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18 octobre 2019

Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked
Mike Orcutt, MIT Technology Review, 2019/02/21
One of my colleagues, Andriy Drozdyuk, has been saying all along that there is only one real blockchain, Bitcoin, because the innovation is as much social as it is technical. It is the investment and number of distinct users that makes it secure, not the technology. The recent Ethereum Classic hack may be proving him right. In this hack, bad actors took over more than half of the nodes and then began to write 'double spend' transactions, effectively defrauding the system. Ths is th sort of attack blockchain technology - though not necessarily Bitcoin - is vulnerable to. More...

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18 octobre 2019

Vast amounts of data about our children are being harvested via apps used by schools. This is what is being collected and stored

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Vast amounts of data about our children are being harvested via apps used by schools. This is what is being collected and stored
Jamie Manolev, Anna Sullivan, Roger Slee, EduResearch Matters, 2019/02/21
This article references a recent report published by the UK Children’s Commission on data collection in schools, but the bulk of the article is dedicated to the data-collection activities of ClassDojo. The authors write, " New research examining ClassDojo is raising concerns about how student data about behaviour may be collected, accumulated and then used." The range of data collected is a bit astonishing, and includes such things as "working hard, on-task, and displaying grit". More...

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18 octobre 2019

The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub: How does a new generation of researchers perceive Sci-Hub?

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub: How does a new generation of researchers perceive Sci-Hub?
David Nicholas, LSE Impact Blog, 2019/02/21
The author is not a Sci-Hub fan (calling its appeal "ideological" and its business model " a pure and unashamed ‘pirate’", but he does accurately capture the value of Sci-Hub vis-a-vis other reserach article sharing sites such as ResearchGate. "Sci-Hub’s attraction, unlike RG’s, is not its social media features (it has none), but that it offers free and relatively easy access to millions of papers harvested (illegally) from publishers’ websites". More...

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18 octobre 2019

2019 National High School Big Data Challenge: Big Data de Terre

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 2019 National High School Big Data Challenge: Big Data de Terre
STEM Fellowship Journal, 2019/02/21
I spent the day today as a judge in the Big Data Challenge for high school students at SAS in Toronto. This publication contains the abstracts of the finalists. "This year’s challenge provided a multidisciplinary competitive opportunity; over a period of three months, teams analysed sustainability data through the prism of computational methods. Teams worked to reveal the impact of environmental conditions on human health and well-being, diving into predictive analytics of optimal envi-ronmental characteristics for long-term, long-distance space travel. More...

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18 octobre 2019

◇ф(3ψ2)=666

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. ◇ф(3ψ2)=666
Metafilter, 2019/02/20
My first thought when I looked at this was, "Yow, this is hard." I still think it's pretty hard, but I also think that it's a nice way to get people to think about math and to reframe math problems in an interesting way. The idea is that the diamond represents a function which, when defined, will yield a value of '666' when combined with the rest of the problem. So if you have, say "◇665" then the correct answer is "f(x) = x+1". See that I mean? You're thinking of math in terms of functions, not just numbers and variables. It's been made into an app, but you don't actually need the app. If I were a teacher, I'd offer one of these a day, starting with easy ones, and progressing through the year with more and more complex problems, rewarding the class (not an individual) if it's solved by the end of the day. More...

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18 octobre 2019

Getting Clearer Signals From Employers

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Getting Clearer Signals From Employers
Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, 2019/02/20
This is another step in an iterative process that is tightening the linkage between employers and education institutions. The idea is that the network’s goal is to use standardization about needed job skills, or competencies, and open data systems to 'better align student, work-force and credentialing data with the needs of the economy.'" The next step, obviously, is to describe students' skills in terms of these standards. More...

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18 octobre 2019

Actually, Higher Ed is Not That Similar to the Newspaper Industry

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Actually, Higher Ed is Not That Similar to the Newspaper Industry
Steven D. Krause, 2019/02/20
Steven Krause response to a point raised in the Chronicle this week (and a point I've made numerous times over the last two decades) about the similarities between education and news media. First, he says, "while content 'scales,' education and assessment do not." Second, he writes, "people who make this comparison to journalism... underestimate the depth and breadth of higher education." Third, he says, "while most people seeking news don’t like to pay for it, almost all would-be college students (and their families) are more than willing to pay." I think there are responses to each of those arguments. I would note, especially, that when I was a young paper carrier, everybody paid for news. More...

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18 octobre 2019

How sharing work can build students’ networks

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. How sharing work can build students’ networks
Julia Freeland Fisher, Christensen Institute, 2019/02/20
This is mostly a marketing piece focusing on a tool called trovvit, designed to help students forge (and) maintainconnections that help them get by and get ahead... by letting students showcase their skills and store their networks in one place." Or as founder Torrence Robinson says, "Think LinkedIn meets Instagram for students." Why is such a tool needed? "Students haven’t yet had careers. Their 'work' does not fit into resume format. More...

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18 octobre 2019

Exploring the UX of web-annotations

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Exploring the UX of web-annotations
Tom Critchlow, 2019/02/20
Hypothes.is is "trying very hard to build a robust, long-term utility for the web which is awesome," writes Tom Critchlow. "Except their UI leaves a lot to be desired. Especially on mobile." I have to agree. Like most annotation systems, I find the text boxes way too small. And also, in the case of Hypothes.is they open up on top of the text, which makes reading text along with the annotations almost impossible. Critchlow also evaluates the Genius annotation system, which I haven't used. More...

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18 octobre 2019

Alternative digital credentials will transform higher ed within five years says UC Irvine dean

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Alternative digital credentials will transform higher ed within five years says UC Irvine dean
Betsy Foresman, EdScoop, 2019/02/20
This prediction may be confounded by the non-cooperation of educational institutions. While they will face a lot of pressure to standardize certification, surely they can see what happens if they do. "They 'unbundle' learning acquisition and verification. To earn an ADC, an individual only has to demonstrate mastery of a skill and does not need to satisfy course requirements." But these institutions might not have a choice if alternative digital credentials (ADC) are independently developed and adopted. More...

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