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The non-Uberization of education
I have tried to avoid writing a piece about Uber, because, well I just lost the will when I thought about it. There is a very strange tendency in technology writing to take any successful business and view it as a universal acid. All of the commentators and tech media go on an obsessive hunt across every sector: THIS MUST APPLY EVERYWHERE!! is the mantra. So we get “Uber for [insert sector of your choice]” pieces everywhere. I guess they’re easy to write, and people seem to like reading them. I think they appeal to the “get on the bus” fear argument I mentioned in the previous post. Inevitably there…
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Why open practice?
I gave a presentation recently trying to set out the arguments for engaging with open practice in higher education. I’ve shifted from the “because it’s awesome” argument to a more nuanced one. My starting point is that open practice is a smorgasbord of components from which one selects those parts that you feel most comfortable with and will most benefit your current role. For instance, an academic might be interested in developing a personal online profile, and also in open access. A librarian in open access, OER and an institutional profile. A researcher in open data, licenses and knowledge exchange, etc. However, a smorgasbord is a simplistic metaphor – it’s…
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The control of your network
(photo by some guy called Alan Levine) There was much anxiety this week about the possible move by Twitter to an algorithmic feed, where some magic (see previous post) determines what comes up in your timeline, instead of the chronological order of everything we’re used to. Whether it goes ahead or not, what this highlighted is the power we have given over to a commercial organisation to shape our community. There is a real dilemma here – this stuff (social media, online identity) is only worth investing time in if it has real value in your life. But then as soon as you invest that value in it, any changes…
