Landing : Athabascau University

Activity

  • For most organizations there tend to be three main good reasons to implement an information system:    to do things the organization couldn’t do before    to improve things the organization already does...
  • Tony Bates extensively referenced this report from RBC on Canadian employer demands for skills over the next few years, in his characteristically perceptive keynote at CNIE 2019 last week. It's an interesting read. Amongst its...
  • Jon Dron uploaded the file Tony Bates at CNIE 2019 May 28, 2019 - 11:59pm
    Tony Bates talking about the future of education
  • Source: https://www.rbc.com/dms/enterprise/futurelaunch/_assets-custom/pdf/RBC-Future-Skills-Report-FINAL-Singles.pdf
  • Jon Dron bookmarked The Myth of 'Learning Styles' May 18, 2019 - 12:49pm
    A straightforward journalistic article from the Atlantic that does a decent job of explaining how and why learning styles theories simply don't work, with a particular focus on VARK. The takeaways are that, yes, people do often prefer to learn in...
  • Jon Dron posted to the wire April 27, 2019 - 1:09pm
    The exact same time as the climate.
  • Jon Dron bookmarked E-Learn 2019, Call for Proposals: Due July 8 April 24, 2019 - 1:14pm
    Call for Proposals: Due July 8 E-learn has been running since 1996 (originally under the name of WebNet) and is a great conference for researchers into online learning working in higher education and related fields. At its peak, it used to attract...
  • Jon Dron published a blog post In-person vs online teaching April 12, 2019 - 1:54am
    This is roughly the content of my 3 minute pitch to explain (some of) my research, that I gave at the OUNL research day in Heerlen, Netherlands yesterday. I was allowed one slide: This is (very roughly) what I said: Mediaeval scholars were...
    Comments
    • Gerald Ardito April 12, 2019 - 3:22am

      Jon,

      That's quite a summary. Thanks for sharing it.

      As you know, this also relates strongly to my research, so I very much appreciate it. At the moment, I have been working with some elementary (4th and 5th grade) mathematics educators to develop a face to face learnign environment that is high on autonomy, competence, and relatedness support and that provides students with as much freedom of pace, etc. as is possible. 

      It has been challenging but exciting work. 

    • Oscar Lin April 12, 2019 - 10:04am

      Thanks Jon for sharing this.  I like it and the topic of next generation pedagogy for online higher education. Oscar 

  • Jon Dron uploaded the file in-person vs self-paced online learning April 12, 2019 - 1:34am
    This is the (single) slide from my 3 minute pitch at the OUNL 2019 research day in Heerlen, April 2019. It's meant to describe the inverse strengths and weaknesses of typical in-person teaching vs self-paced online learning, in terms of support for...
  • A characteristically smart and articulate post from George Siemens explaining why a view of the universe as nothing but networks all the way down - that he has supported in the past - is not sufficient to explain everything that matters. As George...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked Premature optimism February 28, 2019 - 3:35pm
    Despite careful future-proofing and a structure that was deliberately built to evolve over time so that it would remain current, my elderly Social Computing course has pretty much reached the end of its useful life, so I have started to revise and...
  • Jon Dron published a blog post A blast from my past: Google reimplements CoFIND February 26, 2019 - 6:07pm
    A blast from my past: Google reimplements CoFIND
    While searching for a movie using Google Search last night I got (for the first time that I can recall) the option to tag the result, as described in this article. I was both very pleased and a bit disconcerted to discover that the tool they...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked A Universal Moral Code? February 14, 2019 - 11:41am
    It appears that there may be a universal moral code, at least across 60 very different cultures, at least according to this large metastudy of anthropological literature. The authors focus explicitly and exclusively on manifestations of cooperative...
  • Jon Dron uploaded the file 57 varieties February 14, 2019 - 10:26am
    Public domain image, downloaded from Flickr Commons at https://flic.kr/p/odYdP7
  • Jon Dron posted to the wire February 12, 2019 - 3:17pm
    February 2019: Sorry for the downtime Tuesday, 12th February. It was caused by a fix gone wrong. Should be OK now.
  • I'll surely let you know, thanks Jennifer! Yes, the branching and pulling approach you suggest is pretty much exactly the cooperative pattern I have in mind, though collaborative group projects as such are mostly out of reach, thanks to...
  • Thank you Jennifer! One of my tasks between now and the start of my sabbatical in July is to revise COMP266 so I really appreciate the comments. The new version will take the student control aspect even further (for instance more flexibility in...
  • Some rambling reflections on being a Chair of a school
    Comments
    • Jennifer Davies February 9, 2019 - 8:34pm

      Oh interesting! Would you be able to ping me once the version is in? I'd love to be one of the first students to take it for drive. :)  I've gotten many AU courses approved by work for 2019 for reimbursement - COMP266 is currently 3rd on the list but I could take it later to wait for the revision. 

      I recall we once had a conversation about using version control tools like Git where you mentioned the added dififculties of rules concerning server locations, etc. I believe you were considering hosting your own Git server? I've only ever used Git with Bash and have no experience with other version control solutions.

      It would be quite interesting if instead of just posting on the forum to help other students that we could also review each other's code, create a branch and a pull request for our changes to be merged. And it would be neat to have the option for group projects (Group work would need to be optional as even if students had the same start date, some may aim to finish in 4 weeks, others 4 months).

      One option to help students get acquainted with git (or whatever you choose) would be to create a site listing students' project websites (perhaps with the TA being the owner). Students could then create a branch, add their url / description to the page, submit a pull request, etc. It could make for a simple/painless introduction for them.

      Time to tuck in the kid. We'll talk more later. :)

    • Jon Dron February 10, 2019 - 10:59am

      I'll surely let you know, thanks Jennifer!

      Yes, the branching and pulling approach you suggest is pretty much exactly the cooperative pattern I have in mind, though collaborative group projects as such are mostly out of reach, thanks to self-pacing. I'd not want to prevent it if it occurred - I just couldn't require it. I also intend to provide some default bits of both client- and server-side code that people can simply drop in for stuff like AJAX etc, as well as to provide (largely optional) scaffolding to get started. It will make the 'fix the broken page' exercise way more straightforward, and all the stuff about reusing and repurposing code will be so much easier to track. Right now it is way too easy for students to forget to tell us which bits are theirs, which is bad whether they accidentally commit plagiarism or whether we miss the smart things they have done to improve it. As you know, the course very much applauds intelligent reuse but it's often hard to see the students' own contributions.

      Self-hosted Git is an option, as is use of the version control service provided by AWS (we have an arrangement with Amazon so I guess we might as well use it) but I'm still struggling with that: the server side is easy enough, but most client tools are too complex and/or flaky for beginners with other more important things to learn about. Finding something simple, learnable, and reliable enough, but with enough features to do the social thing, and that doesn't prevent high-fliers or those with existing experience from taking it further, is the big blocker at the moment.  Now that I have more time, I mean to spend a few days over coming weeks doing some deep investigation of the very many options. In an ideal world, as well as something foolproof, powerful, and easy, I'd like to find something with good social tool integration and Landing-like per-post/branch/project access control, but that might be tricky. If I had more time and resources I might build a plugin to do it, or to do it the other way round (embed Git, Mercurial, whatever in the Landing) but I fear I may have to make a compromise or two on that for now.

    • Gerald Ardito February 10, 2019 - 2:00pm

      Jon,

      I really enjoyed your reflection on having been (yeah, past tense) the Chair. 

      Your experience was definitely consistent with mine time as Chair for a couple of years a couple of years ago.

      I am also very interested, as I think you know, in the same area of research. I wish you well on the next adventure, and hope we get a chance to collaborate.

  • Jon Dron uploaded the file Empty chair February 8, 2019 - 11:41am
    chair and window. Copyright CC-BY-NC v4,  Jon Dron
  • A correlational study from Nature by Amy Orben and Andrew K. Przybylski that finds negligible effects of screen time on adolescents' psychological well-being - barely more harmful than eating potatoes and vegetables, and certainly not a cause for...