OLDaily

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

Anthology's Chapter 11 Bankruptcy by the Numbers
Phil Hill, On EdTech Newsletter, 2025/10/02

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Phil Hill weighs in with two posts (first, second) on the Anthology bankruptcy. Anthology will be recalled as the company that bought Blackboard and took it private. "The key turn," writes Hill, is that "distressed-debt investors Nexus and Oaktree bought heavily into Anthology's loans and effectively took over the process." He says it "validates what we've been tracking all year: the debt story mattered more than the roadmap story." The second story tracks the earnings and debts of major learning platform companies that operate in the North American higher education market.

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An Invitation to Extend Grace and Openness – instead of 'No AI Shaming'
Maha Bali, Reflecting Allowed, 2025/10/02

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I don't have any specific comment to make on this post, but I liked it, and I like the idea of extending grace and openness in discussions around AI.

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Government of Canada launches AI Strategy Task Force and public engagement on the development of the next AI strategy
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Canada.ca, 2025/10/02

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This is a "national sprint" collecting perspectives on Canada's national AI strategy. You can take part in the survey here as an individual or organization (set aside some time; there are some open-ended questions). Related websites include the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy. Also worth viewing: Responsible use of AI in government; also Consultations on AI strategy from last year. See also: ITBrief.

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AI Calculus Tutor Examples
Doug Holton, Google Docs, 2025/10/02

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I don't know exactly how this works (which makes it delicious to me) but what we have here is a calculus tutor with working examples running on ChatGPT and Gemini (I liked the ChatGPT one better, and noticed it ran in my own ChatGPT account). I didn't have time to learn all of calculus from them, but ran through some pretty good instruction on how to calculate a limit. I could easily imagine becoming fairly proficient with enough time and dedication. They were both very patient teachers, though Gemini wasn't able to show me any diagrams (it just pretended the diagrams were there, then tried to describe them so I could visualize them). ChatGPT's explicit pedagogy was supportive, not pedantic. For example, it said, "Math isn't about never making mistakes - it's about training your brain to see patterns and fix missteps." I think this page is by Doug Holton.

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Meta will listen into AI conversations to personalize ads
Thomas Claburn, The Register, 2025/10/02

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Another reason to reconsider your use of Facebook, Insta and WhatApp: "Meta intends to begin using people's text exchanges and voice conversations with its AI service to generate personalized posts, reels, and other attention lures starting on December 16, 2025." Europe, the UK, and South Korea will be exempt, presumably because of personal data privacy laws. There's a list of 'untouchable topics' (leaving a lot of room open for interpretation) but otherwise, the main point is "using AI to encourage exposure to and engagement with ads, some of which may be generated by AI." It's Meta, but I can only imagine most other companies and institutions are lining up to do the same thing.

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Cogniti - AI agents designed by teachers
University of Sydney, 2025/10/02

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This is interesting. "Cogniti is designed to let teachers build custom chatbot agents that can be given specific instructions, and specific resources, to assist student learning in context-sensitive ways." I tried it out by interacting with some of the agents, including a realistic-sounding person who turned out to be a stroke victing, and an agent that found all the references to privacy in the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics and Practice (2024). It's all beta but I can see how this would be a really useful tool in class, in learning design, and for students working on projects or practicing skills. (P.S. it sounds to me like the stroke victim is on the way to full recovery). Via Miguel Guhlin. You can try it out yourself (it will ask you to log in) or watch the short promotional video.

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Teacher Professional Development in the Age of AI
edCircuit, 2025/10/02

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This isn't a bad article though to be honest it also reads like an AI-authored article, though edCircuit makes no statement that it is. Authorship is unattributed. It's ostensibly about teacher professional development for working with AI, but a lot of reads like your standard 'working with AI' sort of guidance. Some things I don't agree with: treating intellectual property as an ethical issue, not a legal issue; and dependence on vendor partnerships. Also, the idea of 'teachers at the center', while no doubt appealing to teachers (and perhaps challenging for administrators) sidelines the possibility of much more student-centered learning that AI affords.

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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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