Producing ‘innovative’ graduates and how online learning can help
Tony Bates, online learning & distance education resources, February 10, 2014
Tony Bates lists two papers on innovation and summarizes one of them (and I can't even read the other, as it's locked behind an OECD paywall - 'co-operation and development' my eye). And as he says, we should read the first one with caution, as it has a European focus and is based on the assessments of graduates rather than employers. Still. More...

Nye v. Ham: What Is ‘Science’?
Harry Keller, educational technology & change, February 10, 2014
You can probably guess where I stand on the question of creation versus evolution, so I won't go there with this post. Rather, I have one observation based on an exchange that happens a bit later on in the debate. It's this: if you have a belief in anything that nothing could or would cause you to change, then your belief is based on faith, not science. More...

Tennessee Governor Urges 2 Free Years of Community College and Technical School
Richard Pérez-Pena, New York Times, February 10, 2014
I actually consider it odd that there are separate streams for academic work and for the trades. And so while I support the idea of free community college tuition, I hesitate a bit because it reinforces this divide. If I were in charge of education, I would consider ensuring that everyone has a trade, which they could learn at a community college level by the time they were, say, 15 or 16. Think CEGEP, but started and completed much earlier in life. More...

Mobile Learning Curriculum Framework (MLCF)
Adele Botha, Wikispaces, February 11, 2014
The Mobile Learning Framework covers three broad areas, "to know about mobile learning, to be able to facilitate mobile learning and to understand the implications of implementing mobile learning." The framework is led by Adele Botha of CISR Meraka (CISR is the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa, a scientific and technology research, development and implementation organisation). More...

‘Scaffold’ map reveals brain’s weak spots
Suzanne Wu, Futurity, February 11, 2014
The good thing about this post is that it makes it clear that cognition depends on connections. And I can go along with the idea that some connections are more important than others, at least with respect to specific functions. I would hesitate to take this line of reasoning too far, as it's based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). More...

Books making us stupid – too soon?
Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog, February 11, 2014
Dave Cormier, reviewing the progress of the "Is books making us stupid" week of his Rhizomatic MOOC, suggests that he is "frustrated with myself for not getting my point across" and "the book thing has not gone as planned." I am sympathetic; I know the feelinbg of a MOOC getting away from me. More...

Learning and Performance Support Systems
National Research Council Canada, February 12, 2014
I have mentioned in previous posts that I've recently become Program Leader for something called Learning and Performance Support Systems. Well our new program now has an official presence. More...

An interview with Canadian MOOC pioneer George Siemens
Rosanna Tamburri, University Affairs, February 12, 2014
So now that george Siemens is leaving the country, everyone wants to interview him! Just kidding, of course. But it is interesting to see the attention he's getting (not that it isn't deserved), especially when you consider where else the press has focused its attention in the last couple of years. More...

Proceedings of the European Stakeholder Summit 2014
Ulrike Cress, Carlos Delgado Kloos, Open Education Europa, February 12, 2014
This is a book-length collection of essays on MOOCs and MOOC pedagogy. You'll find my name as a co-author in Challenges for conceptualising EU MOOC for vulnerable learner groups (though my contribution to the paper was minimal). More...

An(other Attempt at an) Intro to Data Journalism…
Tony Hirst, OUseful.Info, February 20, 2014
I like this presentation a lot. Science, management and journalism are typically represented as taking an objective stance on objective data. But the data are rarely objective, and as this presentation makes clear, the stance can depend a lot on your point of view. Good science (and management, and journalism) means being able to take a variety of points of view (Hirst talks about 'sensemaking' and 'telling stories' but I think this is loose vocabulary for describing contextualization and perspective). More...