OLDaily

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

From Student Voices to Course Design Choices: What Student Panels Reveal About Engagement
Lisa Gibbons, iddblog, 2025/12/29

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I'm always a little suspicious of 'student panels' because they represent only those who have been successful in gaining admission and paying tuition and so represent the most advantaged of all the people colleges and universities could possibly serve.  The advice provided by these students from DePaul University seems pretty good at first glance, but you can see the influence of selection: the emphasis on community building and belonging, norms and collaboration. All these reinforce the students' status vis-à-vis society as a whole as exceptional. For people not from their social group (in and out of class) they reinforce otherness and exclusion (this sort of thing is what motivated my groups versus networks analysis).

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"Hello, World!"... revisited
Alexandra Mihai, The Educationalist, 2025/12/29

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"Human interaction (student-teacher and student-student) is a crucial part of learning," writes Alexandra Mihai. So the use of AI in learning should be supportive of interaction, and not something that replaces it. "I want to see my students collaborate, challenge and build on each other's ideas. I want to see teachers get inspiration from each other. This relational side of education is what I consider to be the most valuable... In principle, I'm all for (technology), although I know it may not seem so from this post. But not at the expense of human connection." I'd say "it depends". Not all interaction is great. And cooperation is often superior to collaboration. But yeah... a use of AI or any other technology that isolates us rather than brings us together is going to cause more harm than good, to my mind.

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2026 Pedagogical Resolutions
Ann, All Things Pedagogical, 2025/12/29

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Yesterday I spent some time rewriting my RSS reader from scratch in order to sort entries by how infrequently people post, so the people who post once in a blue moon don't get lost in the noise. Right at the top was this item from Ann (no last name, apparently). I'm not really one for resolutions, so don't expect more, but I thought this was a pretty good list for educators and technologists (paraphrased): advocate for inclusion; be clear about what we mean; read more; seek meaningful learning and knowledge spaces; share; recognize nature; rest; write or create things. 

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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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