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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I record myself on audio 24x7 and use an AI to process the information. Is this the future?
Rober Dam, RoberDam.com, 2022/11/22

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I don't quite understand Rober Dam's fascination with Chinese microphones, but his experiment following the release of whisper AI is a fascinating glimpse into the future. "Something magical is basically being able to perfectly relive everything I did that day, from trivial conversations and knowing their context, something that is lost in the ether today can remain available now." It enables the possibility of an AI coach, or an AI agent that learns what you would do and can respond on your behalf. The negative? "Exactly the same points, but in the hands of someone other than us." (I'm just guessing at the author's name, as it's not actually on the website anywhere).

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Five thoughtful ways to approach artificial intelligence in schools | EduResearch Matters
Greg Thompson, Kalervo Gulson, Teresa Swist, EduResearch Matters, 2022/11/22

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So, artificial intelligence will be used in schools. And this introduces what the article calls "a sociotechnical controversy." I can understand the caution, of course, as there are twin challenges of making sure teachers are prepared and making sure the technology doesn't cause more harm than help. So, as the authors say, "From working with diverse stakeholders it became clear that the introduction of AES in education should always work to reprofessionalise teaching and must be informed by multiple stakeholder expertise." And that's fair enough. But I still felt as I read this article that management and control were the only real options. And I'm not so sure of that - I'm not sure it's possible, and I'm not sure it's desirable.

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AWS and Blockchain
Tim Bray, 2022/11/22

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Tim Bray expends an awful lot of words to say that blockchain is 'a solution looking for a problem, but they're such good words, he's done the work to learn about the technology, and he places it squarely into the context of goings-on behind the scenes at Amazon Web Services (AWS), which makes it doubly interesting. "I'm not prepared to say that no blockchain-based system will ever be useful for anything," he writes. "But I'm gonna stay negative until I see one actually at work doing something useful, without number-go-up greedheads clamped on its teats.And I'm glad AWS didn't make a big bet on it back then."

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Can a Group of MIT Professors Turn a White Paper Into a New Kind of College? | EdSurge News
Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge, 2022/11/22

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I always roll my eyes when I read about "a Group of MIT Professors" or some such thing. It's the way such pronouncements are treated with reverence in the media (and the current post is no exception). I mean, get this: "The MIT professors who authored the white paper tried to make clear that even though they'™re from an elite university, they do not have all the answers." I would like to advise readers that even though I live in rural Canada, I don't have all the answers either. In fact, as we read in this article, the impetus behind this initiative isn't the oversized brains of our intellectual masters at all; it's funding from Bruce Rauner, a businessman and philanthropist, and a former Republican governor of Illinois. And that might explain the interest in supporting higher education for the well-to-do. Not the elite institutions, of course - they're untouchable. But "the next rung down." I wish Jeffrey Young would be more critical of these initiatives - though I guess if he were, he wouldn't get to attend invitee-only events.

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Discipulus Economicus: The Calculating Learner - kirschner-ED
Paul Kirschner, kirschner-ED, 2022/11/22

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Paul Kirschner references an article in Cognitive Psychology (paywalled, naturally) where students describe extra effort in courses as "ineffective for learning" and hence wasted. The article describes this as a misconception on the part of students, "a misinterpreted-effort hypothesis in which the mental effort associated with many normatively effective learning strategies (desirable difficulties; Bjork & Bjork, 1992) leads learners to misinterpret them as ineffective for learning " Kirschner disagrees, representing the students' perception as an instance of "discipulus economicus, or as (s)he is pejoratively called: the calculating student. This is a student who carries out the minimum of effort for the maximum benefit; a far cry from no pain, no gain.... They call it supporting the misinterpreted-effort hypothesis. I tend to call it supporting the calculating student hypothesis."

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15 essentials for a successful newsletter | The Audiencers
Ismael Nafria, The Audiencers, 2022/11/22

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I've been publishing an email newsletter for more than 20 years and most of these points resonate well with me, especially the parts about having a personal tone and a consistent format. Interestingly, Ismael Nafria writes that "publishing newsletters is the second most performed activity by full-time creators, only behind publishing on social media and ahead of publishing articles/blog posts and creating short videos." Certainly many of my sources are email newsletters published by experts in other fields. Where the article does leave me is when it starts talking about business models and publishing platforms, though with a good day job and the skills to write my own platform, I may have a privileged point of view. Via Spiny via What's New in Publishing.

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