OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

We Don't Need No Education: A Textual Analysis of Anglo-American Popular Music Lyrics about School
Avery Barnes, Isaac Calvert, Education Sciences, 2023/12/20

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My experience of school was generally negative. That's why Supertramp's lyrics resonated with me: "They tell you not to hang around and learn what life's about / And grow up just like them, won't let you work it out / And you're full of doubt." This study looks at how school is reflected in the lyrics of popular music, and the results are not pretty: school as monotonous, school as a prison, school as pressuring to conform, school as bullying. And more. The question we need to ask is whether these lyrics are shaping our experience of school, or whether they're reflecting it. I lean toward the latter. Related: 106 songs about school.

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The challenges of implementing EdTech solutions for conflict-affected children
Aisha Schnellmann, Bold, 2023/12/20

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This is an article that raises as many questions as it answers, but despite that, it points to the importance of flexible approaches to provide access to online learning to children affected by conflict and strife (of which we've had no shortage over the last year or so). Author Aisha Schnellmann stresses the importance of a local connection supporting online learning initiatives, as well as an adaptive approach to delivery. "We had to build an app that supported old smartphones and required minimal data to download." Left unanswered were questions about what happens when it's too dangerous for in-person meetings, or when the governing authority denies education to girls, or when local sensitivity to content verges on indoctrination. But this simply underlines the importance of these initiatives, rather than undermining their value.

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Learning from History: Teaching the Treaties to High School Students
Teach Magazine, 2023/12/20

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It wasn't until I was in university that I learned that Canada was mostly formed through a series of treaties between the Crown and indigenous peoples (except places like Newfoundland, where the original Beothuk inhabitants were extinguished, or British Columbia, where they just didn't bother). This knowledge changed my understanding of Canada and raised troubling questions about our failures to actually abide by those treaties. So it's important to learn about them - but what's the best way? This article describes the treaties and then outlines a teaching approach using Minecraft, which feels to me more like product placement that an effective teaching methodology. I think the Native Land Map would be a better resource (and worth comparing to, say, this map, which reduces First Nations territory to a set of widely scattered dots).

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MediaWise and FactShala partner to launch media literacy project in India
Brittani Kollar, Poynter, 2023/12/20

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According to this article, " MediaWise, the Poynter Institute's media literacy initiative, is partnering with DataLEADS, a digital media and technology company, and its media literacy program, FactShala, to launch the first of its kind, ambassador-led educational video series in India, with support from the Google News Initiative." I can't imagine there have been no media-literacy video series in India, but I guess I could be wrong. I do think media literacy education is a good idea, especially these days, assuming it can remain independent.

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AI cannot patent inventions, UK Supreme Court confirms
BBC News, 2023/12/20

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We need to be careful how we word this. True, an AI cannot be granted a patent as an inventor. That's because AIs are not people. However, a person can patent an invention made by an AI. "The judgement does not preclude a person using an AI to devise an invention - in such a scenario, it would be possible to apply for a patent, provided that person is identified as the inventor. The judgement alludes that had this been the scenario it had been asked to consider, the outcome may have been different." So we're not out of the woods yet.

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Competence over Credentials: The Rise of Skills-Based Hiring
BCG Global, 2023/12/20

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This analysis "is based on 22 million job ads across five countries in 2012, 2017, and 2022." The results suggests that job requirements are shifting from degrees to skills, albeit slowly, and not evenly across the five countries. The trend is most evident in the U.S. and also present in the U.K. and Australia, while not present in either Canada or Singapore. The subtle use of green and red suggests which direction the authors perceive as favourable; I wonder what the result would be in a wider list of countries. "For some occupations, the need for degrees is decreasing across all five countries: in community and social services (for example, counsellors and case workers), in health care (for example, support roles, such as lab technicians, hospital staff, and medical practice managers), and in hospitality, food, and tourism (for example, event planners and entertainment managers)." Via Jonathan Boymal.

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What's a good Evernote alternative?
Dan Drake, Mastodon, 2023/12/20

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Evernote is a popular note-taking and personal organization app. But it's a commercial platform, expensive, and losing value. So this question was posed as a thread on Mastodon for a friend who "uses Evernote but is getting fed up with the lock-in, the enshittification, and so on." Alternatives suggested include: Logseq, which "is more technical and you have to pay for the premium sync; Joplin, an "open source client and server, so no need to pay anything if you want to (sync)"; Anytype, reported as "really good but not as mature"; and Obsidian, self-described as a "note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think".(Note: compare the link on Mastodon.social and the link on Mastodon.xyz and you can see how two Mastodon instances get different lists of responses because they don't federate with the same set of instances.)

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We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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