OLDaily

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

Meet Nightshade, a new tool empowering artists to fight back against AI
Jon Keegan, Nieman Lab, 2023/11/13

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Presumably, the intention here is to help artists prevent their work from being used by an AI. "Nightshade allows anyone to invisibly alter the pixels of an image to 'poison' the image." I think maybe this will work in the short term, but not the long term. The idea is to "give some incentives to both companies and artists just to work together on this thing, right? Rather than just a company taking everything from artists because they can." I still don't think of an AI's use of an artist's work as plagiarism or theft, because I see the use as transformative, which is allowed under copyright law. I do appreciate that (some) artists' livelihoods are being disrupted, but that speaks to me of the need to ensure we have a good social safety net, not of the need to stop something in its tracks.

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Bootcamps
Fortune, 2023/11/13

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Here's Matthrew Tower on Fortune Magazine's Bootcamp rankings: "I am, generally, not a huge fan of rankings. Beyond broad segmentation (like selective vs. non-selective) they usually devolve into subjective arguments and reek of pay-to-play. But I highlight this here because it's the first time I've seen bootcamp rankings from a generalist media company." Can't help but agree with him. P.S. I've been enjoying Tower's newsletter for a few months now; he's focused more on the business of edtech than I am but I regularly find good reads.

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Some reflections on the future of open and distance education following ICDE conference
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2023/11/13

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I'm just going to quote Tony Bates with my full agreement. "Digital learning is not only a goal in itself but more importantly a necessity... However, we need to act with an understanding that this alone will not be enough. The biggest problem we face after climate change is the increasing divide between the very rich and the rest of us. Tinkering with access, digital learning, and re-design of teaching and institutions will not of itself address this great divide. Digital learning needs to go hand-in-hand with political and economic change if we are to avoid becoming slaves to the mega-rich."

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Unravelling the media trust crisis: How sensationalism and lack of education erode our faith in news
Jack Myers, Media Makers Meet | What's new in media, 2023/11/13

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What we have in this explanation of the media crisis is a perfect storm of failures in education and in news. According to this item, "43% of Americans have lost trust in all news sources." Why? Meyers points to profit-driven news media, the 24/7 news grind, and shrinking newsrooms. But also, he points to the lack of media literacy and critical thinking in education. He writes, "online learning and media literacy programs can wield a significant influence in addressing these challenges." But these would need to actually be publicly supported, and governments seem reluctant to do that. In this context, I cannot recommend enough Canada's Media Smarts, a cracking good media literacy program that used to be government funded but now relies on charitable status.

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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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