Release of Ed-Fi Data Standard 3.0 and ODS / API 3.0
Ed-Fi Alliance, 2018/06/06
The actual headline is a lot wordier and has too many adjectives, but this is a press release and for some reason press release writers have never learned to communicate in ordinary English. The release marks the release of the most recent Ed Fi data standard. More...

Concept Maps in the Trenches
Geoff Cain, Brainstorm in Progress, 2018/06/06

I like concept maps - I used to make huge ones when I was a student - but they're the sort of thing that I think has never really made the transition to digital media. I think they just need bigger screens. More...

Three Things I Learned from Teaching Happiness
Discovery Education, 2018/06/06
Related to the Wil Wheaton post (keeping in mind that 'happiness' is not the opposite of, nor the cure for, depression and anxiety). So what are the three things? First, "The first mistake that people make is equating happiness, the overarching quality of life, with the temporary enjoyment we feel in response to something pleasurable." Second, "people enjoy what they are doing more if they are focused on what they are doing, right when they are doing it" (the thing I really enjoy about giving talks is that they uniquely allow me to be in the moment as I speak). More...

What Advertising History Says About the Future of Fake News
Austan Goolsbee, New York Times, 2018/06/05

Advertising is the original fake news. And if we look at the history of advertising, it says nothing good about the future of news. More...

Harnessing the Collective Intelligence of Humans and Machines
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 2018/06/05
This is an overview of Thomas Malone's book Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together. Malone clearly builds on concepts like collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds, defining a supermind as “a group of individuals acting in ways that seem intelligent.”  The interesting twist here is that the individuals in question might be both humans and computers. More...

The Pedagogy of Digital Discussion
Eric Sheninger, A Principal's Reflections, 2018/06/05
Many years ago I was in a discussion when I observed a person makinhg a contribuition based very clearly on one of these 'discussion strategies'. She had made the contribution because it was an interaction strategy, and not because it moved the conversation forward in any meaningful way. More...

Do Student-Produced Videos Enhance Engagement and Learning in the Online Environment
Denise Stanley, Jenny Zhang, online learning, 2018/06/05
This looks from the title like it would be an interesting paper. Alas, the article (22 page PDF) based on a study of 113 managerial economics students misses the interesting questions and instead goes down the demographics rabbit-hole. I don't care whether the students are Hispanic; I do care whether they've ever had any video production experience (because if they haven't, that would really distract from the learning they might otherwise do). More...

Instructional Strategies That Respond to Global Learners’ Needs in Massive Open Online Courses
Trang Phan, online learning, 2018/06/05
The first thing you need to dfo in a paper like this is identify the needs. These were organized into  three themes: language, content, and engagement. So far so good., Then they asked a few professors and instructional designers what sort of strategies they employed. Techniques described by the 1`5 participants included subtitles, multiple discussion venues, meet-and-greet, teaching assistants, and Power Point study guides. More...

What’s wrong with bots is they’re not ours
Doc Searls, 2018/06/07

That's probably not all that's wrong with bots, but it's certainly part of the problem. After all, the reason why it's creepy if a bot is listening to your conversation is that it belongs to Amazon or Apple or whomever. More...

How to Create a Reskilling Environment
Wendy Wickham, In the Middle of the Curve, 2018/06/07
This is advice that could apply to learning generally, and certainly professional development and workplace learning. Wendy Wickham writes, "Reskilling is NOT about providing a library of online tutorials. Reskilling is NOT about providing courses. Or training. Or any of those other singular events. More...