OLDaily

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

Let's reproduce GPT-2 (124M)
Andrej Karpathy, YouTube, 2024/06/19

---

I am not likely to ever find the time to work though this exercise - it's a four-hour video demonstrating every step involved to reproduce GPT-2. "We reproduce the GPT-2 (124M) from scratch," writes Andrej Karpathy. "This video covers the whole process: First we build the GPT-2 network, then we optimize its training to be really fast, then we set up the training run following the GPT-2 and GPT-3 paper and their hyperparameters, then we hit run, and come back the next morning to see our results, and enjoy some amusing model generations." What I really appreciate about this that it exists. As one commenter says, "Andrej is doing himself what OpenAi was supposed to do in the early days — make AI open." Expand the description for a full table of contents.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

UstadMobile
Mike Dawsom, 2024/06/19

---

This application came up in discussion today. I haven't tried it so am relying on description. It's being used in challenging regions where access is limited (or even illegal). "Educators and administrators can easily add, edit and remove content in courses and the library. Content is automatically compressed up to 80% (videos are automatically compressed 60-70% smaller than a standard MP4 (h264) without reducing quality using AV1). Experience API, H5P, Epub, Video, and PDF content is supported. Content can be downloaded and used offline. "

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

1EdTech
1EdTech, 2024/06/19

---

I don't know whether I've mentioned 1EdTech in these pages before but they should certainly be noted as existing. It represents itself as a "community of leaders across K-12, higher education, and edtech suppliers is committed to building an open, trusted, and innovative digital learning ecosystem at every level." They work across six workstreams, which support four strategic imperatives. , including trusted credentials, application vetting, integrated analytics, and related topics. Here's their blog (based on Drupal so there's no feed or newsletter or anything).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Open EdTech
Open EdTech, 2024/06/19

---

Open EdTech has revised its mission and redefined its website. Rather than develop open ed tech products, it will now focus on defining open ed tech, supporting a membership around the concept, and certifying openm ed tech products. Two products are (not surprisingly currently certified): Moodle, and Big Blue Button. Certification is based on five major criteria: open source development, sustainable stable core team, listening to educators, support for community developers, and support for open ed tech standards. It also has merch. I admit I'm disappointed it has stepped back from the idea of developing something like a personal learning environment. I know it's a hard thing to do. I'd be disappointed if Apple or Microsoft were the only ones willing to do it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Widely used calcium imaging protocol can lead to spurious results, new paper cautions
Angie Voyles Askham, The Transmitter, 2024/06/19

---

This article is a good sample of the work that goes on studying the brain at the biological level. It's a cautionary note, reporting that the use of calcium imaging can produce misleading results. "Some researchers even have a name for the artifacts... We and others have been talking for 15 years about cells getting 'GCaMPed out.'" The article is important because negative findings like this tend to get less press, and when they're not widely distributed, lead to people rediscovering the same problem over and over. It's also a caution against immediately leaping from evidence of physical activity to evidence of neural activity. A lot of stuff happens in the brain.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed