OLDaily

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

Irwin
Brian Lamb, Abject, 2024/02/01

---

I didn't know Irwin DeVries but our paths crossed over the years. "He was at the Open Learning Agency in the early eighties, and over the years he made immense contributions to the Justice Institute of BC, TRU Open Learning (retiring as our Associate Vice-President), Royal Roads University, and elsewhere." By all accounts he was a model and inspiration to the peoplehe worked with, and he played an important role in the development of open and online learning in Canada and beyond. This article is a heartfelt tribute to him and I'm sure the sentiments are widely shared.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

W3C Invites Implementations of Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0
W3C, 2024/02/01

---

It's an area that seems to move forward at a glacial pace, but then one day it will be everywhere. Here's the pitch: "Credentials are a part of our daily lives; driver's licenses are used to assert that we are capable of operating a motor vehicle, university degrees can be used to assert our level of education, and government-issued passports enable us to travel between countries. This specification provides a mechanism to express these sorts of credentials on the Web in a way that is cryptographically secure, privacy respecting, and machine-verifiable." Here's the the Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0 Candidate Recommendation Snapshot.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

From Principles to Practice: Taking a whole institution approach to developing your Artificial Intelligence Operational Plan
Sue Attewell, National centre for AI, 2024/02/01

---

This is a pretty good look at the various issues to consider while developing an overall-institutional AI plan, including a downloadable checklist to work with. Such a plan "facilitates the integration of AI across the institution and enhances innovation. By involving staff and student/learners in the operational process, you can address diverse needs and perspectives, fostering an environment of collaborative learning and adaptation. This holistic approach helps in navigating the ethical and practical challenges associated with its deployment in an educational setting."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Kicking the tires on Arc for Windows
Doug Peterson, doug -- off the record, 2024/02/01

---

This is a review of the new Arc browser for Windows. I'm interested because I haven't tried Arc yet. The major downside, to me, is that Arc is built on Chromium, which means (because of the influence of Google) that advertising and tracking seep in around the edges (unlike Firefox, which is airtight). The major things, to me: "Arc's claim is that it will help you organize things better. By embedding URLs into a folder for a site, you don't find yourself looking for that extra URL. It's all there. The disappearing current work will make me a better organizer, I suspect. If I don't pin it, I lose it. I learned that lesson!"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Educating for a Just World: Empowering K-12 Students as Global Democratic Digital Citizens
Janette Hughes, Jennifer A. Robb, Molly Gadanidis, Journal of Digital Life and Learning, 2024/02/01

---

The main point of this article (27 page PDF) published by my colleagues in the Democrat project is that "In personal, civic, and professional discourse, multiple modes of expression, facilitated by the multimodal nature of digital media, become not luxuries but essential components of knowing and communicating. Digital media provide youth with numerous affordances for communicating, connecting, creating, thinking critically, constructing new knowledge, and moving towards civic engagement and participatory social action." These skills don't simply create themselves; the process of education for democracy is, at least in part, directed toward cultivating them, in addition to (say) digital citizenship and human rights education.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed