OLDaily

Photomath is NOT Cheating
Alice Keeler, Teacher Tech, 2022/10/10

This discussion is reflective of the great calculator debates of the 1980s. "Now we have moved from 'no calculators' to 'no Google' or 'No Photomath,'" writes Alice Keeler. But I think the logic behind such restrictions is misrepresented a bit here. Keeler writes, "Knowing how to calculate the square root by hand was essential because what is going to do it for you??.. you're not going to carry around reference books of square root values." Well, true, but that wasn't the point. Working in stores, I'd see people mistype '10x11' and get '1100' and not realize this was an error because they didn't know how math worked. And that's the point of knowing how to do it: to develop enough intuition to sense when the machine, for whatever reason, is wrong. I could draw a similar analogy about geography and Google Maps. So, mostly, while it's true that Photomath is not cheating, we're missing the point if we simply skip over learning what it is exactly that Photomath is supposed to do.

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Whatever happened to... social reading?
2022/10/10

The latest installment in Doug Peterson's regular Sunday series takes us back to the early days of the web. "First, you have to get a bunch of friends/connections and then you read what they're sharing. Once you feel comfortable, you start to share the things that educate you and inspire you." But finding that share button proved elusive. "I finally got frustrated looking for that little share button and installed Shareaholic and AddtoAny in my browsers so that I was in control of the sharing," writes Peterson. Still, sharing has all been automated and sanitized now, with the 'Like' button removing any actual reading and sharing that happens. Though, of course, some of us have never given up doing both.

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The duty to care should be higher education’s fifth mission
University World News, 2022/10/10

Some good thinking here. "In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jonathan Haidt declares unequivocally: 'When truth and social justice collide, choose truth.' He seems to ignore fierce contestations over the epistemological and ontological conceptions of 'truth' and the simple fact that universities are deeply immersed in their times and contexts and reproduce conceptions of truth that are questionable in other times and contexts. This is not an argument for relativism, but for comprehensiveness."

And that brings us to the duty to care, which in this context means something like this: "universities have a responsibility to lead the global charge in climate research, mitigation and adaptation efforts by engaging governments, business, civil society and other stakeholders, as well as modelling sustainable environmental stewardship in their own institutions." I'm not sure if that's care, exactly, but I'm not going to disagree with the sentiment.

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Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights
White House, 2022/10/10

The document will, "help guide the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated systems so that they protect the rights of the American public," according to a White House press release. There are five principles: safe and effective systems; algorithmic discrimination protection; data privacy; notice and explanation; and human alternatives, consideration, and fallback. As David A. Teich writes in Forbes, "I would have preferred the White House produce a legislative blueprint rather than an introduction similar to those that have been published elsewhere." The White House document fits right in with the many other ethical codes developed for AI and related technologies. See also: Engadget, Access Now, WSJ, Department of Labor Blog, PetaPixel, Vox, Protocol.

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Aramis, or the Love of Technology
Bruno Latour, 2022/10/10

If there's an overall message, I suppose it would be something like 'technology is not independent of the rest of the society', and viewed in that light, it benefits from being subject to the many modes of inquiry to which we put the rest of society. Today, as we reflect on the passing of Bruno Latour, I reference Aramis, or the Love of Technology (336 page PDF). Written in multiple voices, it chronicles in depth the development and passing of Aramis, a French personal rapid transit system (PRT). It makes me think of Minitel, or earlier, the Paris pneumatic post. Some memorable quotes: "In a year, you can learn about any subject in the world." And "Rememher the lesson of Aramis: ' Don't innovate in every respect at once.'" Via Darius Kazemi.

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