OLDaily

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

Join the MediaSmarts Teen Fact-Checking Network!
MediaSmarts, 2024/01/08

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Canada's MediaSmarts (once known as Media Awareness Network, many years ago) is launching a program called the Teen Fact-Checking Network and is recruiting participants right now. "Teen Fact-Checkers will pitch potentially false or misleading stories or images they come across on social media, as well as stories that look "too good to be true" but really are true. Once the pitch is approved, they'll research and write a script, gather production elements, and record and edit at least one fact-checking video that will appear on MediaSmarts' social media channels." I like this is many ways, obviously.

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Consistency analysis of assessment boards in University Entrance Examinations in Spain
Alejandro Veas, José Antonio López-Pina, EdArXiv, 2024/01/08

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I fear these results are not unique to Spain: "Results showed large inconsistencies in the rating process with differences in severity levels of many subjects both within and between universities. Moreover, extreme differences were detected among subjects associated with health or biological sciences (Chemistry, Physics) as well as those related to the Humanities and Social Sciences (Latin or History of Spain)." Why does this matter? Studies have already shown greater consistency of results when an AI does the grading. How long before we decide that allowing humans to grade exams is manifestly unfair?

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How might the Ackman plagiarism campaign play out?
Bryan Alexander, 2024/01/08

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Bryan Alexander comments on the AI-detected plagiarism scandal curently playing out in U.S. universities after hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackerman found evidence leading to the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay. There are the obvious political overtones, but it's worth wondering what such an effort would reveal if pursued to its logical conclusion. "If every faculty member is held to the current plagiarism standards of their own institutions, and universities enforce their own rules, they would likely have to terminate the substantial majority of their faculty members," Ackerman commented. I wonder how true this is. I wonder how true it is of elite university graduates generally. Image: Axios.

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Researchers Create First Functional Semiconductor Made From Graphene
Georgia Tech, 2024/01/08

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I saw this reported on the news this morning. "A team of researchers based in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tianjin, China... produce a graphene semiconductor that is compatible with conventional microelectronics processing methods — a necessity for any viable alternative to silicon." Though it is still a very long time before we see anything like this commercially, the material runs both faster and cooler than traditional silicon. Graphene is a form of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure. I can't resist referring back to this graphic where I predict a future based on carbon, carbon and carbon.

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ActivityPub Over ATProto
Robin Berjon, 2024/01/08

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This item was spotted by Boris Mann and is essentially a "design provocation" suggesting how we could run ActivityPub (the protocol fediverse systems like Mastodon use to connect to each other) over the AT Proto architecture (the protocol fediverse systems like Bluesky use to connect to each other). So long as both protocols remain open there's no reason why this wouldn't work, though it's not straightforward: "Both the Activity* standards and ATProto break this siloing in different ways. Activity* are built around URLs ... the expectation tends to be that either you run your own server (which isn't for everyone) or you have to join a federated server.... ATProto, on its side, provides a good initial foundation for an extensible PDS designed around user agency and credible exit." But, as Mann says, "both protocols are great in their own way.

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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