The Future of Jobs Report 2018
World Economic Forum, 2018/09/25
I wouldn't necessarily expect 300 executives from the world's largest companies to have any special insights on the future of work (because they're pretty insulated from reality) but this report (147 page PDF) makes for surprisingly interesting, and occasionally insightful, reading. More...

The problem with Harvard Business School case studies
Lila MacLellan, Quartz, 2018/09/24
The Harvard Business School method of using case studies is well known to management students. The cases are drawn from real-world examples and students are asked to imagine themselves in the position of a protagonist (usually the CEO) and to argue for what ought to be done. More...

Further education students are shunning the web and turning to staff and each other for digital skills support
JISC, 2018/09/24
As I read through this survey report (76 page PDF) it felt more and more like I was only getting half the picture. Consider the headline, for example - it says they are shunning the web, when in fact they basically all use the web. Moreover, I wonder how they are turning to each other. More...

Big changes for CC Search beta: updates released today!
Paola Villarreal, Creative Commons, 2018/09/24
I haven't used the Creative Commons search in a very long time. But I went back to it today based on thsi announcement. I confess that I was afraid it would only list results in CC-by but that doesn't appear to be the main problem. No, rather, it seems to display only a small subset of the available results. More...

Re-examining grit
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Education Research Report, 2018/09/24
Sadly, the reserach report cited here languiahses unread behind a paywall, but at least we have this useful (albeit short) summary: "many of the core claims about grit have either been unexamined or are directly contradicted by the accumulated empirical evidence. More...

The Value of Consciousness and Free Will in a Technological Dystopia
Allan McCay, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 2018/09/21
"According to Harari, we face a bleak future, and may become economically useless, as a result of being superseded by non-conscious AI and/or enhanced humans." This paper argues that we will not be economically useless, but bases this conclusion on an incorrect understanding of AI as algorithm, which leads to the mistaken conclusion that there is a special economic benefit to free will. More...

Physical models and embodied cognition
Ulrich E. Stegmann, Synthese, 2018/09/21
A lot of work in education theory depends on the idea of forming conceptual understanding through the creation of mental models; these models give meaning to the words, ideas and skills being learning. This idea is central to constructivism, and even connectivism relies on it to a certain extent. More...

Is the podcast bubble bursting?
Columbia Journalism Review, 2018/09/21
We may hear a lot about the "short attention span culture" but my favorite podcast runs more than an hour and other faves two hours long. More...

Education at a Glance 2018
OECD, 2018/09/21
The OECD's Education at a Glance report for 2018 is more like a steady gaze, weighing in as a 463 page PDF. You won't need to download the whole thing at once, though, as individual sections and country reports are available as separate documents. More...

Ten Jobs That Should Be Safe From Automation
Sarah Gonser, The Hechinger Report, 2018/09/21
I hate to say this, but I don't think that the ten jobs in question are at all safe from automation. Here's the list from the embedded video: musicians, art therapists, watch repairers, manufactured building installers, and manicurists and pedicurists. More...