Everything Is a Subscription Now and It’s Too Much
Justin Pot, How-To Geek, 2018/05/11
The conversion from a sales model to a subscription model may well have worked for software vendors, but as the trend has taken hold it is becoming clearer that it is unsustainable. More...

The Gates Foundation And Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Want Your Ideas On The Future Of Education
Fast Company, Jim Shelton, 2018/05/11
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have opened a Request for Information (RFI) about work that can help increase student success in math, non-fiction writing, and "executive function (the skill set concerning memory, self-control, attention, and flexible thinking)" (I couldn't help but giggle a bit when I read the third one). More...

MOOCs Are Global. So Where Do They Stand With New European Privacy Laws?
Sydney Johnson, EdSurge, 2018/05/09
One of the happy side-effects of Europe's new privacy law is that it impacts companies that are not European. Among these are MOOC providers who, whether or not they are based in Europe, want to do business in Europe, and so need to comply with the regulations. More...

Google Duplex Puts AI Into a Social Uncanny Valley
S.A. Applin, Motherboard, 2018/05/09
The headlines today are being made by Google through a series of announcements at its IO conference. More interesting items include a new human-sounding Google Duplex AI interface, a new camera-based scavenger hunt (try it here), and a new interface design with Material Theming. More...

Why DIY videos are easier than you think
Raymond Steinmetz, eSchool News, 2018/05/09
The core message here is that it's not difficult to create video lessons, especially if you follow a few simple guidelines. The first is to have a plan - your video should have a point and you should have some idea why you're creating it. More...

Weak demand forces Springer Nature to cancel 3.2 billion euro float at last minute
Arno Schuetze, Reuters, 2018/05/09
This is a really interesting story, not simply because it shows the weakness of established publishers today, but because the prospectus (426 page PDF) paints a clear picture of the market today. I was most interested in the list of risks (pp. S16-S18 and expanded in much greater detail after p. S54). More...

How Can We Trust?
Ashwin J. Mathew, EDUCAUSE Review, 2018/05/09
This is a report from a survey asking respondents "to rate the importance of particular channels for gaining information about new attacks and novel approaches, and we asked how willing they would be to share information across these channels." Even looking at the research it's hard to get a sense of who the participants were, save that (I assume) they were higher education information security experts (see this paper (61 page PDF) starting at page 5). More...

Emergent EDU: Complexity and Innovation in Higher Ed
Kristen Eshleman, EDUCAUSE Review, 2018/05/09
What does innovation look like in complex environments? This article looks at a "grassroots" effort involving the leaders of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Michigan, and others (grassroots? really?) that became a network called Harvesting Academic Innovation for Learners (HAIL). More...

Pixel Mags Releases Readr app for Android
Pixel Mags, GlobeNewswire, 2018/05/09
I have to confess that I'm really uncomfortable with the whole idea of PixelMags. The company, which styles itself as the "the Netflix of magazines", released an Android version of its Readr app today. For publishers, the product is "distribution as a service" and publishers have to pay to be included. More...

Lessons in saving your student paper, before it’s too late
Jessica Huseman, Daxton Stewart, Columbia Journalism Review, 2018/05/08
Student newspapers are just one part of education learning to adapt to new technology. Part of this is a decline in ad revenue for print and online newspapers, which hits some of them hard. It's especially difficult when the school has a history of suppressing student voices, a journalism department which would prefer to run the student press internally, and a lack of independent funding. More...