Stephen Downes

This post links to the YouTube site where I will be making an announcement next Monday, the 27th, at 12 noon Eastern (5 pm UTC). I will be demonstrating and describing something I have been working on for a number of months now. What is it? Well - it's a lot of things, and I'd rather people saw the whole thing at once than have me give a name to part of it. I'll show it, you can try it, and I'll announce as well a MOOC that will build on it. No, it's not an AI thing. See you Monday.

Today: Total: Stephen Downes, YouTube, 2025/01/24 [Direct Link]

This is a spreadsheet put together by Yishay Mor comparing (as the title suggests) various AI 'toolboxes' for education. "I asked Gemini and ChatGPT to help me compare," writes Mor. "The results were.. not overwhelming, but I guess a starting point."

Today: Total: Yishay Mor, Google Sheets, 2025/01/24 [Direct Link]

A breakthrough new AI model is able to detect the presence of different lung diseases from ultrasound videos, with 96.57% accuracy, and it is even able to distinguish whether the abnormalities are due to pneumonia, COVID-19 or other conditions.QUOTE: Shafiabady noted that as long as the model is trained on the right data, it has the potential to further its lung-disease diagnostic abilities, picking up signs of tuberculosis, black lung, asthma, cancer, chronic lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis. And the researchers hope to adapt the model to be able to accurately assess more than ultrasounds, such as CT scans and X-rays. Today: Total: New Atlas, 2025/01/24 [Direct Link]

This is a PDF zine describing how people can use a couple recommend tools to create their own archive of the web as they browse. The main tool is called WebRecorder, which sits as a plug-in in your browser. KIWIX is a tool to browse the web offline. Now I haven't tried either of these, so I can't vouch for them. Also, the PDF I'm linking to is locked down, so the links don't work and you can't select text from it. So I am initially suspicious. But it looks like an interesting project, so I'm passing it along. Via Ed Summers.

Today: 0 Total: 221 Quinn Dombrowski, et al., 2025/01/24 [Direct Link]

Bryan Alexander reports on AI in the (U.S.) academic community in early 2025, including a deepening divide over AI in academia, both in higher ed and the K-12 sector, some projects such as the AI Skills Coalition by AI for Good and Google's teacher bot Learn About, and AI in research, including a research team that "used generative AI to build knowledge about historical texts."

Today: 0 Total: 540 Bryan Alexander, AI, academia, and the Future, 2025/01/23 [Direct Link]

I can attest to this. In many of the Subreddits I follow moderators have started to ban Twitter/X following the demands of hundreds of members. The turning point was Elon Musk's performance during the U.S. Presidential Inauguration. It's not political (indeed, the political subreddits have been conspicuous in their absence from this trend). Related: "The Verge reported today that NFL teams aren't allowed to have Bluesky accounts, with the NFL having already told the Patriots team to take down its Bluesky account."

Today: 0 Total: 455 Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 2025/01/23 [Direct Link]