OLDaily

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

Taking AI literacy seriously
Philip J. Kerr, Adaptive Learning in ELT, 2025/04/04

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Philip J. Kerr raises five 'big issues' related to teaching critical literacy for AI, but in my view he is wrong in at least four of them. First, he says, "critical thinking is domain specific." No it's not. Second, he says "critical thinking can only be taught if learners have a disposition to think critically." Also not true; such a disposition, if it exists at all, is a result, not a precondition, of learning to think critically. Third, "a failure to think critically... is not primarily a problem of critical digital literacy." Leaving aside the mixed definitions, yes it is. People who have learned critical thinking aren't as likely to be fooled by disinformation. Fourth, "evidence for any effectiveness in critical digital literacy instruction is in very short supply." Maybe? Not going to check, but I have my doubts. Finally, fifth, "is it even possible to imagine a critically informed and ethical use of Generative AI?" Of course it is.

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View of Policies for Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: A Call for Action | Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology
Mohamed Ally, Sanjaya Mishra, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 2025/04/04

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The argument is that "Higher education must prioritize AI policy development so that AI is trustworthy and used for good." I think we can agree we want these, but are they ensured (or even made more likely) by higher education policy development? Higher ed policy governs only higher ed, but AI development and use happens in the wider community, so even if effective, the policies are limited in their application. Anyhow, the short article lists 14 AI policy areas and 52 AI policy competencies.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is wrong, ‘Sesame Street’ was not replaced by 'drag queen storytime'
Grace Abels, Poynter, 2025/04/04

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This story reports that "Sesame Street continues airing on PBS and has not been replaced by drag queen storytime." What it misses is, I think, the main point, which is that it would be good if children were able to watch drag queen storytime and that early exposure to different and diverse cultures could do much to erase the intolerance and prejudice that exists today.

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The Mercury News put all its news on the web for free 30 years ago. Did it open Pandora’s box? - Poynter
Pete Croatto, Poynter, 2025/04/04

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I've had a lot to say about this over the years, and there's more coming. But I want to set the record straight here. Pete Croatto writes, "The Mercury News would become widely regarded as the first newspaper to put its entire content online, initially for free. The decision established a lasting expectation that online news should be free." It did not. What created that expectation was that, on the internet (in contrast to closed commercial services like AOL) everything was free. You paid for your own computer, and you paid for your own internet access (or maybe your institution did), and then, you shared your content with everyone else. It's important to understand that you don't actually need commercial content to make the web work. You don't even need to pay for content production. People will create their own content, including news content, for free. 

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EUDI Wallet based Strong Customer Authentication and payment for Financial Services
Adrian Doerk, Lissi, 2025/04/04

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You might not know about EUDI yet, but it - or something like it, if you're outside Europe - will be coming into your world soon. The European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) is a new method for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) into digital services. Crucially, in Europe, "all private relying parties in regulated sectors - including banks - must support the European Digital Identity Wallet for SCA-related processes by 2027." The EUDI wallet supports core online functions: login, payment, data access, whitelisting, personal information, and consent. This article looks at EUDI in more detail, and EUDI in education is on my watchlist.

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MyNotes: Carnegie Learning’s State of AI in Education
Miguel Guhlin, Another Think Coming, 2025/04/04

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Miguel Guhlin shares his summary of the "Carnegie Learning AI in Education webinar facilitated by Amanda Bickerstaff. The webinar is accompanied by a link to a report from Carnegie Learning." There's not a lot new here, but it's nicely packaged, and I mainly want to express appreciation for Guhlin's coverage of this and consistently good coverage of AI and critical thinking over the last few months. I'm not linking to everything, but it's all worth a read.

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Facing the Looming Threat of A.I., Publishers Turn to Decentralized Platforms
Ben Werdmuller, Werd I/O, 2025/04/04

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Ben Werdmuller references "a lovely piece about Mike McCue, who, through Flipboard, Surf, and his general activities through the community, has become one of the open social web's most important figures." He points out that while Surf is different from them, it's not forcing people to make a technology choice. "This is the point that A New Social is making too: it's not about picking a protocol, because the protocols can easily be joined together." This is a refreshing change from silos like Facebook and X/Twitter. Closed access systems, like authoritarian governments, may seem to make things better for a while, but as Jonathan Last writes, "no empire can survive the degeneration of its people."

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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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