The Red Herring of Big Data
Brian Croxall, March 13, 2014

I can summarize the centrakl argument about big data offered in this essay very easily:

• Data need interpretation
• Data don’t have to be big.
• Data aren’t always the answer

But this doesn't really do it justice. It's not simply that data need interpretation, it is rather that sometimes the data suggest an interpretation, sometimes we bring our own interpretation to the party, and sometimes there just isn't an interpretaion to be had. More...

My Take on the Proposed 5th R of Openness
Darren Draper, Drape's Takes, March 13, 2014

Darren Draper offers a reasonable take on what out to be a fifth 'R' of openness: 'Retain'. Maybe this is what's needed - or maybe what's needed is actual ownership of the digital things we access and use. More...

University education, like love, cannot simply be moved online
Sky Gilbert, Globe, Mail, March 11, 2014

The funny thing about this article is that the author does not seem to know just how much of the average love life has moved online, from dating and flirting, getting to know each other, and even day-to-day conversation. Yes, there is the in-person aspect, without which love just wouldn't be the same. But the difference between love in person and education in person is this: we would feel funny paying highly specialized individuals $150K a year to satisfy aspects of our live life. More...

Wincton City
Beverly Leeds, University of Central Lancashire, March 11, 2014
Fropm a presentation at INTED 2014 today in Valencia - "It is a web-based learning resource modelled on a real UK high street community provided for  academic staff and students or others to use. It aims to meet the needs of a range of subject areas in Business Education by simulating the complexities of modern organisations within local communities with many interdependent and inter-related functions and processes." The city is composed of OERs, and the information supports various student activities. More...

Goodbye One Laptop per Child
Wayan Vota, OLPC News, March 11, 2014

OLPC news plays the eulogy. "The XO-1 laptop is history. Sadly, so is Sugar. Once the flagship of OLPC's creativity in redrawing the human-computer interaction, few are coding for it and new XO variants are mostly Android/Gnome+Fedora dual boots. Finally, OLPC Boston is completely gone. No staff, no consultants, not even a physical office. Nicholas Negroponte long ago moved onto the global literacy X-Prize project." Not a noble end. More...

Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promises and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses
Steven D. Krause, Charles Lowe, Parlor Press, March 10, 2014

Poor bandwidth means a leaan newsletter, but here's a book on MOOCs that you migth want to read. (I'm in Valencia where I gave a talk today.) "Unlike accounts in the mainstream media and educational press, Invasion of the MOOCs is not written from the perspective of removed administrators, would-be education entrepreneurs/venture capitalists, or political pundits. More...

The MOOC of One
Stephen Downes, March 10, 2014, INTED 2014, Valencia

In this talk I examine the transition from the idea of the massive open online course - MOOC - to the idea of the personal learning environment. In the process of this discussion I question what it is to become 'one' - whether it be one course graduate, one citizen of the community, or one educated person. I argue that (say) 'being a doctor' isn't about having remembered the right content, not about having done the right things, not even about having the right feelings, nor about having the right mental representations - being one is about growing and developing a certain way.

[Slides] [Audio]. More...

Why I care about edtech
D'Arcy Norman, D’Arcy Norman dot net, March 5, 2014

It's interestging to see how in recent years the concept of 'innovation' is being rewoeked such that, if it doesn't involve some commercial component, it isn't innovation. But this post from D'Arcy Norman offers an alternative perspective. "Many in the edtech field see innovation as something like 'working out creative licensing deals with vendors and/or publishers,'" he writes. More...

Can You Solve This?
Veritasium, YouTube, March 5, 2014

I like this video a lot. It gets at an important element of the scientific method (not the only element - the scientific menthod is much more complicated than one simple rule) and it also gets at why so many people reason poorly. More...

Plan to move from #quantified self to Qualified self
Inge de Waard, Ignatia, March 5, 2014
OK, this is ambitious. "My ultimate scientific breakthrough dream would be the Qualified Self in the analogy of the Quantified Self." Given a provisional nod, what would such a qualified self look like? "All the gathered data would gather data on: emotions, creativity, understanding, progress, personal character." Well, I did a test like that recently (the Hermann Brain Dominance instrumnent) and while it was nice to test off the scale for creatity, the point here is that there was a scale. More...