OLDaily

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

Speculative futures for higher education
Sian Bayne, Jen Ross, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 2024/06/17

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I'm not generally a fan of scenario-building as a method of futurism (my feeling is, if you're going to predict, do that, instead of watering it down with a list of possibilities). This paper though offers interesting reading not only through discussion of the possibilities but also in some (overly contrived) 'micro-fictions'. In the end, the authors write, "Speculative methods offer a space in which it is possible to discuss hope, but such hope needs to be active, strenuous and able to maintain itself in the face of the radical unknowability of our futures... In the context of such cultural devastation and historical rupture, the issue of hope becomes, for Lear, 'critical for an ethical inquiry into life at the horizons of one's understanding'. This maintenance of hope in the context of an unknowable future is what Lear calls 'radical hope', a 'daunting form of commitment: to a goodness in the world that transcends one's current ability to grasp what it is'."

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Neurodiversity and UX: Essential Resources for Cognitive Accessibility
Stéphanie Walter, 2024/06/17

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This is some discussion and a set of "resources to design for neurodiversity and cognitive disabilities (dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, and autism) from WCAG guidelines to real-world expertise and practical tips." It's good stuff. But I can't help myself - can we draw a line between neurodiversity and learning styles? If you say learning styles don't exist, are you also saying neurodiversity doesn 't exist? But - manifestly, neurodiversity does exist. So what's the advice from learning styles sceptics - just ignore it then? So many writers take is as done and proven that 'there are no learning styles', but I honestly don't know what that means in practice (except maybe don't use Myers-Briggs tests any more).

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The Worst Website In The Entire World
Mathew Duggan, 2024/06/17

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There's more than a little foul language in this post, but from what I can see it's certainly deserved. After a few preliminaries (and for the record, I would wear that t-shirt), Mat Duggan gets down to the business of downloading VMware from Broadcom. Good thing he had a lot of time. "Honestly Broadcom, I don't even know why you bothered buying VMware. It's impossible for anyone to ever get this product from you. Instead of migrating from the VMware store to this disaster, maybe just shut this down entirely. Destroy the backups of this dumpster fire and start fresh. Maybe just consider a Shopify site." The very existence of this post should be an object lesson for anyone designing online services.

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How Learning Designers Are Using AI for Analysis
Philippa Hardman, 2024/06/17

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This post overviews how AI supports learning design as defined by three major task areas:

1. Understanding the why: what is the problem this learning experience solves? What's the change we want to see as a result?
2. Defining the who: who do we need to target in order to solve the problem and achieve the intended goal?
3. Clarifying the what: given who our learners are and the goal we want to achieve, what concepts and skills do we need to teach?

Each item is discussed in some detail and relevant tools and tasks are identified. Not a bad ppost.

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AI Plagiarism Considerations Part 1: AI Plagiarism Dectectors
Lance Eaton, AI + Education = Simplified, 2024/06/17

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Lance Eaton starts a three-part series on plagiarism detectors by setting up the background: "to say we have proof isn't accurate.  We have probability and unfortunately, we have probability that is impossible for the student to disprove since we don't get to actually look under the hood of the AI detector." So while "none of this means we shouldn't pursue what might be an anomaly in a student's work" it means "we have to do it by being in conversation with the student. Ideally, the conversation should be more discovery and observation of facts." Good post; I look forward to the rest of the series. Via Bryan Alexander.

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Sharing Openly About ShareOpenly
CogDogBlog, 2024/06/17

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Alan Levine blogs about and describes Ben Werdmuller's tool called ShareOpenly. I wrote about it here. Basically, the idea was to create an easy 'share' button to share your link on Mastodon and other Fediverse sites. I have also been using ShareOpenly on my OLDaily newsletter - just look for the 'Share' link at the bottom of each post.

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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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