By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Legal Challenge for Inclusive Access
Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed, 2020/01/28
This lawsuit probably doesn't have much of a chance, but it does reflect the sad state of affairs that exists when students, under the blatently mis-named 'inclusive access' program, must go to extreme lengths in order to not buy a text from a major publisher. "The ‘opt-out’ process, when there is one at all, is opaque, confusing and difficult if not impossible to execute,” said the plaintiffs in the most recent lawsuit. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Disruption’s legacy
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, 2020/01/28
The core idea of 'disruption' is this: existing companies over time spend more and more time and money building features for and supporting a minority (and often premium) portion of their client base, thus creating an opportunity for a new company without this overhead to come along and build a streamlined product serving the majority who don't need these special features and services. Hence, say, discount airlines. Because these companies are focused on lowering costs, they often underpaid staff, undercut unions, and flouted regulations. But all that is a product of capitalism, not disruption. All that is why I think Martin Weller's criticism of Christensen is not only a poorly-timed attack, it is also wrong. Christensen didn't undermine labour, conservative governments did. Christensen didn't undermine experience, the intransigence of incumbent companies did. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Microcredentials: go further, faster
FutureLearn, 2020/01/28
If you want to see the sales pitch for microcredentials, here it is (quoted):

• They’re accessible... each microcredential takes place 100% online.
• They’re fast... you can earn academic credits with a microcredential in a matter of weeks.
• They’re prestigious... led by top academic institutions... or blue-chip employers.
• They’re specialised... to identify skills gaps in specific industries.
• They’re global... learning as part of a worldwide community.

And I have to say, all that's.... way over the top. It makes it soiund like you could have gotten your PhD in a few months from your living room if only it was taught using microcredentials. But microcredentials aren't - can't be - the equivalent of traditional credentials. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. In serving big company interests, copyright is in crisis
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, 2020/01/27
I'm of two minds regarding this post. On the one hand I agree with Cory Doctorow that the world's copyright system is a mess. There's an ever tightening vice clamping down on the potential for innovation, competition, and even creativity. On the other hand, I don't care. Not because I am ambivalent, but quite the opposite. I see all that as their rules for their economy, but I have long ago moved past all that. I have always said I will make money in other ways, by offering services in person rather than content that needs protecting. I don't need or care about DRM in browsers in a world where content is shared. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
Geoffrey Rockwell, Theoreti.ca, 2020/01/27
Most of us - including me - cheered when a court said we could scrape sites like LinkedIn. Now we're seeing the other side of that ruling, a site called Clearview AI that scrapes social media photographs to allow security services to search for and identify people on the basis of a photograph. As this article suggests, Clearview might represent "the end of privacy". But let's take pause. What could be wrong with a service that catches bad guys? Maybe people would behave better if they knew they would be caught. What wrong by recognizing people by their faces? After all, that's why they're on passports and drivers' licenses? Yes. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Teenagers’ career expectations narrowing to limited range of jobs, OECD PISA report finds
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Education Research Report, 2020/01/27
I agree with the main concern here, specifically, that "“It is a concern that more young people than before appear to be picking their dream job from a small list of the most popular, traditional occupations, like teachers, lawyers or business managers." But I think we should be clear about cause and effect. The author writes, "Gender continues to exert a strong influence. Among students who score highly in the PISA tests, it is overwhelmingly boys who more often expect to work in science and engineering." No. This is not gender having an effect. It is parents and educators having an effect, based on their prejudices about gender. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Control-F and Building Resilient Information Networks
Mike Caulfield, Hapgood, 2020/01/27
Mike Caulfield makes the vary salient point that teaching students about ctl-F (ie., the 'Find' command in a web browser) helps them be more digitally literate, because it helps them fact-check more efficiently. That's probably true, and a good point. But what I like about ctl-F is even a bit more subversive. When we start using ctl-F we break out of the mindset that treats content as linear, where we have to start at the beginning and work our way to the end. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. It’s On! Direct Audio Recording into a SPLOTbox Site
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2020/01/27
I don't play around with Alan Levine's SPLOTs because they're tied to WordPress and I just don't have the bandwidth to involve myself in that platform. But that just me; WordPress is the go-to tool for thousands, maybe millions, worldwide. Anyhow, what we have here is something that is, well, really something. "I wondered if it was possible to put a thing right in the page to record audio and have it save to the media library," he writes. It was. Here's his demo. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Soros gives $1bn to fund universities 'and stop drift towards authoritarianism'
Larry Elliott, The Guardian, 2020/01/24
So I guess the big news today is the announcement by George Soros that he will build "a new global network of universities designed to promote liberal values and his vision of an open society." Here is the full text of his speech. How fortunate we are to have billionaires who define public policy for us. What would make me happier? Billionaires paying their taxes. More *sigh* coverage: Fortune (naturally), Bloomberg, Financial Times, Business Insider, Times of India. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google Classroom rubrics and originality reports exit beta
Abner Li, 9to5 Google, 2020/01/24
According to this report, "After entering beta last year, Google is launching new rubric and originality report tools for all G Suite for Education customers." The display shows up automatically at the side of the page while you're marking the paper. It makes me think - why can't I have a tool that just reads what I type, and lets me know who has said the same (or similar thing) before, automatically finds and inserts references, and alerts me of any reports or studies that contradict what I'm saying? Anyhow. If you don't like the way TurnItIn uses student work, and you don't want to depend on the machine, there's also Urkund's anti-plagiarism system. More...