OLDaily

The Nature of Belief From a Philosophical Perspective, With Theoretical and Methodological Implications for Psychology and Cognitive Science
Eric Schwitzgebel, The Splintered Mind, 2022/08/02

Over the years readers will have seen me challenge the idea of representationalism as a theory of mind, learning and belief. Here's another expression of the same sort of argument, posing an alternative called 'dispositionalism', which is closer to what I would favour. "According to dispositionalism, to believe that P is to be disposed to act and react in ways that are characteristic of believers-that-P." Now what really matters (to me) is how we cash out this notion of 'disposed to act', which I talk about in terms of pattern recognition and characteristic responses. But what matters is that we both reject "a particular type of cognitive architecture - the storage of representational contents matching the contents of the believed propositions." Anyhow, this article looks at the dispute in some depth, and traces some methodological implications (for example, 'the problem with questionnaires').

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

TikTok and the Fall of the Social Media Giants
Cal Newport, 2022/08/02

There are two types of feedback for an AI-driven social media recommendation service: explicit and implicit. Explicit feedback includes things like likes, follows, retweets, etc., where the user is actively expressing a preference. Implicit feedback is everything else, and includes things like what you view, how long you watch, your facial expressions, etc. For the purposes of this article, Facebook is based on explicit feedback, while TikTok is based on implicit feedback. Why does this matter? The author believes that if Facebook follows TikTok into relying on implicit feedback, this will be a "poison pill" that "that finally cripples the digital dictators that for so long subjugated the web 2.0 revolution" and leaves us with "more breathing room for smaller, more authentic, more human online engagements." Sure - except it just doesn't matter. There's a third type of feedback, which I'll call "third party feedback", and that's all the feedback that comes from someone else and influences what you see. That's the most important kind of feedback. Advertisers, political campaigners, people promoting their own videos - these are what matter to both TikTok andf Facebook. That's what we don't see in "more human online engagements" and that's why their success and sustainability is so limited. Via Helen Blunden.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

A Hackathon as a Form of Professional Learning: Reflections on Organised Chaos
Clare Gormley, Fiona O’Riordan, National Institute for Digital Learning, 2022/08/02

It says right in Wikipedia (and reflecting my own experience) that "The goal of a hackathon is to create functioning software or hardware by the end of the event." This event, while laudable in its effort to get groups of people together to think about a problem (specifically, to "design an authentic and sustainable assessment experience for all"), is not what I would consider a hackathon (notwithstanding its designation as a social innovation hackathon). Why am I being pedantic about this? Because there is to my mind a world of difference between producing an actual working solution and a potential solution, and this very much impacts everything from the people you include in the workshop to the sort of approach that is ultimately adopted. A hackathon doesn't just produce a concept, it produces a proof of concept.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Innovation in action: Taking lessons, programs, and assessments online
Esther Clark, Christensen Institute, 2022/08/02

This article mainly leaves me wondering what the upside is for the Christensen Institute in running what appears to be essentially marketing copy. It certainly undermines its core message about innovation (despite what Thomas Arnett writes at the bottom of the article). We read the wildly inaccurate claim that "King's InterHigh is considered the original online school." It was founded in the UK in 2005, a full decade after many organizations had started offering high school programs online. And forming a partnership with the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) may be good business but it hardly qualifies as innovation.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Pearson plans to sell its textbooks as NFTs
Lucy Knight, The Guardian, 2022/08/02

This is why people are so cynical about new technologies. Here's why Pearson plans to sell textbooks as non-fungible tokens (NFT): "In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale... technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life." In other words - you can't sell your used textbook without giving a cut to Pearson. Here's a message to publishers: nobody wants a technology that allows you to control everything they own.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How to Make Notes and Write, a handbook by Dan Allosso and S.F. Allosso
Chris Aldrich, 2022/08/02

Chris Aldrich points to this open text, How to Make Notes and Write, by Dan Allosso and S. F. Allosso. In  a nutshell, the book describes how to take notes from readings and sources, find how they are connected, and weave the results into longer works. This is sometimes called personal knowledge management (PKM) or the Zettelkasten method. Aldrich offers a link to an annotated version of the book. I find the approach a bit mechanical (as maybe it should be if you're just learning). Then, I have virtually zero desire to write longer works, and prefer to be able to envision the entire text in my own mind before writing it and filling it in.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]