OLDaily

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

Bikepacking Quebec: Véloroute des Draveurs, La Vérendrye and Le P'tit Train du Nord
Stephen Downes, YouTube, 2023/08/21

---

My hiatus has ended! For the last three weeks I have been a bikepacker in northern Quebec. This video records my ride: click here to view video.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Using AI to aid with banning books is another level of dystopia
Doug Belshaw, Thought Shrapnel, 2023/08/21

---

So one of the more outrageous stories over the last few weeks was the use of AI to select books to be banned from libraries. In a way this makes sense, since we've already seen AI used for assessment purposes for a number of years. But to ban books? "In this case, a crazy law is being implemented by people who haven't read the books in questions who outsource the decision to a language model that doesn't really understand what's being asked of it." Of course, it would not be the first time books were banned without having been read, as any Harry Potter fan will attest. As is so often the case, it's not the tech that's the problem, it's the use to which the tech is being put.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

From Fediverse to the Pluriverse of the Future - Navigating A Linked Web of Communities in Many Dimensions
Richard Reisman, Smartly Intertwingled, 2023/08/21

---

This is a smart set of reflections on where the fediverse is headed and what sorts of things we ought to take into consideration. We begin with (what I think is) an over-riding truth: "human society is far too complex, diverse, and nuanced to be served by any one centrally managed global 'public square.'" Quite so. But this takes us immediately into the core issue: the "need to better support the hyperlinked multidimensionality of how individuals and communities interconnect" because "individuals participate in many communities (and are) are rarely bound by any one community, and wish to have global views into many, as both speakers and listeners, depending on their interests, goals, and moods as they vary from time to time."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

A Baker's Dozen of Mastodon Tools for You
Tara Calishain, ResearchBuzz, 2023/08/21

---

Most of the tools in this article are related to ways to search Mastodon, which isn't really my major interest (I view it more as a stream of data than as a pool). But at least the Mastodon Social Signal Search lets you filter your results by a minimum number of replies/reposts/favorites. What's important, though, is that people can write their own  applications to do things like this with no fear that they will suddenly lost access to a proprietary service.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Reuse & Remix
Open Culture, 2023/08/21

---

The British Library announces, " We have released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft who then generously gifted the scanned images to us, allowing us to release them back into the Public Domain." View the entire collection here or a set of highlights here. My main concern would be whether the library has released images of stolen cultural artifacts (its history may be akin to the British Museum), though I couldn't definitively find any (indeed, a large part (most?) of the collection seems to be made up of maps).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

My Assessments Next Semester - Modified for Avoiding & Embracing AI
Maha Bali, Reflecting Allowed, 2023/08/21

---

Maha Bali offers six suggestions for ways to adapt courses and assessments to the new reality of large learning models, including "having a lot of the written work be about reflecting on an actual real-life authentic experience students had" and "hav(ing) some form of oral discussion around important work students have written." It's important not to lose all other considerations while adapting to AI, though. I wouldn't want my work (and especially my assessed work) to delve too deeply into my own personal experiences; I like to keep a separation between my private life and my education. And for many students the requirement to have an 'oral discussion' can be challenging if they're uncomfortable in non-formal group settings. Forcing learning into certain specific modes in order to address AI may risk reversing some of the gains made in access and equity.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Mastodon Status Check
Tim Bray, Ongoing, 2023/08/21

---

Tim Bray looks at the current status of Mastodon and the fediverse, including where the tech stands on server migration (followers: yes; posts: no) and "the most important issue" of curation and moderation. "Mastodon's trust-and-safety story is imperfect, but it's not terrible. The fact that there are thousands of instances, each of them does their own moderation, and each spots problem people coming in from problem instances, is in aggregate very powerful. Also, Mastodon has a nuclear weapon: Defederation."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

AI From an Open Perspective
Paul Stacey, paulstacey.global, 2023/08/21

---

Good long discussion of AI and open content, the most impirtant aspoect of which is the outline of the Responsible AI Licenses (RAIL) initiative. "The basic premise is that open is not synonymous with good," writes Paul Stacey. "Open may lower the barriers to harmful uses. In order to mitigate harm, including safety and security concerns, open licenses need to evolve from simply being 'open' to being 'open' and 'responsible'." See also The Growth Of Responsible AI Licensing. Stacey also writes that "the underlying data set is just one consideration... with the aim of getting a handle on what the layers of AI architecture are and which layers are, or could be, open. This generative AI tech stack diagram (illustrated) by a16z provides a good starting point." He follows up with a good discussion of openness and AI models. Stacey also covers such topics as open AI applications, application programming interfaces (API), learning and ethics.

 

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