OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics. 100% human-authored

Support OLDaily. A paid subscription keeps OLDaily free and open for all. We're now at 29% of our fundraising target. A big thank you to our supporters. Click here to support OLDaily.

Hyperblam Docs Home
HYPERBLAM, 2026/06/30

---

This is another one of those items I've saving for myself for a time when I can settle in and enjoy it a bit. Hyperblam's slogan is, 'Make music not Javascript', which isn't a dilemma most of us face, but I'm sure it comes up when people want to use their computers to create music. "HYPERBLAM lets you make music with HTML. It's a declarative implementation of the Web Audio API and is completely dependency free. Create pedal boards, drum machines, sampled instruments. And don't write a single line of JavaScript in the process. Unless you really want to." Via Bionic Teaching.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The problem with evidence production on AI in education
Ben Williamson, Code Acts in Education, 2026/06/30

---

I'm not going to dispute Ben Williamson's argument here. It is entirely plausible that much of the 'AI in Education' (AIED) research is, as he says, "junk science". What I will dispute the the suggestion - not made, but assumed, I guess - that this is new. While it is true that we are seeing "meta-analyses at an industrial rate and scale," this has been a trend for some time, certainly for as long as I have been a researcher, and the same case has been made - does the name Charles Ungerleider ring a bell? Did initiatives like the Campbell Collaboration solve the problem? No - here we are 23 years later, with the same old problems assessing the impact of a brand new technology, suffering from the same old delusion that we know what we want from education, as there is an all-seeing 'we' in that statement. Does a hammer produce better learning outcomes? That would depend very much on the discipline.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Edtech examined
Information Commissioner's Office, 2026/06/30

---

This report from the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office on their audit of EdTech companies operating in schools shows that they leave a lot to be desired. For example, they write, "We found that edtech providers need to assess whether reusing children's information for their own purposes complies with the law, before they do so." Additionally, "We found that edtech providers need greater control and oversight of their sub-processors. They must ensure due diligence checks and school authorisation are in place before granting access to children's information." The case studies included in the full length section though not naming ed tech companies nonetheless shows how urgent some of the concerns are.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Why we’re asking readers to register
Rest of World, 2026/06/30

---

I was all in ten years ago when Rest of World came out. It would finally be an authentic source of international voices. And that's how it presented itself. Only later, when it was revealed to have been founded by Sophie Schmidt, daughter of former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, and Wendy Schmidt, did I realize what sort of trajectory we were really being taken along. Viewed through this new context (not 'lens') story selection became more suspect and motivation less clear. And now we've reached the inevitable point where Amercan commercialism trumps, if you will, the rest of world: the subscriptions are being required now, and it's only a matter of time before payment will be required. Then an exit.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Bluesky
• Read OLDaily as a LinkedIn Newsletter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed