Technolandy

Day 177 (of 2025/26) Three EdNews stories you may have missed: Canada going for a social media ban for those under 16 and energy drinks!; Online “Harms” Bill (thanks @IRPlawyer ); chatbots; ugh – handwriting as the apex in communicating learning? For many, might as well make it an interpretive dance as your ‘final’…

1. Canada is proposing a social media ban for those under 16… https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/how-will-canada-restrict-kids-access-to-social-media-9.7230911 some students have unique perspectives – https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/how-social-media-companies-view-youth-bans-and-what-theyre-doing-to-protect-kids/ – though one ‘reason why’ is interesting as ‘… when you’re this age, you’re really impressionable to things you see online…’ so does that mean we should also be more of a tyranny when it comes to TV/Streaming… books and apps like Libby…?
   1. I do like the idea of ‘teen accounts’ (since currently the education system seems unwilling to take on this communication medium and teach a/effective use of it and hoping that a set birthday will magically come with the gift os somehow knowing the best ways to work with the media and not have it be overwhelming (sorry – that sound was my eyes rolling…) 
   2. I’m intrigued by some of the upcoming features as highlighted at Apples WDDC that give parents a lot more ‘viewing privileges’ on what happens on their childs screens… 
   3. A year in and Australia’s under-16 social media ban is struggling with widespread circumvention and enforcement issues. Is this meant to be like rules/laws for bicycle helmets? Makes sense, but wow do we see a lot of people ignoring it – and decreasing enforcement of the law?
   4. Curious about the charter of rights and freedoms and communication implications… gonna be interesting especially with…
   5. Also curious about carding people for buying energy drinks now… especially in an era with self checkouts being more common… https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-legislature-new-bills-9.7231667
2. Will Online Harms Bill hack our privacy in the wrong way? Thanks Kyla Lee @IRPLawyer: https://kylaleelawyer.medium.com/more-than-a-kids-ban-what-canada-s-online-harms-bill-could-mean-for-criminal-liability-and-your-221d3e801637 both in terms of what does Digital ID ‘mean’ – as I have mentioned in explaining the very narrow differences between Utopias and Dystopias – are we okay with algorithms deciding what we can and cannot purchase (for our own health) and surge pricing us based on our social credit (didn’t pick up that piece of garbage, your gas is gonna cost you an extra 10 cents per litre) … which is why watching this with the charter of rights and freedoms… targeting students may impact a lot more than “intended”… as in law, interpretation is often more important than intention.
3. Interesting pushback on chatbots (a big or feature depending on how you look at it with any OS environment. Though copilot is not the one to worry about (I still liken it to Clippy at the start of the new millennium… it’s there… what else can we use and talk about?) https://x.com/ctvnewsvi/status/2064845284501332125?s=46&t=1dUfyS3Gs8vfKZM2pkk0pQ
4. As seen in many areas, pushback on tech often makes some yearn for the crappy days where the focus was not on the content learned, but neatness and legibility – https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/op-eds/opinion-why-i-am-returning-to-handwritten-in-class-essays/ With the reminder that if we are promoting that ‘unedited, single-write formats of writing’ are the ‘only’ way to show your learning… you might as well shift to having students perform an interpretive dance to communicate what they know. I know people are mad because AI is making things much more convenient than when we actually had to copy from a physical book, writing/typing it word for word ~ I mean, synthesizing the information and putting it into our own words (often changing the order) but then the new question: who’s problem is it if the requested written responses (I’m assuming also with time constraints) makes things a bit more… like this: