OLDaily

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

Watching My Doctor Teach
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2024/12/16

---

We could use more of this. No, I don't mean more Alan Levine posts, though the more of those we get, the better. No, I mean more on how people actually teach and actually learn. We get a lot in the literature about how it happens in the classroom. But the classroom is a very specialized environment, designed to deal with the need to foster a common set of knowledge and values on a large population despite constraints in staff and resources. But if we go out into homes or workplaces, we see teaching and learning happening all the time - the typical example being similar to the interaction between doctor and intern we see here. A father teaching a son about auto mechanics, another father encouraging his son to play piano, even the graffiti on the walls. Long conversations, themselves another form of learning. Someone at the store showing me a new type of tire lever. Learning to make curry from online videos. I wish I could declare a moratorium on all classroom-based research in education, and get people out into the community where learning actually occurs.

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

On Loneliness and Obligation
Huw Davies, Blog of the APA, 2024/12/16

---

The argument that the way to combat loneliness is through obligations and duties is, to my mind, old and uninteresting. It could be that loneliness is responsible for fascism, as suggested here with reference to Hannah Arendt, and it could be that people have been getting more lonely recently, though I don't think counting 'minutes a day in social engagement' is a measure of that. But I don't think we address the problem by eliminating the state as the key agent for care for the poor, the sick, the elderly. I mean, after all, we got the state involved because the poor, sick and elderly weren't getting care. No, I don't think the way around loneliness is to have people telling you what to do (and that, really, is 'duty' at its essence, right?). I think that loneliness is addressed by looking at connection, at presence, at the idea that what we do (and even what we think) matters. Anyhow: interesting article.

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

The Limits of Data
C. Thi Nguyen, Issues in Science and Technology, 2024/12/16

---

I think that when we talk about the 'limits of data' we're using the word 'data' in a specific sense. For example, C. Thi Nguyen writes, "here is the first principle of data: collecting data involves a trade-off. We gain portability and aggregability at the price of context-sensitivity and nuance." This is a trade-off only for a certain definition of data: data being something aggregated from a large number of people from multiple contexts. But if you look at a specific person in a specific context, you gain back that context-sensitivity and nuance. The same with the second principle: "every classification system represents some group's interests." Classification typically involves a focus on the selection of specific types of data, but why do this? Select all types of data and look for patterns, not classes. It's not like I'm disagreeing with Nguyen here. Context matters. Point of view matters. It's just that I think we can and should look at data more broadly. Via Peter Hanecak.

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

Universities in the age of AI
Doug Belshaw, Thought Shrapnel, 2024/12/16

---

There are two key statements in this article. The first is that "the whole point of Higher Education is to allow students to reflect on themselves and the world." Now I would use the word 'develop' or 'grow', but the point is essentially the same: education isn't about grades and innovation and all that measurable stuff, it's about something more personal. The second is that "at the end of the day, I'm studying for my own benefit, and I know that studying with genAI is better than studying without it." This is my thinking as well. In a conversation this morning I said that the way to improve education is to improve agency, and AI is something that (greatly) improves agency.

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

Problems developed faster among gamers who started early
Annika Hofstedt, Anna Söderpalm Gordh, IDW, 2024/12/16

---

There's a certain sense, I think, in which whether something counts as a 'disorder' is a value judgment. I mean, substitute 'gaming' in this article with 'reading' or 'playing music' or even 'exercise' and you get a sort of behaviour that is sanctioned by society. Just today, we are celebrating Zakir Hussain, who lived a life completely dedicated to music. Gaming, by contrast, isn't 'productive', so "must clearly have adverse effects on relationships and other aspects of life." If gaming were celebrated and well-paid we'd be much less inclined to call a gaming obsession a disorder. Anyhow, here's the full link to the paper 'Young and adult patients with gaming disorder: Psychiatric co-morbidities and progression of problematic gaming'.

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