OLDaily

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

When it comes to misinformation, partisanship overpowers fact-checking, over and over again
Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab, 2023/06/30

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Educators need to learn from media, I think, that presenting 'just the facts', isn't sufficient. "But we know now that people's brains don't have an on/off switch that gets flipped by a well-made factcheck. People's beliefs are driven by a huge number of psychological and social factors, far beyond whether they follow PolitiFact on Instagram. Knowledge alone doesn't knock out beliefs held for deeper reasons — and sometimes, it entrenches them more deeply."

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Who killed Google Reader?
David Pierce, The Verge, 2023/06/30

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RSS has been my go-to technology since 1998 when I became the feed number 31 supplying content to Netscape's NetCenter. It's still how I find most things today, and is the essential tool in my distribution network (email services get blocked or fail, social media algorithms demote content to obscurity, but RSS just keeps chugging along). Ten years ago, Google Reader had become a staple of the RSS world. Then they killed it, right around the same time they were launching their colossal failure, Google+. This post describes how and why Reader was killed, from the perspective of a Google insider. I would't believe everything it says (like the bit where 30 million users is too small a customer base for a google tool). But it's still enlightening.

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Google claims Canada news law ‘conflicts with core principles of the open web’
Bron Maher, PressGazette, 2023/06/30

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The Canadian law, intended to protect (large, commercial, billionaire-owned) news media in Canada, could end up wrecking it. Most of the coverage around Canada's new media pay-for-links law is saying that Google and Meta are "blocking" access to Canadian news media. They are doing no such thing, no more than I am when I also decide not to link to CTV or the Globe and Mail. They are simply withdrawing a free service being offered to publishers, a service Google notes is valued at $250 million a year. If Google directed a fraction of that traffic my way, I could retire. What I wouldn't do is take Google to court asking for more. Because if we accept the principle that we have to pay for links, that would also wreck the internet. Instead, I would, you know, offer better digital products and services designed for the information age.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Maori Data Governance Model
Tahu Kukutai, et al., Te Kāhui Raraunga, 2023/06/30

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There's a ton of useful ideas and concepts in this document (45 page PDF) describing data governance and ethics from a Maori perspective. It hinges on this idea: "Data is often described as the world's most valuable resource – a commodity to be extracted, used and reused. By contrast, Maori data is a taonga tuku iho – an ancestral gift – which requires active protection and careful nurturing for the benefit of individuals and collectives, now and in the future." This resistance to an extractive model of data governance is also essential to the The Canadian First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) principles of Ownership, Control, Access and Possession (OCAP) of First Nations data, which the report cites. It means, in essence, a separate sphere of Indigenous data management outside the sphere - and jurisdiction - of the crown. This model - indigenous data sovereignty - is something that might usefully be considered for cultures and societies generally.

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"The single greatest threat and the single greatest opportunity": Insights on AI and publishing, from FIPP World Media Congress 2023
What's New in Publishing, 2023/06/30

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"Come for the storytelling, stay for the community." This item describes "A new business model emerging of selling bundles and what that means, getting people to come for the storytelling, for the journalism, but they stay for the community." It's funny, but this approach made me think of the article Akan folklore as a philosophical framework for education in Ghana. "It is through storytelling that African elders endeavoured to inculcate in the younger generation virtues such as good behaviour, manners, hard work, fairness and respectful submission to authority." In journalism, it may be AI that plays the role of the elder. "For many of you may be the last train in digital. We missed the social train, we missed the mobile train. Some people missed the search train. Let's not miss this train." Sure, there are risks to having AI create our stories for us, but on the other hand, it's probably better than developing our cultural values through watching the Marvel Cimematic Universe.

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TCEA Responds: Interactive Touch Screens
Miguel Guhlin, TechNotes Blog, 2023/06/30

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This is a fun post with good insights you can dig into. The surface-level question asks how to motivate teachers to use interactive touch screens that are being promoted by the administration. Miguel Guhlin agrees it's a tough sell, and lists a number of objections a sceptical teacher might raise. Then, in the linchpin of this post, he suggests shifting attention away from the technology and toward effective evidence-based teaching strategies (he quotes Hattie and impact.wales here). "There's more energy on tap for improving student achievement than there is for replacing a pencil," he says. The impact.wales diagram (pictured) is itself worthy of a good look, as it describes what they (incorrectly) call "deep learning" but what but what I'll call "cognitive connectivism" - "the more you 'think' about something, the more connections you make, the better your 'learning'".

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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