OLDaily

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

We're Back!
2024/03/25

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Did you miss OLDaily? We were gone last week after a server migration went south. Now we're on a brand new cloud platform and cleaning up the dust. Some things still might not work, but we're back and in action again.

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Edtech history, erasure, udacity, and blockchain
George Veletsianos, 2024/03/25

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I not only read the articles I post here but I also verify the claims they make, when I can. So here we have this: "The Wired story where Sebastian Thrun claimed that his startup would be one of ten universities left in the world? It's gone." Now I can't verify whether Audrey Watters ever wrote this, because a Google search doesn't turn it up (I did find this item from last week, but the claim is not made in it). Just as well. The Wired story is right where they left it (albeit behind a paywall). If you want the full unblocked version, it's on Internet Archive. George Veletsianos uses this 'fact' to set up a criticism of claims about blockchain and technology. That's fair enough, but it's not true that the Woolf University White Paper has vanished. Read it here and judge for yourself how far-fetched it was.

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Ontology.
Stephen Dodson, Languagehat, 2024/03/25

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I completely missed the rise of Object-Oriented Ontology as it swept across the globe 7 years ago but I confess I find it appealing. "Ask yourself: what does your toaster want? How about your dog? Or the bacteria in your gut? What about the pixels on the screen you're reading off now—how is their day going? In other words, do things, animals, and other non-human entities experience their existence in a way that lies outside our own species-centric definition of consciousness?" It's a throwback to Aristotelian metaphysics in a world where it's not unreasonable to think that objects might have feelings. And it captures that sense of loss and dread that I feel when it comes time to part with a favourite spoon (as I had to the other day). Will the spoon feel abandoned? What will happen to it now?

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The university after securonomics | Wonkhe
David Kernohan, WonkHe, 2024/03/25

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Today's new word is 'securonomics', and though it is brand new, it is already being transformed in meaning and intent. Here's my favourite version: "recognising that the security and prosperity of working people is integral to the strength, dynamism and legitimacy of a market economy". See also Rachel Reeves, or IPPR. But it can be recast, as it is here, as meaning "a refocusing on the nation state as a unit of analysis." Quite a difference! But the point of both is to "think of the higher education system as infrastructure" in the sense that it's "just there". But 'just there' for whom? If we get back to the idea of security for working people, then university should be 'just there' for working people. But more and more, the opposite is the case, and recasting 'securonomics' as 'security for the university' isn't really helping. But oh... clever.

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Inclusive and assistive technologies: a life-changer for learners with disabilities
World Education Blog, 2024/03/25

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This article links to a UNESCO document on learners with disabilities and technology looking at "the progress that has been achieved in making education truly inclusive in the last decades and the challenges that remain ahead." While it's true that technology isn't a "magic bullet" and that "not all technologies are applicable for students with the same type of disability," it is nonetheless the case that inclusive technologies have helped a lot over the last 30 years.

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AI-Powered Learning Design: Mapping the Jagged Frontier
Philippa Hardman, Dr Phil's Newsletter, 2024/03/25

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Philippa Hardman links to and summarizes a report from Fabrizio Dell'Acqua and others at Harvard Business School exploring "the impact of AI on the speed and quality of everyday work tasks." The 'jagged frontier' in this case is the boundary between what sits within the AI's capabilities and what is beyond them. Not surprisingly, the report suggests we should use AI for the former, but not the latter. The trick, though, is in knowling what lies inside and outside that frontier. Hardman offers a few reasonable suggestions, though it should be noted that there will be exceptions in any of these, and that the line is very much a moving target.

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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