OLDaily

The double-edged sword: Open educational resources in the era of Generative Artificial Intelligence #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78859 I contributed to this paper (9 page PDF) - not a ton, but definitely not nothing.

The Shortcut That Costs Us Everything #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78854 The title is provocative, but maybe a bit overstated.

From data to Viz - Find the graphic you need #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78858 Tom Woodward links to three interesting graphing resources in one post.

GenAI as automobile for the mind, and exercise as the antidote: A metaphor for predicting GenAI’s impact #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78857 I like this analogy.

mist: Share and edit Markdown together, quickly (new tool) #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78856 This is pretty cool: it's a collaborative markdown editor with a couple of interesting features: "all docs auto-delete 99 hours after creation.

The Intrinsic Value of Diversity #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78855

Before You Buy AI for Your Campus, Read This #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78853 It's like we're asking the same question over and over again.

Beautify This Slide #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78852

Oh, good: Discord's age verification rollout has ties to Palantir co-founder and panopticon architect Peter Thiel #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78851 Applications like Discord and TikTok aren't instances of educational technology per se, though they are often used in learning contexts.

The Artificial Intelligence Disclosure Penalty: Humans Persistently Devalue AI-Generated Creative Writing #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78850

What Else Can We Do? The Thirteen Intentions of Philanthropy #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78849

Why We Should Stop "Networking": On the Intrinsic Value of Connection #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78848 Here's the crux: "academic 'excellence' alone won't guarantee a successful career.

Coding agents as the new compilers - Anil Dash #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78847 I've seen this perspective presented a few times over the last three years and it makes sense to me: AI is to today's coding languages and today's coding languages were to Assembler and Machine Language.

Generative AI as a partner for teachers in building personalised learning paths for students with ease in Tanzania #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78846

ONL pedagogical approach & design #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78845 Following up on a LinkedIn post from Jörg Pareigis I rambled through some of the documentation on the Open Networked Learning course.

Finland Publication Forum will downgrade hundreds of Frontiers and MDPI journals #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78844 In keeping with my longstanding policy of not caring where an article was published, I have on occasion listed MDPI and (much less frequently) Frontiers journal articles here.

Brehove/pressbooks-cli #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78843 This is nice. This is a Python "command-line tool for managing Pressbooks textbook content. Pull chapters locally, edit them with AI coding assistants, and push updates back, including automated WCAG 2.1 accessibility remediation.

How to Keep the Internet Human - Creative Commons #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78842 Creative Commons continues its campaign to redefine 'open' as 'closed'.

Revisiting 'the' Public Sphere, Again #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78841

Democracy and the Swarm #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78840 Gary Marcus likes to tell us that (neural network based) generative AI won't succeed, so it's a bit ironic to see him cited here (preprint here) as warning that the technology will destroy democracy.

Digital unravelling - losing Facebook and the transience of social media #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78839 Once again a warning not to put all your faith in a platform owned by someone else.

UK Higher Education VLE Market: 2025 Review #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78838 There's a fair bit of in-the-weeds discussion, though "the story presented by this year’s analysis almost perfectly reinforces overarching market trends seen in recent years.

The 2025 Emerging Technology Survey findings are available! #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78837 This is a relatively short document (9 page PDF) outlining a survey of post secondary institutions on potential AI use in education (see the methods here).

Higher Education Beyond the Public Good #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78836 This is quite a good interview with Simon Marginson, author of Global Higher Education in Times of Upheaval, available as open access (337 page PDF) and itself recommended.

Slow learning #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78835 I am not nearly as enthused by 'slow learning' as are many of the educators writing in this space. Slow learning is an approach that does away with technology and emphasizes focus.

Why I'll never let AI write for me... #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78834

AI and the future of work: Measuring AI-driven productivity gains for workplace tasks #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78833 "To what extent does AI deliver productivity gains for individuals performing work-related tasks?" This is a bit of a moving target, obviously.

Professor Says Her Garbled AI Textbook Was a Huge Success #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78832 There's some unsurprisingly negative reaction to this story where students were provided with an AI-authored textbook for $25 instead of the usual $250 worth of textbooks.

On Brian Cantwell Smith and the Promise of AI #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78831 Interesting article talking about honoring the late philosopher Brian Cantwell Smith from the University of Toronto.

How It Works - Holos #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78830 Holos, writes Laurens Hof, "continues to be one of the most interesting projects on the fediverse from a technological perspective. The goal of Holos is to run an ActivityPub server on your phone.