OLDaily

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

Teaching Information Literacy in an Age of Misinformation 
Krista Black, EdD, Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning, 2024/02/29

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I've said it before but this column makes it clear that it needs to be said again: evaluating information is not based on evaluating the credibility of the source. You can't place your trust in anyone. Even if you can trust your source (but again: you can't) they can make mistakes or may have been misled themselves. It's a canonical rule of journalism and should be your rule as well: confirm through multiple diverse sources. Instead of digging into the background and motivations of the source, look laterally. Does the story make sense within the wider context? Do you have to suspend belief in other things to believe the story? Is there a way to confirm of verify what has been suggested?

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Albert Einstein College of Medicine: An unimaginable gift just changed these students' lives
Kayla Epstein, Phil McCausland, BBC News, 2024/02/29

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I live in a province that has a significant shortage of doctors and yet charges fees of around $80K for a medical education. Lowering or (better) eliminating tuition fees is unambiguously good, yet there's no end to the people who argue against. It may have more to do with what people will do if they're able to access an  education without taking on mountains of debt. "Something that I think about a lot when choosing my career path is money, because it's really important for me. I come from a low-income background and street outreach is not the most lucrative field," Mr Woo, 23, said. "But now I don't have to worry about, 'Okay, I should choose a specialty that pays more, so I can support people back home and so I can support myself.' I can actually do things I'm really passionate about."

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The Wrath Without The Math: Why Mathematics Wars Have Only Ever Been Class Wars | Human Restoration Project | Sunil Singh
Sunil Singh, Human Restoration Project, 2024/02/29

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This post on the 'math wars' says explicitly and exactly what should be said. "Go ahead. Do the audit. Test scores. Explicit instruction. More homework. Back to basics. Grades. Careers. These are the phrases/words which will be littered in every argument(cough) of how mathematics should be taught." But "Explicit instruction is a Hail Mary for rotary-dialing traditionalists to try and deal themselves back in the game... This is far beyond explicit instruction. This is explicit indoctrination of white supremacy, disguised as smiling faces wanting to improve math education. Nothing says horse and buggy content and pedagogy like 'shut up kids and listen to me explain multiplying decimals'." Image: RobotLab.

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Homepage - Imagining the Digital Future Center
Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson, Imagining the Digital Future Center, 2024/02/29

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This report (158 page PDF) released by the Imagining the Digital Future research center of Elon University draws out five themes from comments contributed (quoted): 1) We will have to reimagine what it means to be human; 2) Societies must restructure, reinvent or replace entrenched systems; 3) Humanity could be greatly enfeebled by AI; 4) Don't fear the tech; people are the problem and the solution; 5) Key benefits from AI will arise. It also suggests that by 2040 we will have engaged in and maybe answered questions like What is a soul? What is cognition? What is identity? What is emotion? I'm not really in disagreement with any of this (though I expect people might not like the answers to the questions that are addressed).

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A Forthcoming Documentary Examines How Civic Life in America Is a Matter of 'Join or Die'
Kate Mothes, Colossal, 2024/02/29

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Robert Putnam, the author of Bowling Alone, asks in anew documentary, "What makes democracy work? Why is American democracy in crisis?" Then, it poses a call to action: "What can we do about it?" The answer is in the title: The places that have better government are the places that have a long history of social networks and social capital," Putnam says. He adds in another clip, "Organization—connections with other people—is the only way you get big change." There is certainly something to this - you can't create change without being connected. But the urge to join - to become a part of an in-group - can be damaging as well as useful, setting up social governance as though it were a team sport where winning matters more than good government.

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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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