OLDaily

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

Ruby on Rails on WebAssembly, the full-stack in-browser journey
Vladimir Dementyev, web.dev, 2025/03/04

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I haven't done much development in Ruby on Rails - I've worked with but that's about it. But it's a powerful framework - it's what Mastodon runs on - and widely supported. That's what makes this article important. Normally, you run Ruby on Rails in a web server, somewhere on the internet or in the cloud. Or maybe you run it using your operating system, like Linux or Windows. But this article shows how developers can use something called WebAssembly to run Ruby on Rails in your browser! That means, for example, you could click on a link, and download and run a fully functional interactive application in Chrome or Firefox. But wait - if you think that's impressive, take a look at this: someone reports getting Linux running in a PDF file. As one person comments, "We should definitely run doom inside linux inside PDF."

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AI Chatbots Can Cushion the High School Counselor Shortage - But Are They Bad for Students?
Tara García Mathewson, The Markup, 2025/03/04

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OK, let's allow that it's true that "AI cannot fully replace the nuanced, empathetic guidance provided by human mentors and career advisors." Maybe so. However, "Almost one-quarter of U.S. schools don't have a single counselor, according to the latest federal data." The numbers vary in other countries, but the availability of counseling is always of concern. So the real question here is whether something is better than nothing. It's not, of course, if AI counseling actually harms students. For example, it may be argued that "those very same bots may be eroding the kinds of network-building opportunities that help students break into those jobs eventually." But if there are no counselors, where do these opportunities come from? I can easily imagine AI counselors helping students create their own communities.

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A Comprehensive Checklist for AI Application to University Management
Miguel Ángel Escotet, Miguel Ángel Escotet, 2025/03/04

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There has been so much discussion about things like 'robot tutors' and 'AI-generated courses' that some of the most significant impact of AI on higher education are being ignored. Administrators would do well to review this list of how campus-based AIs can manage and administer most institutional process. It includes everything from automating email campaigns and recruitment activities to allocating resources to screening applicants. Though the list is lengthy, readers will be able to fill in even more applications on their own.

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My Approach to Scenario Writing and Multimedia: Visual Lounge Podcast - Experiencing Elearning
Christy Tucker, Experiencing eLearning, 2025/03/04

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This short post introduces a half hour video conversation between (mostly) Christy Tucker and (interviewer) Matt Pierce on scenario writing and multimedia. "In our conversation," writes Tucker, "I shared tips for writing, using storytelling elements, and when to use multimedia to enhance your messaging." I'm a bit surprised people are still writing branching scenarios, though I acknowledge that writing open-ended scenarios is an order of magnitide more difficult. There are some good tips - for example, while we are told "write how people talks", we need to be judicious, because "if we write exactly how people talk, it's boring." 

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Building Websites With LLMS
Jim Nielsen, Jim Nielsen's Blog, 2025/03/04

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This is link of neat, though I had to read it a couple of times to wrap my head around it. By 'LLMS' Jim Nielsen means ' (L)ots of (L)ittle ht(M)l page(S)'. Not the other thing. And the proposal is, basically, instead of having Javascript applications build each 'view' of your data, just create these views as stand-along HTML pages and use CSS to create transitions when you link from one to the next (so it looks like a slick Javascript effect, but it's just cheap CSS). Static is (almost) always better than dynamic, so I'm in favour of this approach.

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GROW Diverse Learners, Differentiated Learning
Miguel Guhlin, Another Think Coming, 2025/03/04

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Despite what you may read in some circles, it remains true that, as Miguel Guhlin observes, "every student learns differently." So he asks, "how can educators better meet the needs of diverse learners? How can I, as an educator, leverage my awareness of teaching, pedagogy, and how (can) students in my classroom learn to craft engaging learning for students?" In this short post, he offers a four-part approach:

• Goals (G): Identify Differentiated Learning Objectives
• Resources (R): Choose Tools for Differentiation
• Observe (O): Pilot and Reflect with Differentiated Strategies
• Work Together (W): Collaborate with Peers on Differentiation

Exactly how this is done matters, in my view. In traditional education, it's done by the teacher. In learning engineering, it's done by a computer. In my view, it's done by the student. Some people may suggest a combination (eg., teacher plus student) but then by default it's just the most powerful agent doing it (eg. in this case, the teacher)

 

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Clarivate Unveils Transformative Subscription-Based Access Strategy for Academia
Clarivate, 2025/03/04

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I still have some of the books I bought as a youth and there is no thought that I would ever have to give them up if I stopped paying for them (and I did stop paying for them, when I bought them, in my youth). Publishers want to end this, as witness Clarivite, which will now "phase out one-time perpetual purchases of digital collections, print and digital books for libraries." I fear the end-game here is where we - the people - own nothing, and corporations own everything, and rent it to us if we are compliant and willing to obey the terms and conditions (one of which is, of course, to agree that "we were always at war with Eastasia"). Via SCONUL, which has issued a sternly worded letter.

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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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