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Genius Brands Launches Its First AI-Generated Children's Series 'Kidaverse Fast Facts' - Media Play News
Stephanie Prange, Media Play News, 2023/02/14

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Stimulated by this Tiktok video (which, on reflection, is a thinly disguised advertisement) to try c reating a learning resource in five minutes, I spent some time yesterday messing around with a workflow that would take me from a simple question to video lesson, all generated by AI. Using chatGPT and D-ID, this was the best I got in about an hour (I also spent time autogenerating slides to use with the animation and trying to find ways to put it all together). It's all certainly viable, the resulting video wasn't bad, and most of the 5-minute production time is spent waiting for the AI to generate the result. Anyhow, some people with more time than me have "announced the launch of its first AI-generated children's series 'Kidaverse Fast Facts,' utilizing OpenAI's ChatGPT, among other AI technologies." The link is to the press release (though you'll see it reprinted all over the trade press - content automation long precedes AI). Buzzfeed has already signed a deal with them. Sadly, I was unable to find the actual video anywhere online.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Reducing Work
Jonathan McQuarrie, HESA, 2023/02/14

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In Canada, writes Jonathan McQuarrie, "the number of domestic (higher education) students is going to increase by about 20% in the next five years or so." Barring increased funding, which is unlikely, "this new wave of students is very likely going to have to be taught and provided services via efficiencies within the system." But how? He suggests two major possibilities: reducing the administrative overhead high-paid academics must endure, and reducing their grading and assessment workload. I think these ideas have merit, if only because they represent work many academics hate. After all, "most professors got their jobs by being content experts.  They did not get it by being exports on pedagogy, curriculum, or assessment." But I wonder how much efficiency would be created, given the already extensive use of automation and low-paid teaching assistants. Image: WP.

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We can add ChatGPT to the latest list of concerns about student cheating, but let's go deeper
Denise Pope, Drew Schrader, The Hechinger Report, 2023/02/14

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"Instead of asking 'How can we prevent students from cheating?' we ought to ask why they are cheating in the first place," write Denise Pope and Drew Schrader. Indeed, no small number of commentators have been asking exactly that. As the authors note, a "transactional model often teaches students to prioritize grades and test scores over individual curiosity, deep learning and integrity." We can address this if we "value each student for their unique identities and assets, make space for educators to invest in relationships," they argue. In other words, "we need to increase students' genuine engagement and deepen their sense of belonging in order to change their motivations and mitigate cheating." Well, that's one way, perhaps. It is by no means the only suggestion on offer. And it strikes me as one of the more manipulative methods.

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How will AI-powered search impact publisher revenue?
Peter Houston, Spiny Trends, 2023/02/14

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This is just a short article without a lot new to add, but it makes one really important point: "While Google in particular sends more traffic to publisher sites than any other external source at the moment, AI-powered answers could be delivered directly without the need to click through to a publisher site... Link-free 'complete answers' from AI-powered search could have serious consequences for publishers' search traffic and revenue." Now I don't care (much) about publishers' revenue, but the idea of decoupling search from the web troubles me. The value of the web today is its diversity, its multitude of different voices and perspectives. Link-free answers homogenizes that. We need to insist that AI-powered search cite its sources.

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Are papers published in predatory journals worthless? A geopolitical dimension revealed by content-based analysis of citations
Zehra Taskin, Franciszek Krawczyk, Emanuel Kulczycki, Quantitative Science Studies, 2023/02/14

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Predatory journals are those that "prioritize their self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, poor editorial practices, and a lack of transparency." The term was coined by Jeffrey Beall (of Beall's list) to highlight the practice of open-access journals charging publication fees to fast-track articles into publication with little or no editorial oversight. This creates the possibility of misinformation entering 'the literature' (at least, at a rate greater than in traditional journals). But the question needs to be asked, say the authors, are the articles actually of poorer quality? The answer is nowhere as simple as it seems. Looking at citation patterns, for examples, reveals no real difference between these articles and those published in more reputable journals. "Moreover, the analysis revealed that the most frequently mentioned countries in the citances are India, Pakistan, and Iran, with mentions of Western countries being rare. This highlights a geopolitical bias and shows the usefulness of looking at such journals as mislocated centers of scholarly communication."

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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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