OLDaily

Ethics in AI and Education
Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu, 2020/06/10

This is a response to IBM's announcement yesterday that it is ending its efforts to use AI in general facial recognition. This post is "is based on a section in a forthcoming publication on the use of Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education and Training, produced by the Taccle AI Erasmus Plus project" and looks at a few other issues that have been raised in relation to AI and education. That said, may want to view my own work on this for an comprehensive catalogue of the issues raised.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How Not to Write About a Pandemic
Alex Usher, Higher Education Strategy Associates, 2020/06/10

I covered the article being critiqued here, simply running an outline and suggesting it needed a longer treatment. Happily, Alex Usher has stepped in and provided the necessary treatment. He writes, "the kicker here, to my mind is the author’s rhetorical question 'what would COVID-19 era teaching look like if educational institutions made decisions about teaching on the basis of pedagogy instead of neoliberal fiscal policy?', which is almost certainly the most asinine suggestion I’ve seen in 25 years of working in Canadian higher education." After all, says Usher, COVID-era teaching looks the way it does because there's a "virus out there that has killed 7,800 Canadians, not because of neoliberalism." My response might lack some of the colourful language that Usher's has, but believe me, my sentiment here is the same.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

A journalist’s introduction to network analysis
Paul Bradshaw, Online Journalism Blog, 2020/06/10

If you already know about network analysis you won't learn a whole lot that's new in this article, but it serves as a useful introduction for the uninitiated. The focus is on journalism, but the examples could apply anywhere, and of course we can imagione how similar techniques could be applied in education. "Research in 2017 of news articles using network analysis identified five different ways it was being used by journalists: To explore associations around individual actors (such as networks of personal power); to detect ‘key players’ (those who hold power less visibly); to map alliances and oppositions; to explore the evolution of associations over time (for example how political parties became less cooperative); and to reveal hidden ties."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Internet access: a universal right
Albert Sangrà, UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change, 2020/06/10

With so much of the world's activities tasking place online - everything from shopping to banking to voting to learning - internet access ought to be a universal right. So argues Albert Sangrà, director for the UNESCO Chair in Education & Technology for Social Change (original in Portuguese). "It has to be a very important first step," he argues. "We could compare it with past times, when faced with the need to shorten another gap, that of literacy, the creation of public libraries was promoted, in order to facilitate the population’s access to books and reading. Accessing books did not automatically literate people, but it was a necessary and essential first step."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

'All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace': Care and the Cybernetic University
Audrey Watters, Hack Education, 2020/06/10

Though I appreciate the reference to the Brautigan poem in the title, I admit to being a bit surprised to find no mention of the Adam Curtis BBC series of the same name, and on the same topic. Instead, what we have here is mostly a recounting of the debates between Herbert Simon (the same, Watters points out, who is today cited in reference to the term 'learning engineering') and Hubert Dreyfus, author of What Machines Can't Do (and also one half of the Dreyfus and Dreyfus that wrote Mind Over Machine, where they define the five stage model of skills acquisition). And this is important. Because while Dreyfus's point was that machines can't have intuition, Watters's point is that machines can't care. She doesn't mention intuition at all. But today's machines do have intuition - that's the core of the inexplicability problem in AI. Could future machines care? Even if they're not human?

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Professional Joy: Five Ways to Maximize Your Career Trifecta through Thought Leadership
Steven H. Cady, Emma Lavetter-Keidan, Google Docs, 2020/06/10

The term 'thought leader' is a product of our times, a result of the combination of some sort of expertise and some sort of social network branding. This article depicts it (and therefore, work toward it) as being a part of 'professional joy'. It, alongside a 'career trifecta' (consultant, educator, leader), creates the environment for "delight a person experiences when applying their talents toward meaningful work". I suppose this is accurate for some people, or maybe some type of person. I don't think aspiring toward thought leadership or professional joy is inherently good or bad. I worry only when the marketing becomes more important than the meaning (Terry Freedman describes the sort of thing I'm thinking about here)..

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]