Stephen Downes

According to the authors, "studies on teacher-student interaction (TSI) support tools often focus on teacher needs while neglecting student needs and autonomy." This raises the question of how to enable student needs to be expressed during a class session. They describe the development and testing of a tool called NaMemo2 (built on NaMemo, a tool for remembering student names) to address this need. In so doing they propose a TSI framework called STUDIER (i.e., Sparking, Targeting & Understanding, Designing & Implementing, Evaluating & Refining). NaMemo2 is based on an augmented reality (AR) tool "that allows students to convey their willingness to interact to the teacher as well as show their names to the teacher in physical classrooms." 36 page PDF.

Beatriz Toscano writes about the Kinderstadt or Ottopia project in Magdeburg, Germany. You can read more about it here (the article is in German but easily translated using your browser). "For two weeks, up to 450 children in around 40 trades were able to pursue professions, start-ups, learn at the Children's University – and rule the city." If you want to learn about democracy, the best way is to practice democracy. "Do systems built by the so-called innocent lead to more just and equal societies, or do they devolve into selfishness and corruption?" asks Toscano. "Ottopia offers a playground for these experiments, with children experiencing governance firsthand."

This article describes a project called Student Hubs, which "exists to empower university students to become active citizens, equipping them with the tools, behaviours, and skills they need to make a positive change." In addition to the sorts of skills and attitudes needed to become successful later in life, a project like this also builds connections between the students with each other and the community, which can be vital in creating opportunities for further employment and personal development. This is the sort of thing elite universities excel at (Student Hubs began at Oxford and was inspired by a similar project at Cambridge) and what we should be thinking about beyond simple grades and content knowledge when we talk about equity in education.

The scikit-learn module is a set of machine learning algorithms for Python, and scikit-lego is built on top of that. But that's not the important bit here; no, what we have is an engaging story of how the author got engaged with and learned about scikit-lego. "I often found/find myself looking up at the source code of the libraries I use, trying to understand how specific features work and how they are implemented," writes Francesco Bruzzesi. "This is certainly not necessary, but it works for me as a way to learn and understand better the tools I use when in doubt about something." It's an example of advice I gave on Reddit recently.

Alex Usher interviews his "favourite commentator on all issues related to educational technology and higher education institutions," Phil Hill. The best bit is this, where Usher comments: "25 percent of post-secondary enrollments in the U. S. are now fully online and another 25 percent or so are at least partially online. I had no idea the market was that big." But they are, and as Phil Hill makes clear, a big part of the reason was MOOCs. "MOOCs, along with 2U's initial business model, those were the two things that forced traditional higher education to get over themselves and say, we need to take online education seriously." The two of them are far more interested in markets and money than I am, but on these they know their stuff. Image: Phil Hill.

Your college degree, sponsored by Google? " Interim (University of Nebraska) President Chris Kabourek announced Tuesday that the university will soon offer Google Career Certificates in a variety of fields... Google experts teach the programs, which are vetted by leading employers. NU students, alumni and Nebraska residents can get a special first-year rate of $20 per enrollment." According to Kabourek, "the new partnership advances a 2022 legislative goal, which NU supported, to increase the percentage of Nebraskans with postsecondary credentials by 2030 to 70%." I'm not sure that's what the legislature meant, but these days, who can be sure? Via The 74.