OLDaily

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

Platforms don't owe publishers a living, but they do owe them compensation
Jonathan Heawood, Media Voices, 2023/03/27

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The Public Interest News Foundation's Jonathan Heawood argues that the tech giants should be compensating publishers. There are two major parts of the argument. First, he argues that "platforms need publishers, just as publishers need platforms." Second, the platforms are earning "the lions's share" of the revenue. Both arguments are highly suspect. The internet was thriving long before publishers got involved, and their involvement led to a world of paywalls, surveillance and tracking, threats of lawsuits, and more. And much of the revenue earned by platforms is derived from people sharing their own content with each other - the publishers' contribution is a small fraction of that. I don't see why the rest of should have to pay a special tax to the publishing sector, particularly when the sector has done so much over the last few decades to prevent the sharing of knowledge and information (I have no sympathy with the platforms either, who have used algorithms indiscriminately to lower the level of discourse on a global scale).

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Regulatory burden could clog the lifelong learning revolution | Wonkhe
Rachel Sandby-Thomas, WonkHe, 2023/03/27

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This week we had a fire in a heritage building in Montreal that killed a number of people thanks to AirBnB and the landlord apparently skirting regulations designed to keep people safe. I also wrote recently of Bridge Academies, accused of scandals and abuses against schoolchildren in Africa. Fresh from her appearance at committee, Rachel Sandby-Thomas sets out the regulatory issues that could blunt the power of the lifelong loan entitlement. We've seen what happens when you let the financial services industry skirt regulations. I could go on; the list is endless. So I have zero patience for people who write about the 'regulatory burden' on institutions and services. The regulations are there to protect people, and those who can't see that are often the first people to put clients in harm's way - as we have seen, again, over and over.

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Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)
Davit Marikyan, Savvas Papagiannidis, Theory Hub, 2023/03/27

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This is from a couple years ago, but I've been doing a ton of reading on technology acceptance models over the last few months, so it seems worth sharing. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) combines a number of earlier models (for example, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), among others, to provide an overall view of the factors involved, and a means of measuring the weight of each of those factors. What I've learned especially is the extent to which each of these measures is empirically validated, the role they play in developing implementation plans, including training. I personally think technology acceptance is much more fine-grained and much more personal than any of these models suggest (and therefore, prime grounds for assessment by AI; this is true for most of what people in our field call 'theory') but the means to manage at this level doesn't exist yet. See also: Vankatesh, et al., (2003), Momani (2020).

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Artificial intelligence and our future
Bill Gates, gatesnotes.com, 2023/03/27

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I suppose I have to link to this article if only to ensure it's in the OLDaily historical record, and a gazillion people will be citing it in the future. "Bill Gates explains why AI is as revolutionary as personal computers, mobile phones, and the Internet, and he gives three principles for how to think about it." There's nothing new in this letter we haven't read elsewhere, but it's a nice overview, and people will cite it because it's Bill Gates.

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The humanities are worth saving
Meg Lavallee, The Vermont Cynic, 2023/03/27

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In an era when education is directed more and more toward gainful employment the value of the humanities questioned by many. The pathway to a good job isn't so clear. This article in the University of Vermont (UVM) student newspaper makes the case for why humanities skills are a valuable asset. As a graduate in philosophy, I certainly agree. But I also believe that the humanities shouldn't be reserved for people with financial means and tolerance for risk. If there's any discipline that should be widely and openly accessible, it's the humanities. So let's be clear: there's a distinction to be made between saving the humanities and saving high-priced humanities programs.

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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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