OLDaily

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

Biking to Rimouski
Stephen Downes, Reddit, 2024/08/09

---

I've just returned from a 16-day 900 km tour from my home in eastern Ontario to the city of Rimouski, Quebec, via places like Montreal, Granby, Sherbrooke, Levis (south shore of Quebec City) and Riviere du Loup. Most days I camped, though I stayed in hotels every few days in order to recharge my electronics. Here is a link to the video playlist. This link is to a Reddit post where you can ask questions or comment.

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

How Close is AI to Replacing Instructional Designers?
Philippa Hardman, 2024/08/09

---

This is the third part of the series and reaches the same conclusion as the previous two: AI working with an expert produce the best result, AI with a novice the second best, and a human working without AI the worst. There's some pretty good analysis of how and why the AI+Expert combination works best, including the surprising conclusion that "respondents consistently associated what they valued most with expert human input, even when these elements were actually AI-generated." So far, reports Philippa Hardman, "AI is most powerful when used as a tool for augmentation, not automation." But I wonder whether it's only a matter of time before AI is superior at both.

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

Social Robots, Mindfulness, and Kindergarten
Panagiota Anagnostopoulou, International Journal of Online and Biomedical Engineering, 2024/08/09

---

The title of this article (15 page PDF) is pretty much irresistible to someone like me. Here's the gist: "the use of robots and human-robot interactions can enhance self-development, well-being, and mindfulness. Robots have the capacity to capture attention and motivate young children, specifically." I can anticipate two threads of opposition: one, that it is unethical to use robots to foster mindfulness in children, and two, that such a program will fail in some important way. But what if it works? Imagine we could use robots to foster mindfulness in children, making sure that this is an opportunity every child is afforded, and not just those with caring and attentive parents. True, the author writes "it's important to note that there is no evidence that robot coaches lead to better results than human coaches, and the existing studies have largely focused on older children and adults." This is very preliminary work. But it's important to look forward.

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

Anthology Together 24 Conference Notes
On EdTech by PH&A, On EdTech Newsletter, 2024/08/09

---

This article is pretty good so far as it goes, but be aware that after a few pages you'll be hit with a dead stop, a link to a commercial service, and a come-on for subscription payment. Phil Hill makes two major points here. First, he notes that Anthology (the current owners of Blackboard) is streamlining and focusing much more directly on competing with Desire2Learn  and Instructure. Second, he writes that the company has gone all-in on artificial intelligence, but that since AI is expensive, this creates sustainability issues. This is where (with reference to a paywalled Moody report) the article asks you to subscribe. But you don't need to. It would take a miracle, I think, to earn back the $1.3 billion borrowed to buy the company. Anthology has to be betting on some windfall profits.

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

Predistribution over Redistribution - The Collective Intelligence Project
Saffron Huang, Sam Manning, The Collective Intelligence Project, 2024/08/09

---

I have argued in the past that the benefit of technologies like AI quite properly belong to everyone because they are the product of a culture as a whole, and not narrowly defined enterprises within that culture. For example, the vast resources we spend on education and literacy are what make AI possible in the first place. This idea is explored in this article. "While economic redistribution might be essential to ensure widespread prosperity in a world with advanced AI systems, we argue that focusing on predistribution — proactively ensuring widespread opportunity to benefit from AI — can reduce the likelihood that AI exacerbates inequality in the first place." They get at this via the concept of the Windfall Clause whereby if an AI company finds itself reaping an unexpected benefit, it has an obligation to share this benefit with society. I think they're on the right track here.

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

Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, 2024/08/09

---

This new resource has the right sort of pedigree (Stanford and Oxford) to get instant authority, though to my own reading it's a bit idiosyncratic and narrowly focused. Take the article on Theory of Mind, for example, which makes no real attempt to place the concept into a wider concept and instead immediately defines it in folk psychological terms: "how mental states like beliefs, desires, and intentions shape our own and others' actions." It runs the gamut of concepts from autism to virtual reality to eugenics.

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

Friend: Can an AI Device Combat loneliness?
Michael Spencer, AI Supremacy, 2024/08/09

---

This is a pretty detailed article about a product called Friend that you take with you everywhere and that interacts with you as, well, your friend. Now I can imagine the response along the lines of 'AI could never replace true friendship'. Maybe so. But a lot of people don't have friends. Could this help them? And what if the product is just good enough to become popular? What would we say then? Sure, I have my doubts, and I would be really hesitant to jump on the bandwagon for any particular product. But I would also be very reluctant to rule out the possibility that something like this could be successful.

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