: Context around Courseware
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2018/04/04
This post is mostly a video about the Courseware in Context (CWiC) framework, which you can read about here. The idea of CWiC is to "help you make better-informed adoption and implementation decisions with the goal of advancing the adoption of high-quality digital courseware in higher education." As Michael Feldstein says (and I concur) "We've seen repeated failures in the market to create selection tools for curricular materials or edtech products." The approach of CWiC is to place these selection decisions into context. More...

How babies learn – and why robots can’t compete
Alex Beard, The Guardian, 2018/04/04
This article blends to major streams of thought: the first, as suggested in the title, describing how children actually learn (hint: it's not the encoding of content knowledge; that's how robots learn, not people), and the second, relating this to failed attempts to 'school' children from lower socio-economic backgrounds by cramming them and force-feeding them. More...

Publication of LRMI controlled vocabularies
Stuart Sutton, Learning Resource Metadata Initiative, Google Groups, 2018/04/04

I'm just reposting this verbatim, because it's chock-full o' links. "DCMI and its LRMI Task Group are pleased to announce the publication of a set of controlled vocabularies (enumerations) for use with existing schema.org learning resource properties. The vocabularies have been described using the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) and serialized in RDF Turtle.

1. Alignment Type for use with schema.org/alignmentType 
2. Educational Audience Role for use with schema.org/audience 
3. Educational Use for use with schema.org/educationalUse
4. Interactivity Type for use with schema.org/interactivityType

A fifth vocabulary identifying the learning resource type for use with schema.org/learningResourceType is still in development. More...

Teachers and students create interactive STEM lessons that inspire, motivate, and teach others
Microsoft, 2018/04/03
In a conversation with Doug Belshaw this morning we discussed the idea of student-produced open educational resources (OERs), how they didn't have to be high-quality and glossy to be effective, and how the metaphor of 'learning exhaust' might not be the best way to describe them (what would be better: 'learning by-products'? 'learning productions'?). More...

The Missing Building Blocks of the Web
Anil Dash, Glitch, Medium, 2018/04/03
Anil Dash, still with Glitch, is continuing to advocate "the idea that the web was supposed to be made out of countless little sites." This is something that resonates with me as well. More...

Philosophical Implications of New Thought-Imaging Technology

Justin Weinberg, Daily Nous, 2018/04/03
We have always taken for granted the fact that our thoughts are private. The developments described in this article challenge that idea. " Dan Nemrodov at the University of Toronto-Scarborough is working on a way to use electroencephalography (EEG) and machine learning to digitally reconstruct the images that subjects are seeing. In other words, he is developing a kind of mind reading technology." More here and here. More...

In Defense of Design Thinking, Which Is Terrible
jenkinsEar, Metafilter, 2018/04/03
This is a really interesting pair of presentations. In one, mostly a video, Natasha Jen criticizes the idea of design thinking. “Why did we end up with a single medium?" she asks. More...

College for all — but not college degrees
Joanne Jacobs, Linking and Thinking on Education, 2018/04/03
As always, I am suspicious when reading a Joanne Jacobs column, but this one seems backed by good data and (even more importantly) good intentions. In a nutshell, " More first-generation, low-income students are going to college — but not completing a degree, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. More...

The Edublogger’s Guide To Podcasting
Kathleen Morris, The Edublogger, 2018/04/03
This guide from Edublogs is for educators and dips into the now-rich history of educational podcasting to create an every-teacher's guide. It's funny how podcasting was all the rage for a while, went out of fashion, and now has returned with a vengeance. No matter: I'm just happy to see it. More...

Data-based decision making on students’ mathematical achievement: no effect
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Education Research Report, 2018/04/03
Wouldn't it be something if the data showed that there was no effect to be had from using data-driven decision-making (DBDM)  in education? The paper from last June this short post is based on is locked behind a subscription paywall, so there's no way of verifying the report or finding any other nuance in the study (yet another case of why it's so frustrating that people actually publish this way - it's like they don't want to be read). More...