OLDaily

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

Online course provider 2U questions future amid massive debt
Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed, 2024/02/19

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According to this article, online services provider 2U "has warned of 'substantial doubt' it can continue in business, creating uncertainty for the hundreds of colleges and universities that use its services. The warning, in a quarterly filing on Monday, added more tumult to the already-uncertain landscape for online program management firms (OPM)." As Phil Hill comments, the company's debts were impossible to sustain. "It's simple math—it's way too much debt," he said. "The math is so obvious now, they have to disclose to investors what's going on."

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Exploring New Horizons: Teacher Professional Development in the Age of AI
Mutlu Cukurova, Lidija Kralj, et al., European Schoolnet, 2024/02/19

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This report (35 page PDF) "explores how professional development for teachers needs to change in the age of AI. From fostering an understanding of AI applications in education to equipping teachers with the requisite skills to leverage these technologies." The first part, addressing how to prepare teachers for the challenges of AI, summarizes a number of recent documents on the subject (for example, the recent EU policy). The second part is more original and describes how AI can be used in teacher training. Finally three examples (Spain, Croatia, Malta) of are offered in the third part. There are links to recording from three associated webinars.

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A Bilingual Educator’s Critique of the Science of Reading (SoR) Movement, by Jill Kerper Mora, Ph.D.
Jill Kerper Mora, Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas, 2024/02/19

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The intent of this article is to critique the Science of Reading (SoR) Movement, showing it "seeks to politicize rather than professionalize the teaching of reading and writing in the public schools." A good example is the practice of 'cueing' - "prompting students to draw on context and sentence structure, along with letters, to identify words" - now banned in three states by SoR advocates. They want students to use phonics alone (which, in the face of words like 'bow' and 'read', is ridiculous). Additionally, "The purpose of this analysis is to empower teachers to combat the abuse of the term 'science' and to respond with knowledge and expertise to false claims and misrepresented research from the SoR Movement." Good article, quite long, but well-referenced and (for those willing to take the time) an effective rebuttal of SoR.

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Universities should never be neutral on the social issues of the day | Wonkhe
Jonathan Grant, WonkHe, 2024/02/19

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The lede is buried in the last paragraph of this article: "to suggest that the institution of a university does not have a right to take a position on them is historically flawed, intellectually inconsistent and fails to value the inherently progressive nature of universities. Universities have never been, are not and should never be neutral on the social issues of the day." One might argue that once they agreed to accept external funding universities gave up their right to take positions on things like social justice. But the constitution of universities, as argued in this article, as creations by students and societies for students and societies to support and enrich their ambitions argues exactly against that. If governments cannot fund things specifically designed to make society better, it cannot fund anything.

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My McLuhan lecture on enshittification (30 Jan 2024)
Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic, 2024/02/19

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This his Cory Doctorow at his absolute best, a definitive statement describing enshittification and suggestions on how to counter it. I'll summarize, but you really need to read the whole thing. Take your time. It's really clearly written. Alternatively, you can watch the video. Or listen to the audio version I created.

Enshittification, writes Doctorow, is "a three stage process: First, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die." There's a really good example in Facebook. The mechanisms enabling it and the routes to stopping it are the same:

1. Competition. Ending competition and creating monopolists is what enables it. Restoring proper competition is what pushes back against it.
2. Regulation. The push to deregulation allows companies to flout laws intended to prevent the sorts of harms to indioviduals and societys caused by enshittification.
3. Self-Help. Having the ability (and making it legal) for people to create their own responses to enshittification is essential. Example: ad blockers.
4. Labour. People want to work for good (as in: "don't be evil" and "connect the world") and they need to be able to resist when forced to do the wrong thing instead.

Why is this important? If you read through the 23 year history of this newsletter, I have been arguing for these things every day since day one. Because Doctorow is exactly right. The abuse of people, product, society and law in the name of profit is not only wrecking the internet, it's wrecking the world. As Doctorow notes, the same forces are at work in other domains: energy and environment, health care, food production and agriculture, security and policing. We can save the world. And it starts with these four principles.

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Paying people to work on open source is good actually - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
Jacob Kaplan-Moss, 2024/02/19

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The same sort of argument could be made with respect to the creation of open content and open educational resources. Almost nobody makes a living producing these. Yet they are of significant value to society. So - goes the argument - any mechanism that can be found to pay people to produce open resources is a good thing. "Yes, all of the mechanisms are flawed in some way, but that's because the world is flawed, and it's not the fault of the people taking money. Yelling at maintainers who've found a way to make a living is wrong." I am mostly in support of this argument (after all, I ask, what would I  do to make a living if I didn't have a good job?). It's a good article and worth reading in its entirely. Via Ben Werdmuller.

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Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline's chatbot
Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica, 2024/02/19

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OK, this is pretty funny, but it also shows why you need to read the article, not just the headline. The policy actually exists; the chatbot simply found a way through the menu tree as a shortcut for the person, and in so doing enabled the person to request the refund after the flight, instead of before, as Air Canada originally intended. Air Canada's argument (clearly stated in the article) is that "Air Canada argues it cannot be held liable for information provided by one of its agents, servants, or representatives—including a chatbot." This is a denial of responsibility on a broad scale, having nothing in particular to do with an AI. Broadly overstating the case against AI does nothing for the case against AI, though the case does stand as a warning for organizations intending to communicate policies and procedures to the public.

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Elicit
Elicit, 2024/02/19

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People now have the choice between relying on AI or relying on someone like me to read and summarize papers. Here's an example of the AI. Meanwhile, you can see what I do by looking at @oldaily - What I offer that the AI currently doesn't offer is context, critique and commentary, along with my own personal history working with the stuff. Also my stuff seems to be a lot more current.

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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