Dijkstra's in Disguise
Eric Jang, 2018/08/13
This post wanders very far from the subject of online learning, but I just found it too interesting to pass. It's also astonishing (to me) that it's characterized as "such a humble technique taught in introductory computer science courses." Times have changed since I was taking those courses. More...

The Identity Challenge: On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 2018/08/13
This article summarizes, Better Identity in America  (48 page PDF), "a policy agenda for improving the privacy and security of digital systems and help combat identity fraud." It's a response to the increasingly difficult problem of establishing and verifying identity online. More...

Key Concepts in a Data-Centric Learning Stack
Yet Analytics, 2018/08/10
This is an overview article from Yet Analytics (which has a vested interest in xAPI and related technologies) introducing the major elements of the analytics workflow: the Learning Record Provider (LRP), Learning Record Store (LRS) and Learning Record Consumer(LRC). More...

32 Ways AI is Improving Education
Tom Vander Ark, Getting Smart, 2018/08/10
I would have called this "32 applications of AI in education" or "32 education AI use cases" but I guess those aren't the headlines that get the clicks. More...

Pencil Code
2018/08/10
O'Reilly describes this as follows: "a collaborative programming site for drawing art, playing music, and creating games. It is also a place to experiment with mathematical functions, geometry, graphing, webpages, simulations, and algorithms. Programs are open for all to see and copy." I played with it a bit and drew some shapes. More...

Weekend Reading – Rediscovering Blogging Edition
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Chronicle of Higher Education, 2018/08/10

This short article summarizes four posts from other writers describing how social media (and Facebook in particular) has failed to replicate the idea of the feed as "sustenance" that "nourished critical minds." Here they are:

• Dan Cohen on going Back to The Blog and Going Indie on Social Media
• Mark Sample with Facebook Killed the Feed
• Kathleen Fitzpatrick with Connections along with Feeds and Gardens
• Chris Aldrich responding to Kathleen
• And Mike Caulfield's 2015 post The Garden and The Stream.

These writers, and a number of others, are all part of a new wave of indieweb proponents, and I make sure to follow them and keep up on their work. More...

A small team of student AI coders beats Google’s machine-learning code
Will Knight, MIT Technology Review, 2018/08/10
I think that the interesting object lesson to be learned here is that when we consider whether AI will replace humans, we can't just consider humans working as individuals, but we also have to consider humans working cooperatively. Indeed, much of what we can do even as individuals depends on a history of cooperative effort. More...

Extended Cognition and Extended Consciousness
David J. Chalmers, 2018/08/07
A few years ago I distinguished between two flavours of connectivism - the 'Siemens answer' and the 'Downes answer'. In particular, the 'Siemens answer' is based on the concept of multimodal extension whereby networks reach out and integrate with each other. This, say, a human neural network might be extended into a computer network. More...

A capability approach to children's well‐being, agency and participatory rights in education
Caroline Sarojini Hart, Nicolás Brando, European Journal of Education, 2018/08/07
This article offers a useful summary of some of Amartya Sen's thinking as it relates to education and then uses this in combination with more traditional educational theory to chart a path leading not only to achievement but also to individual freedom. More...

My online course quality rubric has a first name. It’s O-S-C-Q-R!
Lindsey Rae Downs, Alexandra Pickett, WCET Frontiers, 2018/08/07

This article summarizes and provides a number of resources supporting the Open SUNY Course Quality Review (OSCQR) Rubric and Process. More...