Against close reading
Alex Reid, Digital Digs, 2015/04/15
There are some really good observations in this post. The practise of 'close reading' as it is widely taught involves "the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text." A common criticism of social media and online reading is that students "find nuance, complexity, or just plain length of literary texts less to their liking than we did." I don't think they ever found it to their liking, but let's assume they do. More...
Keybase
Keybase
Website, Keybase, 2015/04/15
OK, honestly, I don't understand all the details, but I think this - or something like this - is pretty important. Keybase is a website where you can "get a public key, safely, starting just with someone's social media username(s)." I used it to create my own public key and associate it with my accounts on Twitter and Github. More...
Open Web Presentation for BC Campus
Open Web Presentation for BC Campus
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2015/04/17
Alan Levine introduces and enmbeds a video entitled The Open Web (a) Lost (b) Reclaimed (c) Co-claimed (d) All of the above? He writes that it "was meant to get at what we see as un-necessary dichotomies in ed tech (and also to poke at multiple choice). More...
The OER15 conference
The OER15 conference
Grainne Conole, e4innovation.com, 2015/04/17
Grainne Conole summarizes two of four keynotes at the OER15 conference taking place in Cardiff, one by Cable Green and the other by Josie Fraser. More...
VR and consciousness – some truly freakish ideas
VR and consciousness – some truly freakish ideas
Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, 2015/04/17
I experience the arbitrariness of consciousness every day. I put on my glasses, and my whole world changes. More recently, I have enjoyed the altered consciousness of being completely immersed in sound by means of my MP3 player and some quality earbuds. More...
Kifi
How Critical Thinking and Media Literacy Efforts Are ‘Backfiring’ Today
How Critical Thinking and Media Literacy Efforts Are ‘Backfiring’ Today
Tony Wan, EdSurge, 2018/03/08
I certainly agree with danah boyd when she suggests that the focus on using critical thing as a means to "find the truth" is mistaken. She suggests that this approach to critical thinking has been "weaponized". More...
Bravery is Neither Created Nor Destroyed
Bravery is Neither Created Nor Destroyed
Bud Hunt, Bud the Teacher, 2018/03/08
Nice post from Bud Hunt on his experiences during a student protest against guns. "It’s easy for me to forget, in the humdrum of spreadsheets and TPS reports and invoices and administrivia, that there are real fights to fight, and real struggles of the head and heart and hands that require my, and many others’ attention," he writes. More...
The free online courses that are putting college in reach
The free online courses that are putting college in reach
Nicole Freeling, University of California, 2018/03/08
Back in the days when people were debating whether online learning was as good as in-person learning I would make the argument that for many people the choice wasn't "online versus in-person", it was "online versus nothing". And for many people, as this article makes clear, that's still the choice. More...
