Friday 3 August 2018

Cuttings: July 2018

Models of online & flexible learning - blog post by Martin Weller. "I have been doing some work with Dominic Orr and Rob Farrow ... looking at various models of open, online and flexible technology enhanced learning (what we labelled OOFAT). The full report is out now... "We identified five [business models]: (1) Fixed core model, where providers maintain a legacy approach to their products and services and to their target market, although they may be innovating in other areas; (2) Outreach model, where providers maintain the same products and services, but are innovating in the dimensions of target group recruitment and utilising new communication channels; (3) Service-provider model, where providers maintain a focus on their target group whilst particularly innovating in the areas of product and service and communication channels; (4) Entrepreneurial model, where providers adopt innovative strategies for the areas product and service, target group and communication channel, i.e. they aim to be transformative in their services and provision; (5) Entrepreneurial model with fixed core, where providers maintain a legacy focus to their core services (teaching and learning), but focus on being innovative in all other areas."

If people cannot write well - quote from George Orwell. "If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them." Inscribed above a bust of Orwell recently installed in the foyer of the school library at Eton (where as Eric Blair he was a scholarship pupil). "Attributed to Orwell by John H. Bunzel, president of San Jose State University, as reported in Phyllis Schlafly, The Power of the Positive Woman (1977), p. 151; but not found in Orwell's works or in reports contemporaneous with his life. Possibly a paraphrase of Orwell's description of the rationale behind Newspeak in 1984."(Wikiquote)

Do People Recall Information Better Through Virtual Reality? - note by Jim Ellis in eLearning Digest (internal OU circulation) no. 167 July 2018. "University of Maryland researchers conducted in-depth analyses on whether people recall information better through virtual reality, as opposed to desktop computers. Their sample of 40 participants (who were all familiar with VR) showed a statistically significant 8.8% overall improvement in recall accuracy using the VR headsets compared to a desktop equivalent which, according to the Dean of College, Amitabh Varshney, 'suggests that immersive environments could offer new pathways for improved outcomes in education and high-proficiency training'. No Amitabh, you’ve used expensive techno-gimmickry to get people to remember where photos of famous people were positioned in a 3D model. That’s barely Bloom Level 1 so its future might lie more in cabaret than college."

The Tale: a key film of the #MeToo era deserves more than NowTV - review by Guy Lodge in The Guardian. "The first narrative film by the accomplished documentary-maker Jennifer Fox, The Tale was the uncontested toast of a low-key Sundance film festival in January, inspiring the most impassioned reviews out of the snowy Utah hills, as well as some of the fiercest deal-making. The excitement was understandable: by virtue of unplanned timing as well as its own candid, considered storytelling, Fox’s deeply personal work was instantly hailed as a defining film of the #MeToo era.... Fox’s nonfiction experience is apparent in a layered work of autobiographical truth-telling. A superb Laura Dern stars as the adult Fox, returning to a period of childhood abuse that she has only more recently come to understand as such. As a 13-year-old girl (beautifully played by Isabelle NĂ©lisse), she wrote of her experience of entering into a sexual relationship with an adult sporting coach as one of elated, consensual erotic awakening. Using deft cinematic sleight of hand, Fox pitches her past and present-day perspectives against each other, revealing how innocence and precocious desire can be exploited in ways that sometimes take years to reveal themselves as violent."