OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics. We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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Peer Learning Changes Everything - but How to Make it Work?
Brendon Johnson, Networkweaver, 2022/11/15

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"Increasingly in networks and communities I'm part of," writes Brendon Johnson, "the activity participants see the most value and impact in - and engage with regularity and enthusiasm - is peer learning circles." But peer learning doesn't just happen automatically. "There's a lot of tiny pieces that, when they all come together, allow for many learning circles to thrive," writes Johnson. For example: outlining a clear purpose, establishing shared principles, creating a straightforward process, clarifying commitment, and a number of other typical group-formation mechanisms. All of this works fine if you're in a homogeneous environment or collaboration, but group learning - which is what Johnson is describing - is not the same as peer learning, in my opinion. The best peer learning works when these principles are not in operation. That's when your purpose, principles and assumptions are challenged and you're forced to think beyond the current context.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How Online Mobs Act Like Flocks Of Birds
Renée DiResta, NOEMA, 2022/11/15

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We've seen the comparison between social media and network behavior before, but this article also has a really nice animated illustration. "A growing body of research suggests human behavior on social media is strikingly similar to collective behavior in nature... The behavior is determined by the structure of the network, which shapes the behavior of the network, which shapes the structure, and so on."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Every Student Needs a Learning Coach | Getting Smart
Nate McClennen, Getting Smart, 2022/11/15

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I have long felt that learning should be designed according to a triad model, with one function being advocacy and support for individual learners. This article expands on that idea, describing three major functions of coaching: "First, to provide academic guidance and support... Second, to provide a caring and supporting environment... Finally... by expanding young people's professional networks, especially for those most marginalized." The key to making this happen, I think, is to reorganize local schooling to take advantage of online (and increasingly, AI-generated) learning services, allowing in-person educators to adopt this coaching function.

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Meta's layoffs make it official: Facebook is ready to part ways with the news | Nieman Journalism Lab
Sarah Scire, Nieman Lab, 2022/11/15

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Another object lesson in the dangers of depending on private companies to perform civic functions (like news and education): "The layoffs are another step in Meta's journey to get the heck away from news. Meta, which promised $300 million in support of local journalism back in 2019 when it was still Facebook, has shifted resources away from its News tab, shuttered the Bulletin newsletter program, ended support for Instant Articles, eliminated human-curation in favor of algorithms, and stopped paying U.S. publishers to use their news content." Of the money promised, only $25 million ever actually made its way to newsrooms; another $75 million was spent on marketing.

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Postmodern Systems: Intersubjectivity through Dialog
Quinn Wilton, 2022/11/15

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The core of this presentation is an extension of the entity-attribute-value model of computing, adding causality (which introduces a sense of time and perspective), but the context is the idea that "the postmodern condition is characterised by the co-existence of a multiplicity of heterogeneous discourses—a state of affairs assessed differently by different parties," which readers will know I enthusiastically endorse. 30 page PDF presentation.

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Debirdify
Manuel Eberl, 2022/11/15

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Today's Mastodon update with news and items from the great migration. Debirdify: According to the website, "Debirdify uses the Twitter API to look through profile information for things that look like Fediverse account names." Also: Dave Lane from OERu offers a comprehensive tutorial on installing a Mastodon server using Docker Compose (I have to try this one!). Also, Brian Keegan uses an interesting analogy to explain Mastodon: "If you think of the fediverse as a university, each Mastodon server is like a dorm." Also: using Keyoxide as a verification service for Mastodon (warning: not simple). Also, Jon Udell creates a prototype Mastodon reader using Steampipe (warning: not simple). Also: Takahē: A New ActivityPub Server. Python, with Joomla. Also: Antichirp "allows you to load server blocklists from larger instances so you don't have to do all the moderating yourself." Finally, Clive Thompson describes "how Mastodon is designed to be antiviral" (may throw up a stupid Medium spamwall).

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