OLDaily

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

Can online learning be scaled using a frugal approach?
Sanjaya Mishra, Journal of Open, Distance, and Digital Education, 2025/05/26

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This paper presents an argument that "online learning need not be costly for learners and institutions." This runs contrary to a lot of what we read in the literature, though I would add that one of the reasons we developed our MOOC the way we did was that we didn't actually have a budget. Just some time and web servers. Anyhow, in this paper (13 page PDF) Sanjaya Mishra draws from four case studies involving the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL): just-in-time online learning, a self-learning platform for teachers and students, a MOOC, and Moodle courses. With the exception of the second Moodle course (which only had 13 completions), the cost per completion ran between $CAD 14 to 43. With numbers like these it basically doesn't make sense to charge for tuition. 

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Calculating Consciousness
Jake Van Clief, 2025/05/26

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This article tries to draw a thread through four hundred years of discourse on machines and method, from Descartes's distinction between mind and matter, through to today's debates about whether AI can experience consciousness. Many of the big names are referenced and so the article might be used as a valuable guide to additional reading. There are a few good bits in it, including this: "I need someone else to read this article for it to mean anything, for it to be understood by others." The meaning is not inherent in the pattern on paper or the sound in the air; it requires separate and additional skills to be brought to it by a reader or interpreter. The language is public, but the literacy is personal.

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Complex Systems Frameworks Collection - Image Gallery
Simon Fraser University, 2025/05/26

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I was led here by the Collaboration Spectrum image, which I though was a decent representation of a scale of degrees of integration in cases where people work together. See my Collaboration vs Cooperation presentation. The page has a number of openly licensed images you can use for your your project or presentation. The website as a whole is devoted to helping you "find ways to consider the differences between simple, complicated, complex and chaotic."

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Ethan Mollick used Claude 3.7 to generate the most creative Snake game ever made
Reddit, 2025/05/26

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I haven't verified this by creating a game out of a paper on my own (I can't afford to pay the money to Anthropic to enable this sort of functionality) but Ethan Mollick is generally reliable and the idea of creating a game out of a paper has interesting possibilities for learning. Here's his Twitter post on Xcancel and here's the corresponding post on LinkedIn, both with video. I linked to this Reddit thread so you can at least read it without a login; I don't know why he wouldn't post to a more open website.

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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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