OLDaily

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

WordPress.com challenges Substack with launch of paid newsletters
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, 2023/06/01

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So our Fediverse Spring is going to come to a sad end from the unlikeliest of sources: WordPress. There are two items of importance mentioned in this article. The first and most obvious: WordPress paid newsletters. The second has been covered previously but shows up again here: "parent company Automattic recently acquired an ActivityPub plugin that blog owners could use to join the Fediverse, posting their updates directly to Mastodon." It will never be as bad as the platform social media, but it can be pretty bad, with Fediverse spam rivaled only by the email variety. It should go without saying that no WordPress link requiring a subscription will be found in this newsletter.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Critical Issues in Open and Distance Education Research
Junhong Xiao, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 2023/06/01

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I've collaborated with Junhong Xiao for many years and we've discussed in passing some of the issues raised in this paper. As a long-time editor and reviewer of academic papers in the field, he's in an excellent position to make these observations. And I agree with much of what he's written here (16 page PDF). For example: "researchers need to resist the temptation of instant benefits brought about  by  one-off,  short-duration studies." Also, "studies must be further scaled up and generalized to maximize their relevance." More, "it is ODE researchers' moral and social responsibility" to include underprivileged and disadvantaged populations as subjects of their research. We don't need more studies of psychology students in elite US and UK universities! There's more, but as the author points out, "studies pertaining to the above issues usually do not bring immediate benefits to the researchers." Image: Distance Education.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Virginia to ease degree requirements for state jobs
David Ress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 2023/06/01

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This one comes in via Bryan Alexander, who keeps an eye on these things. "Virginia will eliminate degree requirements and preferences for nearly 90% of classified jobs — salaried positions subject to the Virginia Personnel Act — in line with a growing private sector trend that looks at experience and other training as well as degrees when hiring." Now there are two possibilities here - looking at experience and other training in addition to degrees (which is how the private sector trend seems to be described), or experience and other training instead of degree requirements, which is what the headline suggests. "The reform will give equal consideration to applicants who have an equivalent combination and level of training, knowledge, skills, certifications and experience as college graduates." As always with stuff like this, seeing (and only seeing) is believing.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Rise Of The Copilots: Microsoft Steps Up The Pace
Josh Bersin, 2023/06/01

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There's a ton of stuff and I can only scratch the surface with this excerpt: "the introduction of a Copilot for Microsoft Windows (making AI available to a billion PC users), a Copilot for PowerBI (essentially making data analysis an out of the box exercise), a new Microsoft Fabric big data lake, and a set of tools to help developers build their own Copilots and add plug-ins from third party systems...  And to build on this strength in tools, SuccessFactors, the largest HR platform in the world (by users), just introduced Copilots into their suite and a deeper integration with Azure AI." It seems to me that the objections of the sceptics are simply overwhelmed by what this software can do. Bersin also writes, "We have built our own Josh Bersin Copilot (come see the preview at Irresistible 2023) and in only a few weeks we now have full conversational access to more than 20 years of research, more than 600 blogs and articles, our 100+ podcasts, and soon the Josh Bersin Academy." If I had the time, staff and resources, I'd do the same with my work. Related: Ben Dickson in TechTalks, How to create a private ChatGPT that interacts with your local documents.

 

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Pondering the Future of OER and Open Education
Curtis J. Bonk, encore+, 2023/06/01

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From the web page: "Armed with the podcast title: 'Pondering the Future of OER and Open Education', ENCORE+ team members Mark Brown (DCU) and Juliane Granly (ICDE), together with the hosts, reflects on the broader, impactful mission of open education and on the OER ecosystem today. The episode can be watched on YouTube." Related: DIY degree? Why universities should make online educational materials free for all, by Richard F. Heller.

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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