Stephen Downes

"This post analyzes the disconnect between modern educational goals and outdated assessment methods." The argument is that "The ultimate goal of education must pivot. In the age of AI, producing efficient test-takers who can replicate information is a redundant exercise. We must move toward assessing what only humans can do: exercise ethical reasoning, apply creativity to novel problems, and adapt within collaborative frameworks." Obviously assessment should change, as argued here, but I'm not sure the right direction is to focus on things "only humans can do" (especially when that list is questionable in itself). 

Ben Riley reports "that meta-analysis that was published in Nature last year that purported to show a large positive effect of ChatGPT on student learning... has been retracted." The editors "decided to retract this paper owing to concerns regarding discrepancies in the meta-analysis. These issues ultimately undermine the confidence the Editor can place in the validity of the analysis and resulting conclusions. The authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction." I didn't cover it here but it has been cited by others elsewhere.

I've been talking about the use of AI to create (disposable) open education resources for more than a decade now so it's not really a surprise to me to see an institution deploy tech like ASU Atomic to create "AI-generated modules based on lectures taken from ASU faculty by cutting long videos down to very short clips then generating text and sections based on those clips." It's also not surprising to see critics like those in the (spamwalled) 404 Media article complain about "academically weak and even inaccurate content." Whatever you think about these, with Alan Levine "you have to start thinking, or wondering, about the things we consider as 'content', fixed assets - books, courses, OERs, blog posts, they are all maybe going by the wayside, or they are just the raw material, for these new kind of entities." See also: Ben Williamson.

This is interesting. "Open Research Europe is an open access publishing venue for European Commission-funded researchers across all disciplines, with no author fees.Accelerate the impact of your research with rapid publication, open peer review, and indexing in databases such as Scopus and PubMed." There are 1330 articles in it as of this writing. One wonders why a project like this couldn't be extended beyond those eligible to become a much more general open publishing service for (funded?) research in general.

This paper (26 page PDF) examines "the growth and intellectual structure of scholarly literature on responsible generative AI (GAI) in pedagogy" and develops a Technology Accemptance Model (TAM) "context-sensitive conceptual framework for its adoption in the Global South." Overall we see "a strong concentration on artificial intelligence, generative AI, medical education, and language teaching, with ethics, governance, and sustainability remaining underdeveloped but emerging themes."

Michael Geist outlines the objections to proposed plans to restrict access to social media (and in some cases, AI chatbots) for kids. The ban, he says, lets social media off the hook. "Algorithmic manipulation, addictive engagement design, inadequate content moderation, inconsistent policy enforcement, insufficient transparency, and privacy risks affect users of every age." Also, evidence from Australia suggests the ban does not work. The ban creates its own hams, such as when "mandated, mandatory ID submission is required for all users." And ultimately, "kids have constitutional rights too." Image: my cat. Just because.