It's time to discuss the problem with 'owning your own development' #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74939 This post takes its cue from a report from McKinsey. The report is worth a look; briefly, it says retention and attrition are most influenced by pay, meaningful work, flexibility, and development opportunities. This article focuses on the last, saying that companies that support 'own your own development' are not succeeding in reducing attrition.

China and Open Access #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74937 The Scholarly Kitchen reports on the International Association of STM Publishers and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) released a report on Open Access Publishing in China. As the article notes, the report (103 page PDF) is openly available in both English and Chinese.

Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Five: Open Textbooks Saving Students Millions of Dollars - Michael Geist #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74936 The utility of this article is that it provides a good overview of some of the agencies supporting OER across Canada.

I Will Dropkick You If You Use That Spreadsheet #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74935 I'm afraid I had to edit the title, and I pass on this link with a  language warning, because some people have not yet learned that such language simply alienates a large percentage of their readers. If you can get past the casual swearing that makes the writer sound like an entitled juvenile, there's a good point in there. "Just put the spreadsheet down and we can work with databases.

The Problem is Not the AI #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74934 Now this is good advice on how to teach writing: "Teaching writing means a series of assignments that build on each other, that involve brainstorming and prewriting activities, and that involve activities like peer reviews, discussions of revision, reflection from students on the process, and so forth. I require students in my first year comp/rhet classes to 'show their work'. And yes, this would make the assignment AI-proof.

Don't worry about AI breaking out of its box - worry about us breaking in #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74933 This article focuses on the dangers of people manipulating an AI system to produce biased or worse results. Compounding this is the possibility that the interference may never be detected. "The worst human impulses will find plenty of uses for generative AI...

About the Mastodon pilot #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74932 This describes a pilot project where the partners in Dutch universities and institutions are "jointly exploring Mastodon as an open source platform for education and research in the Netherlands." There's not a lot on the site just yet, but it does outline the project.

The Future of Human Agency #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74931 You'll find my comments along with those of some 500 other people in this Pew Report (173 page PDF). "Experts are split about how much control people will retain over essential decision-making as digital systems and AI spread. They agree that powerful corporate and government authorities will expand the role of AI in people’s daily lives in useful ways.

How colleges are failing our students #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74930 If it were indeed true that students are not learning analytical skills, then this would indeed be a problem. But I would need more evidence than the 2019 study of employer opinions cited by the author. I'd want a more comprehensive account of analytical skills than the list provided here (consider context, consider alternative explanations, weigh evidence, examine implications).

A Forward-Looking Theory of Content #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74928 In the 1990s I studied the concept of mental content and especially Dretske's theory, which is discussed in this article. I came to the conclusion that mental content doesn't exist, which put me at odds not only with Dretske and most commentators at the time but also my instructors, colleagues and strangers walking down the street.

Memorable Feedback: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology in Encoding #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74929 I don't agree at all with the theory presented in this article, but you'll see it a lot in discussions of technology design.

"if boredom should prevail": A Few Thoughts on Student Engagement #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74927 This is an article that resonates in light of the remarks from Tony Bates on motivation last week, but at the same time it feels like the author is struggling to find a point in the light of a dilemma that can't really be solved.

Section 230 Is a Load-Bearing Wall - Is It Coming Down? #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74926 A U.S. law known as Section 230 is currently being challenged in response to disputes about moderation on social media sites. It's popularly referred to as "the twenty-six words that created the internet," though I think this gives it too much credit.

Why Justin Trudeau is Wrong About Bill C-18 and Google's Response to Mandated Payments for Links #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74925 I agree with Michael Geist here. It is not the case that Google is "preventing access" by removing links to Canadian news organizations. "Google does not have the power to prevent anyone from accessing third party websites." Indeed, it makes it clear that search is a service offered by Google to news publishers.

Student motivation and online learning #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74924 I quite like this take from Tony Bates: "The false assumption is that students who have opted for an online course need motivating to learn. At least where students have freely chosen to take an online course, they usually come highly motivated to learn...

The Future of Service Mesh Is Networking #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74923 This is another really interesting and deeply technological article from InfoQ. Here's the story in a relatively nontechnical nutshell: when it just runs on one machine, an application integrates a variety of services (for example, audio input, database access, etc.) but when it runs in a cloud environment, the program may access these services from across the network.

How learning analytics can finally deliver on its promise #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74922 The first question I had when I looked that article was: what exactly is the promise of learning analytics? It seems to be something like this: "Learning analytics means using student lifecycle data to understand student engagement.

Towards Transformative Socioemotional Learning | Dr. Ian O'Byrne #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74921 This is a set of presentation materials for a session titled Teaching in a Post-TruthSociety: Empowering students as they negotiate digital literacy, identity, and socioemotional learning. Some of the stuff goes over very familiar ground (TPACK, SAML) while there were some things that interested me.

Cleaning sample data in standardized way | #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74919 This is the third in a set of informative articles on data cleaning: part 1 Data cleaning for data sharing; part 2 Creating a data cleaning workflow; part 3 Cleaning sample data in standardized way. Data cleaning is an important step in the development of artificial intelligence applications, and how you do it can impact the quality of the models that result. Via Data Science Weekly.
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The 2023 MAD (Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & Data) Landscape #oldaily https://www.downes.ca/post/74918 Found listed in an extra-good issue of Data Science Weekly, this website makes it clear just how large and complex the landscape has become. "The last few months saw the unmistakable, exponential acceleration of Generative AI, with arguably the formation of a new mini-bubble.