OLDaily

Understanding digital wellbeing: What is technology literacy?
FutureLearn, 2021/11/25

According to FutureLearn, "Technology literacy combats unsafe and irresponsible usage of technology, and creates an effective environment for using tech. The term is tied in with digital literacy, which is the ability to understand and effectively use digital information. Technology literacy is relevant to all forms of technology, including computers, smartphones and tablets." Note the normative use of 'unsafe and irresponsible', which tells me it's more than just 'literacy'.

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PISA for machine learners
Ben Williamson, Code Acts in Education, 2021/11/25

Quite a good summary and discussion of the OECD's new program on assessing the capacities of artificial intelligence (AI) with an eye both to assessing those capacities in the future and thereby identifying where human skills will be needed, as documented in its AI and the Future of Skills report. I'm more interested in Williamson's comments (mostly because I think OECD will underestimate what AI can do). This is the most important bit: "the first implication of the project, then, is its emphasis on ‘skills’ as a core concern in education systems... potentially displacing other accounts of the purposes and priorities of education as a social institution... the OECD is establishing a new kind of ‘human-computer interaction capital’ as the aim of education systems."

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"Cognitive Fossils" and the Paleo Mindscape
Mark Dow, Language Log, 2021/11/25

This is a fascinating investigation. The idea is that we can track human development of a theory of mind (that is, the way we infer to other people's thoughts and feelings) through their development of tools. "Imitating, linking another's procedure to their goal, means using a theory of mind, and in child development, having a theory of mind means being able to link symbols to sounds, because you understand what others intend and can copy them."

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