OLDaily

Universities (still) suck at learning analytics #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78396 Why are universities are almost universally poor at implementing learning analytics? asks Colin Beer.

Populism fast and slow #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78395 The argument offered in this post is that populism is based on our intuitive ways of thinking, in contrast with political stances based on more analytical styles of thinking.

Coursera Is Just Not That Into You #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78394 The 'you' in question in the heading of this post is 'universities' (revealing an interesting designation of audience, but I digress).

A new core curriculum: seven comprehensive video modules from the Wikimedia Foundation for beginners #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78393

Is Misinformation More Open? A Study of robots.txt Gatekeeping on the Web #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78392 I have often used the phrase "democracy dies behind a paywall".

To Explain or to Predict? #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78391 This is a great article, 15 years old, but still popular, as reported in today's Data Science Newsletter. It argues at length and in considerable depth that explanation is not the same as prediction.

Ground-level Impacts of the Changing Landscape of Higher Education #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78390 This article examines a report from the Virginia Community College System (105 page PDF) and punctuates it with some relevant questions for college systems generally.

Meet Mico, Microsoft’s AI version of Clippy #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78389 For those of you who don't remember Clippy, let me assure you that Clippy was... annoying. At first glance it appears that Mico will be no less so.

HP ZGX Nano AI Station - AI PC for Business #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78388 Back in the day, we used to have external hard drives. Now we're entering the world of external AI drives.

Jacob McDowell, Externalism without Essentialism: Hilary Putnam on Natural Kind Terms - PhilArchive #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78387

OpenStax to NotebookLM Workflow #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78386 So I think we're about to be deluged by a ton of these AI-based learning platforms.

ChatGPT's Atlas: The Browser That's Anti-Web #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78385 OpenAI has released a new ChatGPT browser called Atlas. Not surprisingly, it has generated a lot of commentary, the most trenchent of which is this post from Anil Dash.

The Human Fabric of Knowledge Architecture #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78384 We've said all this here before, but now that it comes in the form of a Real LinkedIn Article, maybe more people will believe it: "In this world, strategy isn't planned but continuously sensed...

News Integrity in AI Assistants #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78383 Obviously we do not want generative AI services such as Gemini, ChatGPT and CoPilot providing wrong answers to questions about the news.

Wittgenstein's Teaching Trials, and Cavell's Romantic Child #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78382 Few people think of Ludwig Wittgenstein as a schoolteacher, but that's what he did for a number of years in the 1920s.

There is no God Tier video model #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78381

Ten Principles of AI Agent Economics #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78380 Anil Dash has a recent post The Majority AI View in which he argues "AI is a normal technology like any other." I am inclined to agree, which is why I find this article relevant.

So There! #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78379 There are some good ideas in this list of (in my opinion) very average ideas.

AI threatens universities’ ability to bolster democracy #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78378 The story here is much more complex than as presented by the authors.

Digital Identity Market to Exceed $80B by 2030 #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78377

An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78376

Vector Database by Hand #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78375 Tom Yeh posted this as a note this week, but it's worth going back to the article from last year to see the full explanation. He writes, "My son is about to learn cosine in high school trig.

Dynamic Equilibrium Theory for Ethical AI: Balancing Epistemic Uncertainty, Human Autonomy, and Social Equity in High-Stakes Fluctuational Decision Systems #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78374

Write Code That Runs in the Browser, or Write Code the Browser Runs #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78373 Jim Nielsen channels some comments from Alex Russell to the effect that it makes sense to c all built-in browser functions rather than to write the same function in Javascript.

After the Gold Rush: What Degrowth Can Teach Us About Micro‑Credentials #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78372

Open education principles: Resisting the metrics of AI black boxes #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78371 The main point of this article is that "AI is not simply a tool to make existing educational approaches more efficient.

On the essay in a time of GenAI #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78370

The Original Sin of Digital Media Was the Belief That Digital Journalists Were Part of the Tech Business #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78369 If you read about tech investments you are likely to read about things like lock-in and moats.

Big Tech is paying millions to train teachers on AI, in a push to bring chatbots into classrooms #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78368 This article describes initiatives with both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

Beyond the Human: Democratic Education Through the Ethics of Care and Carriance #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78367