Oral histories and engaged perspectives: In conversation with Rory McGreal #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78038 I have all the time in the world for Rory McGreal, a longtime proponent of open resources, learning technology, and of the right approach to life generally. This article filled in details about his background that I didn't know and helps round out my understanding of where he's coming from and what he believes.

Did tracking-based advertising just get blown up in Europe? #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78037 There are two items of note in this article. The first is a brief reaction, and eleven links to coverage, about the Market Court ruling in the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe case effectively blocking tracking-based advertising (or so interpreted here).

AI chatbots need more books to learn from. These libraries are opening their stacks #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78036 Well this should add another dimension to AI models. "Harvard’s newly released dataset, Institutional Books 1.0, contains more than 394 million scanned pages of paper.

"They want people who are not me": low socioeconomic status students' WIL experiences #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78035 Despite my parents' best efforts to civilize me, I did not easily blend into higher-class expectations when I attended university. There was always a divide between how I dressed, appeared, spoke and thought and the behaviours expected in (what might be called) professional environments. I especially felt this when I sat on university boards and committees.

The Tragedy of AI (and what to do about it) #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78033 Paul Stacey has written a comprehensive description of, on the one hand, the tragedy that is AI, and on the other hand, how we might come out of this with a "catharsis". I disagree with a lot of it, but that's not the point, since what he writes could be seen as echoing a lot of what a lot of other people have said, in order to set a stage.

Reddit sues Anthropic for allegedly not paying for training data #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78032 This is an interesting case on a couple of levels. The TLDR is that "Reddit is suing Anthropic for training on its site's data without a proper licensing, joining a litany of publishers with similar claims." But there are some differences here.

The Critical Thinking Matrix #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78031 This interesting table dates from 2015 and draws from Peter Facione's 1990 'cognitive skills' (p. 12 or 15) and Thomas Kuhn's 1977 account of epistemic values (as extracted in a 1-page paywalled article by Linda Elder and Richard Paul). And the inclusion of 'self-regulation' as an epistemic value is something I would want to think about a lot more.

Birdsnest #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78030 This is the stuff that really matters. We were at Petrie Island today and I discovered a Redwinged Blackbird nest in the reeds by accident. I didn't want to get too close, but I had the big lens with me. You have to look closely (full size image here) but in the sequence of three photos you can see the chicks beg for food, the mother feed them, and them sleeping. Circle of life..

The Claude 4 System Card is a Wild Read #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78029 The two items I cite here are a couple of weeks old, which in the world of AI amounts to ancient history, but it was important to take the time to get them right. They discuss the 'system promptes' used by the most recent version of Anthropic's AI model called Claude. The first page contains the actual system prompts for Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4.

How developing neurons simplify their search for a synaptic mate #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78028 As we know, the physical process of learning consists of the creation of networks of connected neurons (the resulting 'knowledge' is literally the 'connectome' that results). So it should matter a lot to educators how these connections specifically are generated. And no, 'instruction', mostly, has little to do with it.

The Era Of The Business Idiot #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78027 Reading this long post is probably way too much work for the people it describes, named here as the 'business idiots'. The fact that I did read an entire 13,000 word post in pursuit of a 100 word commentary is something business idiots don't understand. And that's Ed Zitron's point.

Leave to Achieve?: A new framework for universities to drive local social mobility #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78025 There's an important point lurking in this article. "Having a university - or, indeed, many universities - in your region doesn’t guarantee improved local social mobility," writes Dani Payne. "We must broaden how we assess universities’ social mobility impact.

Re: Try Out Perplexity AI Search in Firefox 139! #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78024 I don't have this yet but I'm eager to get it. Meanwhile, the predictable caterwauls of people who "didn't appreciate this being added to my search engine list without warning" are being heard. For those who don't want an AI search, they have a choice: don't use it. Meanwhile, if it helps fund Firefox and it performs a useful service, I'm for it..

Cancelling in-person Congress wounds humanities research #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78023 Let me preface this post by saying I have been super-privileged to be able to go to so many academic events around the world. But therein lies the exact problem with Congress (and similar events). Michael Holden writes, in defence of Congress, that "Congress isn’t just an event, it’s a community." Right. Exactly.

The Forge #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78022 According to the email announcement, this platform "enables instructors to design renewable, collaborative long-form assignments and gives students meaningful opportunities to produce public-facing, openly licensed work...

How Do You Build a Learner-Centered Ecosystem? #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78021 This article appears to be advertorial content for Education Reimagined (I can't tell from their web page whether they're a company, advocacy group, or something else) and while I agree with the core premise that education should be learner-centered, everything else seems to work against that.

Empower Your Community with Digital Badges #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78020 This of this as digital badges meets the fediverse. BadgeFed is "designed for communities to create and manage their own badge ecosystems with full autonomy." There's no single point of control. "Badge issuers maintain their own systems while staying connected." I haven't tried it yet but it seems like a natural for a decentralized learning ecosystem. Via Alan Levine..

Exploring AI’s Role in Education: A Balanced Perspective from Six Think Pieces #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78019 There's a bunch of stuff on AI and education collected into this one post. It begins with a set of responses to a UNESCO's call for think pieces (which sadly I didn't hear about until after it had passed), which are linked here: contributions are from Bryan Alexander, ​Helen Beetham, ​Doug Belshaw, ​Laura Hilliger, ​Ian O'Byrne, and ​Karen Louise Smith.

The Ten Warning Signs #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78018 Doc Searls references this article that is a bit over-the-top but not completely wrong. "The knowledge structure that has dominated everything for our entire lifetime - and for our parents and grandparents - is collapsing," writes Ted Gioia. There's an element of truth to this, but Gioia conflates widely disparate phenomena - the weird sort of scepticism expressed by Robert F.

Designing Inclusive Instruction with UDL and AI #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/78017 This shortish post arrives in the context of the author "using AI to help make the Canvas LMS more accessible" as well as "preparing our mini-conference, AI+OER Institute", which raises the question of "what AI’s role in UDL might look like." It makes sense to me. "UDL transforms what might once have been “accommodations” into routine options for all.