OLDaily

6 Ways Conversational Virtual Humans Can Be Used in Education
Eran Soroka, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, 2022/03/21

This is a 'guest post' marketing post on ET&ML, though you don't learn that until you get to the very bottom of the post. It has a very basic list of six applications of chatbots. A good part of the post is devoted to making the "enhancing, not replacing" point again. It speaks to "the fear by the implementers that their deeds will lead to their own profession's demise." But I think markets should be honest about their ambitions. If the tech can be used to replace humans, it will be. I hardly ever talk to a human at a bank any more. And there's only one cashier remaining at the drug store where they set up self-checkout machines. We're naive if we think education will be any different.

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Using my VR support rig and VR shoes in Doom 3
Imgur, 2022/03/21

This is the nicest setup for fully mobile VR I've seen so far, and what's even better is that it's all home-made and open source. It uses 'VR shoes', which are essentially roller shoes, which simulate walking, sort of, on a stationary surface. More here.

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3 proven ways to get customers to share your product
Section 4, 2022/03/21

This is the best of a sorry collection of blog posts, all launched a few days ago, from Section 4, a corporate online learning company. It's not an auspicious foot forward; the blog doesn't even have RSS and there's no way to follow or subscribe. But. The website as a whole is a slick presentation and the product offering seems compelling. Priced just above $80 per month (about twice the general going rate) it appears to be aimed at premium business clients. It offers short classes (that they call 'sprints'), half-day workshops, video lectures, case studies, networking ("meet ambitious, generous people who will help you grow"), and hands-on support and advice. I can't vouch for the quality of any of it but I'm intrigued by the mix. Writ large, this sort of model is competitive to universities, especially if they can get people to sign up before they ever enter academia.

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Using Personality Assessments to Build Better Groups
Wren Mills, Faculty Focus, 2022/03/21

Honestly, this feels a bit sketchy to me. Here's the claim: "applying a free personality assessment in advance can help students better understand who they and their classmates are and how to work well within a group." The article briefly discusses Myers-Brigg (Jung) Typology Test, the DISC assessment, and the Compass Points Activity. I wouldn't take this difcussion very seriously, but the article raised for me the question of how an artificial intelligence would create student groups (aka adaptive group formation). Would it be based on a 'personality' assessment? Time zones? Diversity and inclusion principles? Something else? With large MOOC-sized classes being managed by algorithm, this question becomes more urgent.

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