Stephen Downes

According to this article, " Pearson has introduced several new AI-powered tools to help provide students personalized help from within their e-textbooks or study platforms. The tools are available through Pearson+ Channels, the video tutorial library part of the company's e-textbook subscription service." The article appears to be a lightly rewritten version of this August 28 press release.

This is part 25 of Tony Bates' ongoing personal biography. My plan was to wait until he finished before linking, but this story from roughly 20 years ago captures what I'm sure was a common experience in the early days of distance and online learning, where the individual faculties decide they want to manage these programs on their own rather than relying on the (previously successful) centralized unit. This sort of thing still happens to this day. It's interesting that Bates was the same age then as I am now.

This article is in Dutch but of course you can always translate it in your browser (I don't see why the internet doesn't just always automatically translate everything for me, but that's just me). It references a recent study from the University of Kansas, the publicity for which is in English. The actual study is unfortunately closed source. The argument is essentially that self-determined learning can be successful, but that the available of support is an essential contribution to this success. "The research shows that educators who received both online modules and personal coaching implemented the SDLMI model more effectively. This led to better learning achievements, both with and without additional support." 

It's a lawsuit that will probably not amount to anything, but that's more a statement about the legal stsrem than an assessment of the merits of the case. Lucina Uddin (the "Scholar Plaintiff") "brings this
antitrust class action to challenge collusion among the world's six largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals," alleging that the six have formed a "cartel" through the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM). "Members agree to follow STM's policies, which state that peer review is "volunteer work" and that researchers cannot submit their manuscripts to more than one journal at a time or freely share their work under review."

"Is this real?" This should be our first reaction these days to any new content, whether it shows up on TikTok, Twitter, cable news, or a major newspaper. And "the question 'Is this real?' is a call to action for critical thinking." Quite so. But what, and how? Ross offers a rough and ready account of critical thinking, one that could use some polish, and suggests 'infusion' - "explicitly teaching principles of critical thinking embedded in specific subject-matter content within a discipline" - is the best way to teach it. My own preference is the reverse - teach the subject-specific content matter as material embedded in a single cross-disciplinary critical thinking focus. But imagine asking students to ask of textbooks, "is this real?" And yet, how necessary.

"We imagine there is a Natural Law of Digital," writes David White. "It's a kind of digital Garden of Eden state where everything 'works intuitively' in a manner which releases us to only have to work on things we believe to be authentic and meaningful." The problem with this 'law' is that it doesn't exist. It's "state which none of us would agree on even if we could describe it." The problem, maybe, is that we take digital for granted. A sense of wonder would, well, do wonders: "Of course it's down, do you have any idea of how complex it is? It's a wonder it ever works at all!." We really are living in an age or miracles. But still, people complain.