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

Presentation
AI Applications: A Taxonomy
Stephen Downes, Oct 30, 2025, 2025 Annual Meeting, Online, via Zoom

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This presentation offers a taxonomy of AI application defined along the lines of the benefits or uses we obtain from AI systems: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, generative, and deontic. The purpose of creating such a taxonomy is to offer an alternative to risk-based or fear-based analyses of ethics in AI.

[Link] [Slides] [Audio]

Presentation
Federated Open Learning Resources
Stephen Downes, Oct 30, 2025, 2025 Open Education Conference, Online, to Denver, Colorado

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Federated social networks, such as Mastodon and Bluesky (and there are many more) add a venue for two essential components to AI-generated learning resources: conversation and creativity. This presentation will explore how the use of federated social networks will motivate learning in an age of automated content creation. Using as a model a personal learning environment developed by the author, it will explore what learning may look like, the role of on-demand OER, and the future role of educators.

[Link] [Slides] [Audio]

A teacher in Ecuador found teens already doubt what they see online — and taught them how to turn that into power
Brittani Kollar, Renata Salvini, Poynter, 2025/10/30

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Gabriel Narváez, a teacher in Ecuador, " incorrectly assumed teens do not know how to search for verified information online... they were able to apply their knowledge to identify small, false details in headlines and images." Indeed, "many of his students approach online content starting from a standpoint of permanent doubt." However, "whether they use such skills depends on their interest. They are more likely to apply their evaluative skills to a rumor involving a soccer player or a celebrity, but generally show little interest when it is related to a politician." That actually makes a lot of sense to me.

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ChatGPT Harm Reduction for Writing Assignments
Miriam Posner, Google Docs, 2025/10/30

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A professor asks "why wouldn't I use ChatGPT to write essays" and sets out six responses. This is followed by a longer listing of mitigations, and why they've failed, as well as alternative approaches, and why they've failed. "I've noticed in reaction to teachers' complaints about AI: a general exhortation to 'change our teaching strategies.' I wanted to convey that this is harder than it sounds. We've considered whatever measure you're about to suggest, and here's why it doesn't do what you think it does." For me, the reason why I write in person (including in this newsletter) rather than AI is simple: the AI doesn't know what I think about things. It doesn't know what values I have, and what I think is right and wrong, or even what I think needs to be explained and what can be taken for granted. I have my own experience; ChatGPT doesn't have access to that.

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10th Period: Ohio Charter Schools Prove Private Sector Less Efficient than Public Sector
Stephen Dyer, National Education Policy Center, 2025/10/30

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May as well say it again: "I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall here, but for the millionth time, the private sector is not inherently more efficient than the public one... the data (as they have for more than a decade now), just prove over and over again that it is the private sector that is worse at driving resources into classrooms." Image: Alicia McKay.

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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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