OLDaily

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

The Free Web - The History of the Web
Jay Hoffmann, The History of the Web, 2024/11/27

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The message in this post is simple: "There is something you can do to help the open web. Put yourself on it." And it's an especially relevant message given that some long-time education and edtech people have recently been posting in more closed places like Google Docs and LinkedIn instead of on their own blogs available on the open web. "So put something on the open web, free from the major platforms competing for our attention. And then, after that comes the real trick. Don't ask for anything back. Let it be free. Libre and gratis. Help bring the web back." P.S. Jay Hoffmann's history of the web isn't my history of the web. My history is told in my archives and articles. But what we have in common is a deep affection for this place, the open web. Via Alan Levine.

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Octopus.ac integrates with UK government database to enhance collaboration between policy and academia
JISC, 2024/11/27

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I've been watching the Octopus project from a distance (here and here) for a while now. It's an unusual approach to open research that disaggregates the research process and pools each step into a common data repository. This latest development is a little surprising and yet also smart in some ways. By integrating with with the Areas of Research Interest (ARI) database and "presenting the ARIs as research problems," researchers can "formulate ideas and theories directly linked to government priorities."

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Five Ways AI Will Help Personalize Learning Experiences and Make Education More Adaptive and Responsive to Individual Learner Needs
Contact North, Teach Online, 2024/11/27

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From the introduction: "This article isn't about the problems AI produces or the issues we face when it goes wrong. Numerous accounts of the weaknesses and risks of today's AI systems can be found elsewhere. This article focuses on what will be developed when AI works, and how these developments will influence learning and development. While leaving room for the AI sceptics — sure, it might all fail — we argue that there is enough evidence already to suggest its influence will be far broader and transformative than most people expect. AI will change how we learn, what we learn and why we learn." 

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Introducing the Model Context Protocol
Anthropic, 2024/11/27

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According to Anthropid, "Today, we're open-sourcing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives, including content repositories, business tools, and development environments." This, according to Reuven Cohen, "is probably the new paradigm we'll see over the next several months as interoperability becomes critical across AI tools and systems." Right now, "everything is siloed". This changes that. "It's clean, reliable, and just works. No more duct-taped data pipelines."

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AI is making Philippine call center work more efficient, for better and worse
Michael Beltran, Rest of World, 2024/11/27

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This item fits in with the theme of learning as performance support and of automated (formative) assessment. "86% of white-collar workers in the Philippines already use AI. Filipino BPO workers say they see higher quotas, increased monitoring — and faster workflows." Not surprisingly, not everybody is happy. "The co-pilot is helpful," he says. "But I have to please the AI. The average handling time for each call is 5 to 7 minutes. I can't go beyond that. It's like we've become the robots." The use of AI doesn't have to be dehumanizing; it's important to understand where the agency is here.

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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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