OLDaily

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

Higher Education Quacks
Robin DeRosa, Padlet, 2025/05/05

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Robin DeRosa has created a Padlet that asks the question, "who is trying to sell us snake-oil when what we need is education?" She writes, "I need to know your favorite (ie- worst) QUACK in higher education. Who is peddling snake-oil, quick-fixes, and $$$ROI$$$ instead of focusing on learning... Please punch UP! Target big corps, $$ players, disturbers of the public good, etc-- not small businesses or obscure individual educators trying their best in a broken system." She hastens to add, "This is a PUBLIC padlet! I will offer gentle moderation here and there. You can post anonymously." 

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Evolving the Team
Mastodon Blog, 2025/05/05

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This is pretty important I think: "Mastodon has taken the strategic decision not to accept venture capital investments for growth, but rather restructure to a European non-profit organisation." From where I sit, if you take venture capital, you're accepting that at some point your service will become user-hostile, as it prioritizes VC return on investment over all else. VCs demand an exit, which means you'll be selling or going public, and these create constraints that prevent you from fulfilling any sort of mission other than making money. Mastodon has a mission "related to an open internet, privacy, and data ownership" which is protected with this decision.

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Microsoft goes passwordless by default on new accounts
Umar Shakir, The Verge, 2025/05/05

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What is a passkey anyway? You have an app on a separate device - your phone or a key, perhaps. When you create a passkey at a new site, you create two parts: a public key, which you send to the site you're logging in to, and a private key, which you send to your app. When you login, the two keys work together; but this can happen only is you accept the login on your app on the separate device, which may require (say) a fingerprint or face-id before you can access it. I use 1Password for my passkeys; here's how it works. Related: read this article from Ars Technica on why the hated Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) isn't really that secure, and how passkeys are different.

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Sixteen Organizations Endorse the UN Open Source Principles
Office of Information and Communications Technology, United Nations, 2025/05/05

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Though I'm pretty sure the United Nations has zero interest in an endorsement from downes.ca I think the set of open source principles listed here is a pretty good start. On this page you'll find a list of 16 organizations the UN actually does want to hear from, and if you scroll down, the list of eight principles (I've looked around for a more detailed description of each but it seems this is all there is). The principles are, basically: open by default, contribute back, secure by design, be inclusive, design for reusability, document, empower individuals, sustain and scale. Via Dave Lane.

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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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