Stephen Downes

This study (18 page PDF) offers " information about the current state of emotion recognition technology and how its practical use is being carried out in educational settings." It does point out that "most of the research has been conducted from a theoretical perspective and none of them has been fully developed and implemented in the classroom." This is no surprise - the classroom is the last place I would expect to see educational technology deployed. Anyhow, it considers methods like facial recognition, speech analysis, and combinations of these and other cues. About 14% of the systems were at technology readiness level (TRL) 5,6 or 7 - "validation and demonstration in a relevant or operational environment" - and none were above that.

Here's the summary: "This paper (27 page PDF) presents a framework for grappling with openness across the AI stack. The paper surveys existing approaches to defining openness in AI models and systems, and then proposes a descriptive framework to understand how each component of the foundation model stack contributes to openness." I appreciated the comprehensive approach to 'openness in AI' found in the document; unlike (say) OSI, it doesn't endorce one 'received view' of openness, but rather looks at the many different ways AI can be open or not open.

This is a good article and I think people will like it, though I am less comforted. The authors argue they want to go beyond a technology-led approach to pedagogical reform to improve access and social justice in education because of the failure of technology alone to accomplish any of these things. I can certainly understand their frustration; academia has been remarkably impervious to any change that might redress historical inequities in education. The authors offer as an alternative "a virtual makerspace and a guided fantasy story that were applied in a project concerned with rewilding higher education pedagogy." I laud their intentions but I'm not seeing how this is going to create the change they are looking for. You can't reform the existing system by changing the dressing on the walls. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe you can convince academia to care.

People haven't really been talking about  'quantum ed tech' yeat and probably won't in the near future, but from what I've seem quantum computer technology, quantum algorithms are really weird, and as this article suggests, there will be a quantum internet some time in the future. The argument here is that while government has been funding basic research, it needs to fund industry in order to develop practical applications. Personally I think that's a bad idea - it's too early for that, and the companies will just take the money without producing any tangible result. And when the technology does reach the stage of practical application, companies will jump in with their own money, as we've see with AI. Let's first get the technology right, and maybe even think ahead of time about how it will be managed.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the alarm this feature is raising: "At a Build conference event on Monday, Microsoft revealed a new AI-powered feature called "Recall" for Copilot PCs that will allow Windows 11 users to search and retrieve their past activities on their PC. To make it work, Recall records everything users do on their PC, including activities in apps, communications in live meetings, and websites visited for research." This is the trade-off, though. To provide these great services, the AI will have to have access to your personal information. It can't just make stuff up! You can and should be able to turn it off. But then you have to do without the service. But that just cedes the advantage to people like me who will turn it on and have access to these far-reaching capacities. Privacy! Hah! I grew up in a small town, I know how to live without privacy.

This is a project from a long-time member of Tim Berners-Lee's SoLiD project, Sarven Capadisli. "dokieli is a clientside editor for decentralised article publishing, annotations, and social interactions." It has all the strengths and weaknesses of the SoLiD project itself: it looks great, has some really neat features, but the user interface isn't very friendly, the documentation is unhelpful, it has been years in development without deployment, and it can't actually be used by people for practical purposes. But do have a look - the web page is also a content editor, and there are some nifty features.