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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed

Automated journalism and the future of news media: INMA report
What's New in Publishing, 2022/11/24

---

I raised the topic of AI-generated on-demand learning resources today, but was advised that, like automated cars, the technology was mostly promises and hot air. Fair enough. But, as it turns out, writing content is easier than driving a car, and in newsrooms today it's being used "to generate more coverage and deliver sections that are popular with readers but would be too labour-intensive for a human reporter to create." So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea. It may take ten years (that's how far education lags news media) but it's pretty likely to be in our future.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How to write an image description
Alex Chen, Medium, UX Collective, 2022/11/24

---

So I've been writing image descriptions for my Mastodon posts, as one does, ad I though I was doing OK just describing what's in the image. But there's more to it than that. "It doesn't necessarily make sense to go from left to right describe everything in an image because that might lose the central message or create a disorienting feeling." Write using the object-action-context model. "The object is the main focus. The action describes what's happening, usually what the object is doing. The context describes the surrounding environment." Good advice. I'll follow it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Oh no, it's another metaverse hot take
Martin Weller, The Ed Techie, 2022/11/24

---

Here's an assignment for pundits writing about the future of the metaverse in education: write the opinion without referencing virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) at all. After all, these technologies have been with us for decades, from the text-based MUD games to ActiveWorlds to Second Life to today's Unreal, Unity and Mozilla engines. What does the metaverse bring that's new when compared to these systems? This is nothing against Martin Weller's coverage here, which as it is does well to point to the flaws of past and current implementations of VR, and hints at the strategy the Zuckerbergs of the world might take to monetize it. And he's right when he says the only way to monetize is to connect it to the wider world, something VR doesn't do very well at all at the moment. My own answer references persistent digital objects, from crypto-based digital IDs used by people to sign in to tokens and assets and records (such as xAPI based learning records) that persist from one environment to the next.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Twitter consequences; not just for little people
Maria Farrell, Crooked Timber, 2022/11/24

---

Mastodon/Twitter update: The pain of being laid off in the U.S. ("The US employees will find themselves out on the street with no health insurance. That's catastrophic...") and the upside of "journalists, policymakers, academics and various other thought-leader types who viscerally get what it is to be trapped inside a monopolistic tech platform." Can journalists use Mastodon instead of Twitter? Sean Boots on saying goodbye to Twitter. Jim Groom says "the fediverse enables a sense of migration that seems novel."  Simon Willison on tracking Mastodon usage. Miguel Guhlin on blocking Mastodon domains. Finally, a thread on Twitter about potential legal liabilities for United States people who decide to run a Mastodon instance.This is why we can't have nice things.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Introducing a reflective framework for the assessment and recognition of microcredentials
Francisco Iniesto, Rebecca Ferguson, Martin Weller, Rob Farrow, Rebecca Pitt, 2022/11/24

---

This is a good overview of recent literature on micrcredentials. The The framework in question "maps elements of assessment and recognition, allowing platforms, universities, and employment services to place microcredentials and similar courses in context" and is drawn from the papers surveyed. "The checklists are designed to be used at the planning and design stages of microcredentials, to check whether the best ID verification, assessment and recognition approaches are in place, and supporting reflection." Of course 'best' at this point is very much a matter of opinion.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Replika
2022/11/24

---

Three trends, with examples, presented by David Mattin this morning at OEB: first, conversational AI, as evidenced by products such as Replika, "the AI companion who cares", and character.ai, which emulates historical figures like Plato and Freud; second, hybrid work (the "chit chat economy"), represented by Random Coffee, "that creates smart, automated & regular connections between your employees," and Trailblazer Ranch, used by Salesforce to bring employees together; and third, the metaverse ("meaningful experiences in VR - an internet of experiences"), for example, the use of Precision OS by Britain's NHS to prepare for surgery, the 2020 concert that attracted 8 million people in Fortnite, and the Kaws exposition on the same platform.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]