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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3 ways to use Mozilla Hubs, a VR platform that’s accessible and private by design
Kristina Bravo, dist://ed, 2022/12/01

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I've done some work learning Mozilla Hubs, but there's a lot to learn (so be prepared to put in the time). That said, you can do a lot with it: "Create an art gallery, a portfolio, meet new people, teach a class or learn new skills with Mozilla Hubs. When NASA's Webb Space Telescope team and artist Ashley Zelinskie wanted to bring space exploration to everyone, they chose Mozilla Hubs." Hubs works both with a browser and with a VR viewer, so it's more accessible than heavy VR produced by systems like Unreal or Unity. Learn more and join the Hubs community here.  

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The AI future for lesson plans is already here
Nick Kelly, Kelli McGraw, EduResearch Matters, 2022/12/01

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This is a landmark in auto-generated learning resources. "AI-generated lesson plans are already better than many people realise," write the authors. "Here's an example generated through the GPT-3 deep learning language model." What follows is a very plausible lesson plan on the topic of 'juxtaposition' within the context of Romeo and Juliet. Could you do better? Maybe. Is the AI's lesson plan good enough? Probably. And it would have taken a few seconds to produce.

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The fediverse and the indieweb
2022/12/01

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Today's Mastodon/Twitter update is a mixed bag. There are warnings to not use Hive Social as a Twitter alternative due to data breaches. Also, Marcus Hutchins writes that while he thought moderation would become impossible, he was wrong. "Mastodon is not an ad-driven platform. There is absolutely zero incentives to let awful people run amok in the name of engagement." Indeed, Mastodon isn't just a replacement for Twitter, write Nathan Schneider and Amy Hasinoff. It scales in a different way - not through automation, but by distributing workload (I would note that this is also the basic difference between the xMOOC, which is like Twitter, and the cMOOC, which is like the fediverse). Tim Bray says, "let's stop saying 'No algorithms!' because that's just wrong, and figure out how to get nice algorithms built." Ben Werdmuller reminds us of the link between the fediverse and the indieweb (which, trust me, isn't forgotten in the pages of OLDaily). But it's a blend: "instead of Publishing on my Own Site and Syndicating Elsewhere, I plan to just Publish and Participate," he writes. Laura Hazard Owen writes about how Post plans to use micropaymnts as a business model. And a thing on partially visualizing the fediverse.

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Leading Virtual Teams |
Maren Deepwell, 2022/12/01

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Maren Deepwell's book 'Leading Virtual Teams' has been released. I haven't read it yet (it just came out!) but I am sure people would like to know about it. "This book provides practical advice and case studies as a source of inspiration and a prompt for reflection for virtual teams and their leaders. From recruitment and induction to establishing effective and sustainable ways of working in the virtual workplace. Leading Virtual Teams explores the highs and lows of what it means to work from home long-term in a small or medium sized organisation and sets out a vision for a new kind of professionalism for virtual teams."

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Agreement reached with Athabasca University | alberta.ca
Government of Alberta, 2022/12/01

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This is a press release reporting on an agreement reached between the Alberta government and the Athabasca University Board of Governors (members of which are appointed by the Alberta government). The agreement stipulates the number of executive and staff that would be required to live in the town of Athabasca. As D'Arcy Norman points out, there's no comment quoted from the Athabasca University president.

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Z-Library: The price of academic knowledge
Grace Kim-Shin, Fulcrum, 2022/12/01

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The University of Ottawa student newspaper reports on Z-Library, "recently taken offline by the FBI, was a free, online shadow library that offered students relief from (textbook) expenses." It's unclear who is the wrongdoer here, writes Grace Kim-Shin. "It's unfair to deprive people of compensation for their work — especially small up-and-coming authors. But, do the large-scale publishers that have a monopoly over the textbook market deserve the same level of sympathy? ...  what is the real crime — copyright theft, or the deprivation of knowledge? The gatekeeping of academic material is robbing people of knowledge which should be accessible and free." Via Geoff Cain.

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Contextual Content Analysis of Mission Statements of Open and Distance Education Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mpine Makoe, Open Praxis, 2022/12/01

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"The aim of this study," writes Mpine Makoe, "is to evaluate the extent to which open, and distance education universities are fulfilling their stated purpose as higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan countries." Statements from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, Mauritius and Botswana are studied. "It makes sense that mission statements of open and distance universities should be guided by open principles of accessibility, equity, flexibility, quality, lifelong learning, student centredness," writes Makoe, however, "many mission statements were silent on access, equity and student-centredness."

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