OLDaily

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

Can you create your own math universe?
Yamsox, TikTok, 2023/01/27

---

I really enjoyed this TikTok video about the difference between real math and what's taught in schools. It's probably not what you think - it's not, for example, the suggestion that there should be more 'practical' math taught in schools. Quite the opposite. Instead, what you don't learn "until after you've completed your PhD" is that the math we learn is one of many different ways math could be, and that ideally, what you should learn in math is how to create these mathematical systems for yourself. This was something I was lucky to learn about in my philosophy of mathematics classes, and it does indeed change your perspective of what counts as 'foundational' knowledge.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Gaggle Drops LGBTQ Keywords from Student Surveillance Tool Following Bias Concerns
Mark Keierleber, 2023/01/27

---

Gaggle is a company that monitors student messages and social media posts in the K-12  system. According to this report, the company "will no longer flag students who use words like 'gay' and 'lesbian' online, citing greater acceptance of queer kids in schools." This follows a report in Vice arguing that the surveillance makes it a lot harder for them to access the online resources they need. The 74's report depicts the issue as part of the wider culture wars in the U.S., but the Vice coverage focuses on whether the surveillance even 'works' in meeting Gaggle's stated objective of saving students' lives. But even without the false positives, would it be appropriate to surveil young people in this way? "Our contemporary surveillance technologies indoctrinate our students, our citizens … into a culture of observation in which they learn to be watched and are accepting of unremitting surveillance as a norm," says the Vice report.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

What's behind the growth and interest in learning design?
Neil Mosley, 2023/01/27

---

"Why is it that learning design is being talked about much more and why do universities feel that they need more people to engage in this work?" asks Neil Mosley. "It's impossible to downplay the role that growing complexity and a diversity of modalities, such as blended, hyflex and online distance learning have had," he says. But the article is mostly about resistance to it. The first half of the article is taken up in explaining why learning design (LD) is really basically the same as instructional design (ID), which has been around for a while. "In particular," he says, "the UK seems to have a hang-up with instructional design." As well, "programmes that involve multidisciplinary teams which combine academics with professional specialists are by and large still an uncomfortable cultural fit in most universities. Equally, many educators still don't see themselves as designers or view their work in that way." This frames it as a struggle between academics and technologists. I'm not sure I accept that, and I think there is a relevant difference between 'instructional' and 'learning' design that explains the trend.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Activity Streams graphical model
Johannes Ernst, reb00ted, 2023/01/27

---

"All of a sudden decentralized social media soars in adoption," writes Johannes Ernst. Core to this is the ActivityPub standard, and real-world implementations that mix it with additional independently defined protocols, such as what Mastodon does." ActivityPub is a complex standard, though, and so Ernst has created a series of diagrams "just to make it clearer (for myself) what kind of data can be shipped around in the Fediverse... They are essentially inheritance diagrams that show what kinds of activities there are, and actors, etc."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

BuzzFeed says it will use AI tools from OpenAI to personalize its content
James Vincent, The Verge, 2023/01/27

---

According to this article, "BuzzFeed says its going to use AI tools provided by ChatGPT creator OpenAI to 'enhance' and 'personalize' its content." The original article was posted in the Wall Street Journal. It's behind a paywall, but it seems to be allowing readers who access it via this tweet by Genevieve Roch-Decter. So the message getting out is two-fold: first, that (in Roch-Decter's words) "BuzzFeed will use ChatGPT to create content instead of writers," and second, "BuzzFeed's stock almost doubled on the news." It's also worth noting that "The company is getting paid millions of dollars by Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. to help generate creator content for Facebook and Instagram." This, rather than the AI, probably explains the stock price jump. See also this report in PressGazette.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Modes of Delivery report
Jason Lodge, Kelly Matthews, Matthias Kubler, Melissa Johnstone, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland, 2023/01/27

---

If I were a journalist cherry-picking from the trends identified in this report (159 page PDF) I might say something like "online learning (ie., 'external', p. 22) is getting more popular (pp. 22-23), is harder, and you're less likely to succeed (App B, p. 29), but you'll get better results (App B p. 7)". But for every assertion that could be made, there's a countervailing assertion, and the overall picture is made more complex by the pandemic that it becomes difficult to even define what is meant by 'internal' any more. The authors' own highlighting (p. 9) argues that "Without sufficient quality of online and mixed-mode offerings, there is a risk that students will not be sufficiently motivated, interested, self-regulated or self-directed" and "Timely access to quality learning resources and support services is instrumental for achieving quality learning outcomes." As well, the Australian system depends a lot on international students, and the risks face by students in this category have been highlighted over the last few years.

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.

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