OLDaily

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

How to Write a Good Spec for AI Agents
Addy Osmani, 2026/02/20

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This is a detailed description of how to approach writing a specification for AI agents. Long story short: don't try to do it all in one go. Start with a high level description of what you want done, then work the AI to refine it into something comprehensive and robust. "Simply throwing a massive spec at an AI agent doesn't work - context window limits and the model's 'attention budget' get in the way. The key is to write smart specs: documents that guide the agent clearly, stay within practical context sizes, and evolve with the project."

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Using Music to Teach Democracy
Kristina Piskur, Teach Magazine, 2026/02/20

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This is interesting. "MELODY (Music Education for Learning Opportunities and Development of Youngsters) is an Erasmus+ project co-funded by the European Union with a mission that is both innovative and timely: to use the universal language of music as a powerful educational tool to enhance children's participation in democratic life." There's a project Handbook of Best Practices and a toolkit available on the project website. Related: How to solve the tenor shortage, via Chris Corrigan.

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Prototyping a Brightspace Course Coach Application
D'Arcy Norman, 2026/02/20

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To be clear, what's interesting here isn't the software itself, which is "a rough proof-of-concept built for informational and exploratory purposes." No, it's that the software exists at all. A couple of nights ago I read on Mastodon, "I wonder if it's possible to build a standalone application that connects to Brightspace and analyzes all course materials and info using a local LLM and then provides a Coach to help me learn? (turns out, yes, and it works well)." This article from the next day describes the process, from the creation of a specifications document to the prompt to the application itself. While watching the Olympics. In one night.

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Comprehensive AI Literacy: The Case for Centering Human Agency
Sri Yash Tadimalla, et al., arXiv, 2026/02/20

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Report authored at UNC Charlotte. As has become popular recently, the paper differentiates AI literacy, AI fluency, and AI competency. And it stresses four 'pillars' of comprehensive AI literacy: "understanding the scope and technical dimensions of AI, knowing how to interact with (Generative) AI technologies, being able to apply principles of critical, ethical, and responsible AI usage, and analyzing the implications of AI on society" (ironically whatever algo they were using spelled 'usage' as 'U.S.A.ge'). The authors stress the fourth pillar, arguing for "a systemic shift toward comprehensive AI literacy that centers human agency - the empowered capacity for intentional, critical, and responsible choice." Agency requires some preconditions: "True literacy involves teaching about agency itself, framing technology not as an inevitability to be adopted, but as a choice to be made. This requires a deep commitment to critical thinking and a robust understanding of epistemology." There's an image but my image uploader is broken today.

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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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