OLDaily

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

Anticipating Change: AI in Education Predictions for 2025
Sarah Morin, Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, Edtech Insiders, 2024/12/24

---

This list is interesting not so much for the predictions - more AI in education, personalized learning paths, and obvious things like OpenAI announcing o3 (which already exists), Google announcing Gemini 2.0, etc. - but for the list of people who pretty much never reach these pages because they're active mostly behind the login barrier that is LinkedIn. And as readers know, my policy here is to as much as possible offer links that take you straight to the article, no logins, accounts or subscriptions required. Also, as I looked through their LinkedIn pages, it struck me how the profiles listed a university affiliation and a business or company. It's like being a university professor isn't enough; you have to have a side hustle. Anyhow, some of the preductions are text, some are video (wothut transcript).

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

How AI Really Learns: The Journey from Random Noise to Intelligence
Nir Diamant, DiamantAI, 2024/12/24

---

I like this article. It's a fairly accessible and intuitive description of how an AI learns through pattern recognition, and it offers lessons, I think, in how humans learn. "Every time it makes a guess, we can measure exactly how wrong it was. But there's more to it than simple word prediction. The model also learns to understand context in increasingly sophisticated ways. For instance, when it sees 'The cat sat on the mat because...' it's not just learning about cats and mats - it's learning about causality, the relationship between tiredness and sitting, and the typical behaviours of animals." This (to my mind) is why direct instruction focusing on specific content is not the best approach - by eliminating all extraneous context in the name of cognitive load it eliminates the possibility of extraneous learning (like causality and how animals behave), and this really is the most important part of the learning.

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

That was the year 2024, that was
Tony Bates, Online learning and distance education resources, 2024/12/24

---

According to Tony Bates, "it has become clear to me that public post-secondary education, at least here in North America and also to some extent in Europe, is facing an existential crisis. No-one wants to pay the costs of the existing system." This is not necessarily a bad thing, he says. "We have postsecondary education systems that were built for another time and another world. They were built for a very small elite, to serve very different purposes than today's universities and colleges." This means things have to change. "It is not enough then for universities and colleges to whine for more money. It's not coming. They need to re-think, not so much their purpose, but their whole modus operandi." I think he's right on all counts, and look forward to seeing - and commenting on - his proposed blog series on the problem. 

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

Is cognitive load theory pitifully wrong?
Greg Ashman, Filling the Pail, 2024/12/24

---

Yes. Yes it is. But I'll let make Greg Ashman make the case that it is not here, as he replies to a strongly worded criticism (12 page PDF) from Minkang Kim, Christopher Duncan, Stanley Yip and Derek Sankey as they call cognitive load theory "a truly bewildering set of claims that, given a moment's thought, are educationally, philosophically, and neurobiologically questionable." It's a good paper; I recommend people read it. Anyhow, Ashman responds with two major critiques: first, the author says cognitive load theory describes the mind as a computer, which Ashman says isn't right: "the problem with the computer analogy is that it assumes that the central executive controls attention and directs working memory resources." And second, "Kim et al.'s argument seems to rest on neuroscience. However, it is never clear exactly how this applies." Ashman recommends the critics "learn a little more about cognitive load theory before they attempt to shoot it down" but I would say they know it all to well. Image: Barefoot TEFL.

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