After-school Code Club – Lifelong Kindergarten?
Angela Brown, AACE Review, 2018/04/18
It's funny how the after-school activities seem more educationally relevant than classes, when when they're not relevant at all. That's why this description of an after-school coding club appeals to me. Drawing on Mitch Resnick's book Lifelong Kindergarten as a guide, Angela Brown describes how her coding sessions sometimes stay on topic and sometimes stray far from the original idea. More...
Open Educational Practices and Micro-Credentialing: A pilot project
Justin Mason, Open Pedagogy Notebook, 2018/04/18
What caught my eye was this description of "a competency-based micro-credentialing program called the University Learning Store (ULS).... conceived of as an online store for learning, where students can purchase mini-courses both to acquire and to be assessed on discreet competencies." Offered by the University of Wisconsin Extension's Continuing Education, Outreach and E-learning (CEOEL) it's (to me) a natural locus for experimentation. More...
Google's latest do-it-yourself AI kits include everything you need
Jon Fingas, EdGadget, 2018/04/17
When I was a kid the prototypical DIY kit was a build-it-yourself crystal radio (for the princely sum of $24, well beyond my means at the time). Today's equivalent is DIY Artificial intelligence (AIY). "Google has released updated AIY Vision and AIY Voice kits that include what you need to get started. More...
OECD Releases Report on Automation and the Workforce
Susan Gentz, ConVerge, 2018/04/17
The OECD has released a new report on automation, skills use and training (125 page web-based document). It asserts, essentially, that automation is on the increase and that therefore governments should consider allocating more resources to computer science training. More...
How Debate Structures Allow English Learners' Brilliance to Shine
Katrina Schwartz, Mind/Shift, 2018/04/17
This is being posted to an NPR website as an example of good teaching, but my concern here is that this approach is not grounded in a proper understanding of critical thinking (which is why I recently wrote Critical Thinking for Educators). The non-standard approach is something called 'claim-evidence-reason' where the reason 'explains why' the evidence supports the claim. More...
Open Science Training Handbook
Sonja Bezjak, et.al., GitBooks, 2018/04/17
The Open Science Handbook has launched version 1.0 on Gitbooks. "The Handbook is available under Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0 Universal) and is oriented to practical teaching of Open Science principles. It was written by 14 experts during a book sprint organized by FOSTER and the TIB Hannover in February 2018. After including suggestions from the community the handbook was moved to Github and we can announce the release of version 1.0 now." It is intended to be a living text and will be revised through contributions in the future. More...
The Future of Well-Being in a Tech-Saturated World
Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, Pew, 2018/04/17
According to this survey (92 page PDF) of internet experts, "Some 47% of these respondents predict that individuals’ well-being will be more helped than harmed by digital life in the next decade, while 32% say people’s well-being will be more harmed than helped. The remaining 21% predict there will not be much change." Count me as being among the 47%. More...
Google’s online learning platform to offer free basic digital skills
Naushad K. Cherrayil, Gulf News, 2018/04/16
According to this report, "Google has launched an Arabic online learning platform — Maharat min Google — in an effort to help people in the Middle East and North Africa to find jobs, advance their careers or grow their businesses by offering a free basic digital skills-building programme." More...
Blogging is most certainly not dead
Jason Kottke, kottke.org, 2018/04/16
This is mostly just a set of links to some odds and ends in the blogging world, but there are comments I want to highlight. More...
Change the title, change the work?
David Hopkins, Technology Enhanced Learning Blog, 2018/04/16
Am I an instructional designer (ID) or a learning technologist (LT), asks David Hopkins. More...
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