OLDaily

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

An Issue...
2025/12/02

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Following from the 'future of university' posts here yesterday and today, we have this thread beginning with this post: "An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up." I don't know how true this is, but if true, is definitely a sign of things changing. Via Johannes Ernst, who comments, "Read this thread by a prof and weep."

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A Critically Informed Conversation with Terry Anderson: Visions on the Next Generation of Online and Distance Education
Aras Bozkurt, Terry Anderson, Open Praxis, 2025/12/02

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There's a bit of a surprise in this interview-style article (6 page PDF) as Terry Anderson says this: "I largely gave up work on the COI model as I found it couldn't really scale beyond the small group, constructivist pedagogical paradigm with in which it was built." He doesn't really see AI standing in: "teacher presence with the role modelling, care, affection and deep content knowledge will likely still be needed and will survive." At the same time, it's a mistake to simply reject AI. "Distance education has always been about access. Therefore, distance teachers and administrators will have to turn our social justice efforts towards insuring equitable and affordable access to the networks and machines of AI enhanced education."

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Is the future of education outside universities?
Annalee Newitz, New Scientist, 2025/12/02

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This article feels a bit overly optimistic, but at the same time I am sympathetic with the core argument, which is that higher education is to be found increasingly outside academic institutions. Professors and academics are taking to the open internet, writes Annalee Newitz, in response to things like funding cuts and limitations in what they can say in class. To quote Karen Attiah, "This is not the time for media literacy or historical knowledge to be held hostage by institutions bending the knee to authoritarianism and fear." This article describes people like Attiah and Abigail Thorn who runs Philosophy Tube. "When the public can't gain access to higher education, Hall suggested, then higher education should come to the public. And that is exactly what educators are doing now." Well, some of them are. A few. Probably not enough. (If you hit New Scientist's 'article limit', try here).

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Generative AI has access to a small slice of human knowledge
Deepak Varuvel Dennison, Aeon, 2025/12/02

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OK, to be clear, I don't believe that the author's father's tumour was cured by the traditional herbal concoction he was taking. My feeling is that, if this medicine really cured cancer, we'd know. But I do take the author's point that AI is missing out when it doesn't include the wide range of human languages - and therefore, human experiences - that exist. My view is essentially this, as stated by Deepak Varuvel Dennison: "I have my doubts about whether Indigenous knowledge truly works as claimed in every case. Especially when influencers and politicians invoke it superficially for likes, views or to exploit identity politics, generating misinformation without sincere enquiry. However, I'm equally wary of letting it disappear." Related: A team of African researchers has unveiled African Next Voices, the largest known AI-ready dataset for African languages.

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Representational Realism and the Problem of Tacit Belief
Eric Schwitzgebel, The Splintered Mind, 2025/12/02

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Does it make sense to treat our beliefs as though they were explicitly represented in the brain? Eric Schwitzgebel offers some arguments that show how this leads to confusion. It's based on what's called 'the problem of tacit belief', where a 'tacit belief' is a belief you have, but which is not explicitly represented (for example, that there are fewer that 2,342,609 beers in the fridge). Representationalists will say that these are derived from 'core beliefs', but what counts as a 'core belief'? "But the distinction has no practical importance, doesn't map onto ordinary patterns of belief attribution, and has no empirical support." Why does this matter? Think of all the (pseudo-)theories of education based on 'belief' as a distinct state of mind or brain. That's why.

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4 ways you can 'role play' with AI
Paul Bradshaw, Online Journalism Blog, 2025/12/02

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These are techniques trhat are used in design or development workshops to test ideas, and they can be used as well as a way to approach interacting with AI. There's nothing especially new about the idea of using role-play except that your AI can be more flexible in shifting from role to role. Of course, "AI responses can be sycophantic and gullible so use role prompting to give them a sceptical and stricter role." The article goes into each of the fopur roles in some detail and would be a good starter worksheet.

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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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