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Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

9 ways ChatGPT saves me hours of work every day, and why you'll never outcompete those who use AI effectively. [Valdarrama]
Daniel Christian, Learning Ecosystems, 2023/01/10

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Daniel Christian points to this LinkedIn post (may be behind a spamwall) by Santiago Valdarrama. All his examples refer to software development, but of course AI has many more applications. Not counting things like adaptive cruise control, where AI may be built into the products I buy, I use AI explicitly in the following ways:

• Automated translation, to read content from around the world
• Automated transcription, to create text out of my talks
• Content organization using an AI in my feed reader
• Removing noise from my photos

If you're not using AI, as compared to me, then you're reading less diverse sources, have to pay for audio transcription (or worse, not do it al all), take longer to sift through relevant resources, and have lower quality photos at low light. Maybe you can still out-compete me, but it gets harder.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

A New Path to Understanding Systems Thinking
Nalani Linder, Jeffrey Frakes, The Systems Thinker, 2023/01/10

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Systems thinking involves looking at complex environments as interconnected flows of material an information and can be used to explain phenomena such as feedback loops or unintended consequences. This article proposes a new way to look at systems thinking: "we engaged in a study to see if at the individual level, a link might exist between a person's personality and his or her preference for using systems thinking skills. Our research study asks: In what ways might the preference for systems thinking be connected to one's preference for how to learn and evaluate information?" Now I'm wondering how learning styles sceptics would understand the use of Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) in this paper to reflect different approaches to systems thinking? Related: Using Systems Thinking To Improve Interdisciplinary Learning Outcomes.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Book review: Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education | Tony Bates
https:\/\/www.tonybates.ca\/author\/tony-bates\/#author, Tony Bates |, 2023/01/10

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Tony Bates reviews the just-released open access Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education. He cites the editors in agreeing that "the notable strength of this handbook is in the diversity of perspectives presented by our international authors who have created a comprehensive knowledge base to examine the effects and issues of ODDE" but questions whether its reach will extend well beyond its specialized audience. I believe it will, not just because it's open access, but because individual papers will have much wider applicability than the volume as a whole. Bates mentions a few of papers he finds particularly appealing; I will just assume he hasn't read mine in detail yet. ;)

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

AInevitability and it's AImpenetrableness
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2023/01/10

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Alan Levine wavers somewhere between AI-tech inevitability and AI-tech doom and gloom. From my perspective, nobody is at either of these two extremes, though critics of one side or another sometimes write as though their opponents are. As usual, though, Levine takes the discussion into a more useful direction: "as users/subjects of this stuff we have absolutely no comprehensible mental model of what it does... Without any kind of internal intuition, our only source of understanding is our statistically insignificant experiences of typing something into a box turning the crank and seeing what pops out. And then we come to conclusions based on either the crap we get or the stuff that is actually tenable." And that does, I think, characterize a lot of the writing I see out there.

If one were to ask me whether I have a mental model of what's going on inside an AI, I would say that I think I do. Think of a Rorschach test or a word association test. What's happening here is that your brain is being stimulated, and you're responding with the next thing that pops into your mind. Internally, the stimulation activates a part of your neural network, and your response is the word or phrase that is most similar to that part of your neural network. Tweak the parameters a bit and you can get a 'what comes next' sort of response, based on the same principles. That's what's happening, at least as I see it. But with computers, not with your brain.

Having some sense of what they're doing is really important when dealing with AI engines. As Levine says, "To me we are getting a bit over distracted by the candy sliding out of the bottom of the AI machine and not having any kind of understanding, even schematic, of what goes on behind the front of the machine." There are games we can play (or teach our children to play) along the lines of "one of these things does not belong" (another typical AI function) from Sesame Street where we asks what things we associate with what and think about why we think that this, rather than that, comes next, and only then think is concrete terms about things like input data and similarity algorithms.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

College degrees could become obsolete - and it could be the first step in giving your job to someone else
Jane Thier, Fortune, 2023/01/10

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This is an archived version of a Fortune article, the original of which is behind a paywall (adding confirmation to my theory that a primary intent of paywalls is to make sure critics don't read the content). "2023 will center on skills-based hiring rather than degree requirements—at least at successful companies, predicts research advisory and consulting firm Gartner in its list of top nine workplace predictions." No, it won't, and no, it doesn't. Once you get beyond the fast food sector, the vast majority of hiring will still require a traditional degree or diploma. And Gartner didn't say it wouldn't - it said "organizations will need to become more comfortable assessing candidates solely on their ability to perform in the role, rather than their credentials and prior experience." Which is true, but it doesn't mean they will. And even if they do adopt non-traditional hiring practices, says Gartner, they won't necessarily be focusing on skills. "They will deploy current employees to the highest priorities, which may necessitate reskilling and stretch assignments." The Gartner report isn't especially convincing, and the Fortune coverage is a joke. So just as well the content is behind a paywall. Via Apostolos.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

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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