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

College Uncovered: DEI Backlash
Kirk Carapezza, The Hechinger Report, 2024/10/10

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My views here: 'Neutrality' isn't treating everyone 'the same'. Rather, neutrality should reflect the idea that, within some margin of error, a fair system of social supports (such as education) should reflect the demographics of the wider population, for any given set of demographics. For any such system, deviation from the demographics of the wider population beyond a statistical norm is evidence of systematic discrimination, intentional or otherwise, and therefore identifies a systemic flaw that requires redress. A range of options for redress is available, and social support agencies should identify viable options based on evidence and apply them with the intent to restore the demographic balance. Predetermination that some options are unacceptable, or opposition to such a program, is to my mind tantamount to arguing that the social support system should favour or discriminate against certain demographic groups, which harms the experience for all members of society, and undermines the concept of a just society, and any backlash should be treated as such.

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Data can help predict where students are struggling with wellbeing
David Kernohan, WonkHe, 2024/10/10

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This kind of an odd article about the use of student data to predict well-being and prompt student support interventions. I look at this thinking about the use of 'massive' amounts of data (far more than the 800 data points mentioned here) to predict something as hand-wavy as 'well-being'. But hey, "The project successfully proved that it is possible to predict a student’s wellbeing with significant accuracy to add operational value to student support models of intervention." So, I don't actually believe that, but it doesn't matter, because David Kernohan says "Accuracy – in many ways – isn’t the point" and then insists "Wellbeing analytics are not the answer to student mental health support." One would think that if they were accurate they would be important. Anyhow, all of that is moot - it should hardly be up to the university to make itself responsible for a person's well-being (whatever that is). There should be a range of services and programs available to the general population, not just those able to afford tuition. (Also: I think well-being should have a hyphen).

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Learning theorist gets Nobel Prize….
Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, 2024/10/10

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I like the use of the term 'learning theorist' by Donald Clark here as it draws implicitly a sharp distinction between what people working in Education (properly so-called) call 'learning theories' with what those who design systems that learn call 'learning theories'. I think the main observation I would draw is that the theory we are offered in Education is so hopelessly vague it could never be used in any concrete sense. What is 'making meaning', for example? Nobody really knows. Clark also points out that there are numerous approaches at play in AI - it's not all pure neural networks and not all large language models. The Prize won by Demis Hassabis and colleagues for protein folding algorithms recognizes that.

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Large Language Models (LLMs): Mistaking Engineering Achievements for Human Linguistic Competence
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 2024/10/10

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I think this article is really wrong, but wrong in some interesting ways. The main point warns of “mistaking the impressive engineering achievements of LLMs for the mastering of human language, language understanding, and linguistic acts." The argument is that "the linguistic capabilities of LLMs... (is based on) a computational theory of mind, which views the human mind as an information processing systems. By contrast, Abeba Birhane and Marek McGann propose an enactive view of cognition based on embodiment, participation and precariousness, which on this account are non-computational. I don't know anyone who would argue large language models (LLM) are either language-complete or data-complete, and so they're not 'computational' in the way being describe here (which would imply the linguistic representation is composed of (say) a Turing-complete rule set). The dispositional analysis I offer elsewhere today is, for example, a counter-example.

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AI could save teachers in Liverpool 'hours' of marking time
Nick Garnett, Jonny Humphries, BBC, 2024/10/10

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When I taught college and university classes, I would measure the amount of marking I had to do by the vertical foot. As in "I have a two-foot pile of papers to mark this weekend." Anything that would save me time would have been of interest to me. Sadly, this article is talking in terms of 'times tables' and 'science', and so not really looking at anything more than basic factual recall (sigh - the gold standard of the instructionist). But maybe one day I'll be able to look at an analysis of a 30 page essay rather than read through the pages of turgid prose. Or maybe that's just the wrong way to think of it.

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11 predictions concerning technology in education revisited and updated — ICT & Computing in Education
Terry Freedman, ICT & Computing in Education, 2024/10/10

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Terry Freedman revisits a list of predictions he made in 2001 about the classroom of the future. It turns out to me mostly, if conservatively, correct. I have to say, though, some of the predictions were pretty vague ("Students will complete online lessons and assessments") and some just didn't come to pass ("Schools will buy their lessons in a pick-n-mix style from online content providers" - hard to do that when there's only one content provider). He also predicted that "'pundits' who plug only one vision of the future will be proved wrong" but even if they are wrong, I'd rather see an opinionated vision of the future rather than one that fudges between various 'scenarios' (each of which is no more accurate than the single vision).

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A Dispositionalist Approach to Desire and Valuing
Eric Schwitzgebel, The Splintered Mind, 2024/10/10

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I'm more or less generally supportive of the argument in this article, which is worth reading in full rather than depending on my summary. The argument is that things like beliefs and desires are dispositions - not the narrowly defined behavioural dispositions of, say, Gilbert Ryle, but 'liberal' dispositions, which the author classes as behavioural, phenomenal, and cognitive. I don't think we really need this categorization - I'm thinking some account of causal dispositions - for example, a neural network (say) would respond in a characteristic way given the right sort of input or activation state. This neural response comes with all the attributes of a desire or belief - a certain phenomenal feel, an inclination to behave in certain ways, a tendency to have certain thoughts or internal experiences. As Eric Schwitzgebel says, "Once your dispositional profile is fully characterized, that's the end of the story as far as the existence or non-existence of desire is concerned." Related: Dispositional learning analytics and formative assessment: an inseparable twinship.

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Fighting for our web
Molly White, Citation Needed, 2024/10/10

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Molly White (who authors the Web3 is Going Just Great blog) argues for the web we want. "The tech industry, even with its billions of dollars, is not an indomitable force. Though they can and will ignore what people want from them, they cannot control what those people think. And the tide can turn against them. And it doesn’t always take a job at The New York Times or a huge pre-established platform to become one of the voices speaking up, helping to turn that tide. Sometimes you just have to make something cool. " The coda here is that if enough of us make enough things, one of them will eventually prove to be cool. That's what I'm trying to do these days. No success yet, but it doesn't have to be me that makes the cool thing. Just someone, the way Eugen Rochko made Mastodon.

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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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