2015 week 28 in review

Work

Mostly uneventful, but lots of things going on simultaneously. Still working on the Learning Technologies Coaches plan, and am writing job profiles for some new positions. We had an EDU post-conference debrief, to share what we learned at Infocomm/Brightspace Fusion/STLHE, and I’m still thinking about Welby Altidor’s closing keynote at Fusion - some really interesting ideas about collaboration and creativity, and I’m hoping to bake some of that into the formal structure of the EDU and of my group through carefully writing and revising all of our job profiles (including the new ones).

I’m a co-PI on a project that was awarded a 2015 Teaching and Learning Grant, so we can look at developing an online Instructional Skills Workshop and using what we learn through that process to help others adapt their courses for successful online delivery.

Read

• via Stephen Downes
  • The Social-Network Illusion That Tricks Your Mind - interesting description on how social network graphs shape our perception.
  • Working in Blackboard
  • MIT and German research on the [appalling] use of video in xMOOCs
  • How Not to Let Work Explode Your Life - we talk a lot about the importance of balance. it needs to be more than just talk.
• Jim Groom
  • Stabilizing AWS Costs on UMW Blogs
  • Questioning the Conformity Curve - we have been using the Adoption Curve a fair bit in our work lately. But it’s misleading. 100% adoption of something is not the goal.
• Jason Kottke
  • Screen addiction (or why Grandma’s sad)
  • The science of Pixar’s Inside Out
• John Keane, Professor of Politics at University of Sydney - Julian Assange on Google, surveillance and predatory capitalism
• Vicki Caruana - How a Course Map Puts You on Track for Better Learning Outcomes
• Mark Frauenfelder - Man arrested for using party balloons to float above Calgary
• Jean Fredrick - Updated E-Learning Definitions
• John A. McArthur - Matching Instructors and Spaces of Learning: The impact of classroom space on behavioral, affective and cognitive learning.
• Michael M Rook, Koun Choi, Scott P. McDonald - Learning Theory Expertise in the Design of Learning Spaces: Who Needs a Seat at the Table?
• Kathleen G Scholl, Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi - Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces
• Tony Bates - Contact North’s quick update on online learning in Canada
• Terri Kennedy - Save the Date! Open Badges Studio
• Jared Stein - What Claims Should We Expect from Educational Technology Vendors?
• Phil Hill - Promising Research Results On Specific Forms Of Adaptive Learning / ITS
• David Pescovitz - Best drone aerial photos of the year
• Budgee. The Municipal Budget App.

Other

We spent some time downtown today¹, and we relaxed in the Good Earth Cafe across from Brookfield. It wasn’t until we left that I realized we had been sitting in the ground floor of the Lougheed Building, where my dad had his insurance agency in the 1970s and early 80s. There was a push to tear the building down a few years ago, but it survived, thanks to the historic nature of the building, and of the Grand Theatre. They literally don’t make buildings like this anymore.