OLDaily

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

Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Non-Formal Education System (BANFES)
Zahra Nazari, Abdul Razaq Vahidi, Petr Musilek, MDPI, 2024/08/12

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This (36 page PDF) is one of those papers that describes in enormous technical detail a proposed solution to what appears to be an intractable social problem. Specifically, the authors describe "educational solution specifically designed for Afghan girls deprived of formal schooling." To be honest, I'm not sure how much of this paper would be original content and how much of it AI-assisted writing. It just seems to move from topic to topic without a unifying thread - but this might just as easily be an artifact of the way the three authors put it together. It promises that "to implement this project, a semi-centralized system will initially be designed and launched with ten schools (from grades 6 to 12) and three universities." I would love to see Afghan girls provided all the educational support possible. But I really wonder whether this is the right approach - it just feels like too much technology, not enough learning.

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Inrupt launches Data Wallet for the next phase of the web
Inrupt, 2024/08/12

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Inrupt - the commercial wing of Tim Berners-Lee's Solid project - has been dithering its way to irrelevance as the social media network recoconfigures itself around it. But late last month while I was away it announced a multi-purpose Data Wallet to host credentials and other essential information. Data wallets already exist - you may, for example, has a Google Wallet - but as the website says, "until now, digital wallets have been siloed "point solutions," requiring different wallets for different purposes." This would be a really useful thing. OK, so do you want one? Weeeell... you'll have to ask for a demo. *facepalm*

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What We Never Say Out Loud In Higher Education
Nicholas Ladany, Forbes, 2024/08/12

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This article is not wrong - "the origins of higher education... set the stage for the traditional college or university experience to be centered around the faculty and their role in the advancement of knowledge." And as Tony Bates has often observed, "higher education instructors lack formal preparation in teaching methods and curriculum design, yet 'own' the curriculum within most institutions, deciding what to teach in class and how." Obviously, this approach fails to serve the needs of students. But all this is also intolerable if you want education to serve the needs of industry, which is the probably (if unstated) point of the author. This shows up as my "1 of 5 free articles" so you might face a paywall on this, but I think it's relevant to see the article to see what talking points are being promoted. Via George Station.

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Academic authors 'shocked' after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI
Matilda Battersby, The Bookseller, 2024/08/12

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I'm shocked! Shocked! that academic publishers would sell access to their publications for use by AI companies. Who could have predicted they would try to make even more money on content to which they have been selling people access for years, even requiring that authors sign over ownership so they can make use of it however they want? More seriously: People working for open access shave faced decades of academic publishers being nontransparent while turning academic work into data assets. People who were indifferent to the need for open access have only themselves to blame for the sale of their work by academic publishers to AI companies. Via Ben Williamson. See also Authors Alliance.

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Let’s Make A Simpler, More Accessible Web | CSS-Tricks
Geoff Graham, CSS-Tricks, 2024/08/12

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Geoff Graham observes that web development has become a lot more complicates these days (I concur) and that there is a good argument for returning to someing mnore universal and basic. As Molly White argues, "none of this is gone. Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it's become a lot easier. We can return. Better, yet: we can restore the things we loved about the old web while incorporating the wonderful things that have emerged since." I can't deny this, but so many of the really useful tools we had - email, discussion boards, comments - have been destroyed by bad actors. A lot of the modern web exists to make the web more resilient. Other things - paywalls, tracking, social media silos - were developed to commodify and commercialize the web, and these aren't going away. . Even CSS-Tricks - the website where this article is posted - runs how-to articles that lure people into the hosting trap that is Vercel (same on other platforms with sites like WP-Beginners).

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Two-way federation of comments in WordPress with ActivityPub 2.0 - Blogpocket Social
Antonio Cambronero, Blogpocket Social, 2024/08/12

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I still haven't really had success with ActivityPub on WordPress, but in theory you can follow my WP political blog at downes@leftish.media (don't follow if you don't want to read my political views). According to this article, "Version 2.0.0 of the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress is now available, and its main feature is two-way/chained comment federation." Via Mark Corbett Wilson.

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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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