May 2024 – Learning Aloud

Writing to learn in collaboration with an AI tutor

I have been working my way through a couple of new and popular books that consider the importance and perils of AI and that contain at least significant commentary on AI in education. There is not a lot in these books that is based on the research literature I tend to find most influential, but the authors have sufficient experience and opportunities to offer some very credible insights. This is not a book report, but I want to credit a few ideas that encouraged my own exploration.

This time of the year, I often suggest some topics educators might explore over the summer while they have a little more time. With the attention AI has received in the past year and a half, I likely made a related recommendation last year at about this time. Reading these two books (citations at the end of this post) would be very useful if you spend time reading related to your profession. Perhaps you read in a different area. Hopefully. I can offer a few insights that will be sufficient to encourage your own exploration of AI tools.

Ethan Mollick’s book, Co-Intelligence, is different in that it focuses on applications and ways to think about AI capabilities. Mollick offers interesting ideas that sometimes run in opposition to traditional advice. For example, it is OK to interact with AI tools as if they were a person even though you know they are not. Asking questions and making requests as you would with another person is just a practical way to explore AI tools. Mollick also suggests that we stop looking for how to do it techniques for AI. Instead, he suggests we explore. If you have the time, try to use AI whenever there seems some possible value and see what happens. In other words, once you get past the basics of how to use a given tool, explore. Value and issues will be different for all of us so the only way to make decisions is to spend time. Again, for educators, the summer seems a great time to explore. Finally, understand that your present experiences will be with AI tools that are the least powerful they will ever be. If you find something interesting, but flawed in some way, just wait until you see what will come next.

There were some other suggestions about prompts I found useful. Perhaps the most concrete example is what was described as chain of thought prompting. AI tools will try to provide what you ask for, but it may be helpful to provide the sequence you want the tool to follow if a given process seems useful

Sal Kahn, the creator of Kahn Academy, offers thoughts on how AI will be helpful in education in his new book “Brave New Words”. Kahnmigo, the adaptation of AI as a tutor within the context of the other opportunities for learners and educators provided by Kahn and colleagues received a good deal of attention. An interesting theme seemed how this AI tool was prepared to assist, but not do for you (my interpretation).

One example, which Kahn uses to start his book, I found particularly interesting and I have attempted to use as the basis for the implementation I will describe in the comments that follow, describes a collaborative writing experience in which the AI tool and a student were assigned personas of two individuals writing collaboratively. The two personas took terms introducing portions of a story with the other writer finishing the section of the story the other persona had initiated. Two collaborative writers with one controlled by AI and the other by a student.

My version

Several of my posts have considered AI as a tutor and I have tried to demonstrate how existing AI tools can be used to implement various functions provided by a human tutor. This post has some similar arguments. Here, I describe an effort to create something similar to what Khan described in his account of collaborative writing, but I am proposing an approach more focused on the strategy of writing to learn. The core idea of writing to learn is that the cognitive processes involved in explaining something by writing require beneficial cognitive activities that would be less likely to occur in more passive study strategies. So, I have been attempting to write a prompt in which I try to create a version of the Kahnmigo collaborative story writing example applied as a writing to learn task.

Kahnmigo was just announced Kahnmigo will be a free AI tool for teachers subsidized by Microsoft. Perhaps it would have made sense to use one of the Kahnmigo tools to implement what I have been working on. I will leave it to others to make such efforts. I wanted to try to create a similar approach using the AI services I have already been working with and paying for.

What follows was developed using the paid version of ChatGPT using the most recently available version – 4o. I think the following prompt illustrates the chain of thought approach (Mollick) and is similar in approach to the Khan collaborative writing example.

Prompt: Obviously this is longer and more detailed than how many would request action from an AI tool. This prompt was entered into the ChatGPT accompanied by the textbook chapter as a file to upload.

Create an activity in which two students work together to write a document. You will represent a graduate student studying educational technology and I will represent an undergraduate student taking a course preparing teachers to use technology in K12 classrooms. This interaction will be based on information from the attached document. The graduate student will first identify and list significant topics from this document. Then the grad student will identify a topic for the collaborative writing project from this list and suggest an outline. The grad student will then write the introduction to this topic. The graduate student will next write the first couple of sentences about the first item from the outline and then ask the undergraduate to complete writing comments to complete the comments about this section of the outline. Do not include examples or applications in the introductory sentences and allow the undergraduate to provide comments on these topics. Wait for the undergraduate to add their additional content before continuing. After the undergrad submits their additions, offer feedback that evaluates what the undergraduate student has added. What the undergraduate has said should be identified and then how well it summarizes what was included in the material to be read should be presented. Limit feedback to what the undergraduate writes for this section without including information the outline suggested should be included in other sections. The graduate student should then ask the undergraduate student if they want to continue. Do not continue until a response of yes is submitted. If the undergraduate student responds “yes”, the graduate student should move to the next item from the outline and continue the same sequence of interactions until all items from the outline have been completed.

AI response:

Significant Topics from the Document

1. Cognitive System and Learning

2. Memory Stores (Short-Term and Long-Term Memory)

3. Working Memory Constraints

4. Cognitive Processes and Mental Tools

5. Metacognition and Executive Control

6. Higher Order Thinking Skills

7. Meaningful Learning and Constructivism

8. Reception vs. Discovery Learning

9. Modeling Cognitive Behaviors

10. Authentic Activities

11. Project-Based Learning

12. Role of Technology in Learning

Selected Topic for Collaborative Writing Project

Higher Order Thinking Skills

Suggested Outline

1. **Introduction**

– Definition of higher-order thinking skills

– Importance in the 21st-century education

2. **Problem-Solving**

– Description and components

– Importance in education

3. **Critical Thinking**

– Definition and key elements

– Role in evaluating information

4. **Creative Thinking**

– Explanation and examples

– Relevance in innovative problem-solving

5. **Integration and Application**

– How these skills interrelate

– Examples of application in real-world scenarios

Introduction

Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) encompass a range of cognitive processes that are essential for success in the 21st-century educational landscape. These skills go beyond basic memorization or recall of facts, engaging students in complex tasks such as analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and creation of new ideas. HOTS are critical in preparing students to navigate the vast amounts of information available today and to solve novel problems effectively.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is a foundational aspect of higher-order thinking skills. It involves identifying a problem, generating possible solutions, evaluating these solutions, and implementing the most effective one. In education, problem-solving skills enable students to tackle complex challenges and develop strategies that can be applied across various domains.

Your turn: Please add your comments about the importance of problem-solving in education and provide examples of how it can be incorporated into classroom activities.

Me – entered as a prompt:

The issue of whether or not problem-solving is domain specific has received a great deal of attention. Some content areas might be more directly focused on problem solving – e.g., coding, mathematics. If problem-solving is domain specific then the problem-solving skills developed in one area would not transfer to other areas in a positive way. Ths would suggest teachers in all areas should offer opportunities for problem-solving challenges related to what is studied in these areas.

AI: Feedback

Your addition about the domain specificity of problem-solving is excellent. It addresses a critical aspect of the debate on how problem-solving skills are best developed and applied. Your point about certain content areas, like coding and mathematics, being more directly focused on problem-solving is particularly insightful. Highlighting the importance of teachers in all subject areas providing problem-solving opportunities helps underline the necessity for a holistic approach in education. This aligns well with the document’s emphasis on the importance of developing these skills across various domains.

Would you like to continue to the next section on Critical Thinking?

Me: entered as prompt

Yes

AI:

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is another crucial component of higher-order thinking skills. It involves the ability to analyze information objectively and make reasoned judgments. Critical thinking requires students to engage in reflective and independent thinking, assess the validity and relevance of information, and form well-supported conclusions. This skill is vital in today’s information-rich world, where individuals must navigate a vast array of sources and discern credible information from misinformation.

Your turn: Please add your comments about the key elements of critical thinking and its role in evaluating information, particularly in an educational setting.

ETC:

This interaction continues according to the instructions in the prompt. ChatGPT has a method for sharing a chat with the public. Here is the link that should display the additional content AI and I generated (public access to chat).

Related comments: Here are some related observations related to my experience.

This interaction is developed on the fly. Redo the entire process and the elements of the interaction may all be different. The topics, the outline, the prompts, and even the way the content is formatted on the screen will be different. The prompt is similar to a program in that it specifies a sequence of operations you want to the AI to follow. However, unlike a coded program, here you are asking for a series to be created rather than a series of actions to follow in a specific manner. The process of generation (it is generative AI) will work a little differently each time it is implemented.
I found the execution of the prompt varied with the AI tool I used. ChatGPT worked the best. I thought that NotebookLM would be an ideal way to implement this writing-to-learn task because of the way in which you can upload content to be the target of interactions with the AI. It is my opinion that the way Notebooklm works is easier to understand and explain. However, after an extended series of attempts to rework the prompt, I was unable to get the required sequence to work. NotebookLM would provide feedback in response to the first item from the outline and then stop.
This post is not an attempt to promote the specific prompt I wrote. I certainly don’t care if others try it with information sources of their choosing. This was an exploration for me and it is my hope others may continue in a similar way using my initial effort as a guide.
One final point I think is important. The approach I am describing here is using the interactive capabilities of AI to focus on an information source I trust. I am not asking AI to use its generic information base to provide the content to be learned. The nature of the interaction may not be perfect, but it primarily focuses on a vetted source and assumes learners have read this source.

Resources:

Khan, S. (2024). Brave new words: How AI will revolutionize education (and why that’s a good thing). Viking.

Mollick, E. (2024). Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI. Penguin

Tapping into the crowd mind with chat

I recently read Paul’s “The extended mind” which deals with how we can harness resources external to our own minds and our own cognitive activities to deal with the abundance and complexity of information we must process daily. One value of a book such as this is that it greatly expands the variety of external resources that can influence our thinking. This variety aside, my main focus continues to emphasize technology (sometimes what some now call a second brain) and collaborations of various types (e.g., peers, experts, those with similar interests we have never met). I offer this brief overview as a recommendation for those who might find this book a useful investment of reading time.

I will focus this post on several social experiences that often are denigrated?—?meetings and lectures (especially online presentations). Without defending these social experiences, I will offer some insights that may increase the productivity of these social gatherings. In both cases, the key idea concerns how to take better advantage of the collective knowledge available in the real-time group setting.

Meetings

The suggestion I discovered here is straightforward so I can describe it quickly. Why are meetings the butt of so many jokes somehow targeting the time wasted and inefficiency of such gatherings? I spent a good part of my years as a college faculty member and department chair. The advantage of meetings is not the distribution of information as this could be accomplished by the distribution of a memo or email. The advantage is the opportunity to tap into uniquely held knowledge and collectively problem-solve. However, patterns of communication often work against these potential advantages. Too often, only a few or even one individual speaks. Paul suggests that this is due to the way issues are presented. When a group leader begins by spending too much time presenting his or her perspective on an issue, few participants tend to respond to add their insights. Paul proposes that the leader begin by asking “what do you think about XXX” and waiting to offer a personal opinion. He even recommends that individuals write their positions on note cards to distribute input more broadly. There must be a digital version of this suggestion.

The challenge of eliciting what individuals know is key to many of the strategies Paul proposes in benefiting from collaboration. Perhaps a better way to describe the message might be collaborative efforts are often actually not that collaborative.

The lecture experience

It is common to diss lectures. It is not that I don’t understand some of the issues. Why is it educator/teacher presentations are singled out for criticism? Why is the reading of a book different from participating in a lecture? Both approaches focus on the communication of information that is to be processed by individuals. Lectures probably offer greater opportunity for collaboration because individuals are in the same location and perhaps more importantly they are present at the same time. Yes, there is such a thing as collaborative reading and that also interests me, but “social presence” is more real in a physical or virtual group experience. Sure, tutoring is superior, but we must recognize practical realities in information exposure and do what is reasonable to take advantage of the social setting. While not a part of most critical reactions, exposure to information is not the end of the learning process, but it seems obvious exposure is a necessary component.

I emphasize thinking opportunities in my general approach to formal and informal learning experiences. How might thinking opportunities be encouraged when and in ways that improve the efficiency and success of learning? The effort I have invested in evaluating and promoting layering activities is based on this perspective. Layering provides a way to embed learning opportunities in what I call the exposure phase of learning. Adding questions on top of reading content or within video presentations makes a good example. When used in this way, questions are a way to add thinking opportunities during a stage of learning that is often passive unless a learner initiates such behaviors without external prompts.

Paul takes a similar perspective with an emphasis on collaboration. Many educators may recognize an example of this emphasis in the active learning method in which a lecturer pauses during a presentation to throw out a discussion challenge to small groups of students typically sitting around tables rather than the lines of chairs in a typical lecture hall. The groups deal with this challenge and may be asked to report a summary or conclusion. Think-pair-share activities are a variant of this approach. With many lecture settings, a group is there, but there is no collaboration.

The pandemic brought an educational emphasis on virtual learning typified by Zoom sessions. I think it fair to say the typical experience has received a great deal of criticism. I had retired from teaching so aside from using ZOOM in other ways I was not teaching online during that time. My experience with ZOOM has involved a book club I join each week and graduate classes in instructional design. The ZOOM classes involved students who found it impractical to come to campus so I was teaching both face-to-face and online simultaneously which comes with its own set of challenges. My personal experience using chat while involved online has been limited to the book club.

There are plenty of suggestions for the use of chat to create active learning experiences while working with students in a synchronous setting. These strategies involve an assortment of proposed benefits. My focus is narrower and addresses the importance of tapping individual experiences of a group members to embellish presentations of the instructor. The intent of this recommendation is to encourage students to connect concepts being presented with personal experiences. Such connections are essential in encouraging transfer?—?making what is learned useful in a more general way. Students can make such connections without external assistance, but the thinking required to make such connections requires that relevant experiences come to mind and learners have the motivation to commit to reflection. Questions and prompts are a way to encourage this effort and a chat system provides the opportunity.

It is easy to imagine how such prompts could work with ZOOM. The chat function extends and expands the impact of asking a question of the group. So, imagine I am presenting the concept of working memory overload. I may think this concept offers important applied insights, but understanding an explanation of the concept does not lead to learner associations. Asking the group to suggest examples typically generates useful responses from the usual participants, but it is often the nonparticipants who are most in need of external supports. Here is the value of chat. All can participate somewhat anonymously with less pressure and not need to be the first to respond. Chat has a very important added benefit. You get to tap into the knowledge of peers. An immediate response might identify the problem of distracted driving which you might not have thought of, but which you recognize and see the connection. Someone else mentions trying to use Instant Messenger in class reducing the attention students pay to what else is happening in class. As the responses roll in, each learner has the opportunity to consider connections both familiar and unfamiliar. Some may not be appropriate examples, but even considering such offerings allows extended thinking about the concept in question.

I do recognize that ZOOM chat offers private messages which obviously provides the potential for nonproductive distraction. So do the side conversations students in a face-to-face classroom might be having with the students sitting next to them.

ZOOM does not have a provision for blocking the responses of others until a personal response has been submitted. Some instructors recognizing this issue have proposed a “Ready, Set, Go” strategy. If the type of activity I have just described is a frequent technique and a pattern of participation has been identified, students understand that a question or request will be made and then students are to consider a response, but not enter it until given the signal. Time for thinking is essential if thinking is expected. Time to submit a response and time to contemplate the responses generated by peers must be allowed. The instructor might also use the post-response delay to identify some of the examples for the group.

Using chat as part of online instruction may sound like the online equivalent of classroom response systems that seemed popular a decade or so ago, but now no longer receive as much attention. This is true. Such systems have a variety of hypothetical benefits. This post has focused on one benefit?—?How to tap into uniquely held knowledge in an online group setting?

Resource

Paul, A. M. (2021). The extended mind: The power of thinking outside the brain. Eamon Dolan Books.

Adolescent mental health, phones, and schools

I recently listened to Kara Swisher interviewing Jonathan Haidt the author of The Anxious Generation. I checked on this book and it is #1 on the New York Times nonfiction list this week. I provide a comment on the ranking because the ranking would indicate the book was receiving a great deal of attention from the general public and the message must have substantial appeal.

Briefly stated, the book argues that rising anxiety and mental health issues of adolescents are significantly determined by overparenting and the amount of time spent, especially by adolescent females, on social media. I have personal comments related to this issue particularly Haidt’s recommendation for phone use in schools, but I would encourage you to listen to the interview because Swisher pushes back and the interchange offers some useful insights into whether cellphone activity is responsible for an increase in mental health problems.

Certain facts are well established: a) adolescents spend a great amount of time on their cellphones since the introduction and wide purchase of iPhones (this specific event figures heavily in some arguments), and b) beginning before the Covid shutdown and continuing to the present adolescents, particularly females, have shown an increase in mental health issues. The big question, the focus of Haidt’s book, and lots of research (citations will be included) is whether there is a causal relationship such that a significant proportion of the increase in mental health problems can be accounted for by the great amount of online activity mostly using personal phones.

The amount of time adolescents and many of the rest of us spend online is staggering. PEW has done regular surveys of teens to quantify their online activity and provides the following data points.

YouTube (95%), TikTok (67%), Instagram (61%), and Snapchat (60%) are among the most popular social media platforms used by teens.
On average, teens spend 1.9 hours daily on YouTube and 1.5 hours on TikTok, with males spending more time on YouTube and females on TikTok.
Around 35% of teens say they use at least one of the top social media platforms “almost constantly”.

As an aside, one of the “quality studies” Haidt mentioned to support his claim in the Swisher interview involved adult use of Facebook (Allcott et al. 2022). Swisher asked for examples of manipulative research showing that phone use and depression were related and Haidt provided this study. PEW doesn’t have much to say about Facebook activity among adolescents because the level has dropped so low. Haidt acknowledges that few quality studies exist with adolescents because doing manipulative research before the age of 18 is very difficult. This is why so many researchers use college students – they are available and they can participate.

Adolescent mental health issues have increased year by year with a big jump during the COVID years. Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention tracking depression provide a good example of this trend. The following chart was taken from this report.

So, facts demonstrating adolescents’ heavy use of phones and increasing mental health issues are solid. Now, are these two variables related and how? All I can say is that the research or perhaps more accurately the interpretation of the research is messy. I understand that parents, educators, and policymakers just want the researchers to provide a clear summary, but this just isn’t happening.

You have books such as Haidt’s (I would also recommend Jean Twenge) and medical experts (this summary of research from the National Library of Medicine) offering analyses of the research that come across placing a heavy burden of blame on cell phone use. I can also recommend scholarly meta-analyses of the phone-mental health students to reach just the opposite decision (e.g., Ferguson, et al. 2022). I admit summaries of many of the same research publications that come to very different conclusions are challenging. I read and comment about this type of controversy in other areas (should notes by taken on paper or laptop, are books better understood on paper or from the screen) in which I have read most of the relevant studies and can offer a personal opinion. I am not a clinical psychologist and in this case, I do not want to go on the record telling parents or teachers what they should do about kids and cell phones. If you are interested, I hope I have offered some of the resources you can use to get started.

What I do want to talk about

Getting back to Haidt’s book. Haidt makes several specific recommendations based on his conclusion that cellphone use is damaging.

Schools should be phone free zones
Children should first be provided a phone specialized for communication and not Internet use (e.g., a flip phone)
Adolescents should not have access to a smartphone until high school (but see #1)
Access to social media should be changed from 13 to 16.

Some additional Haidt comments on schools as phone free zones are:

The agreement of schools to ban smartphones is important because a total ban applies to all students and avoids the problem of some students having access and some students not.
School policies such as having access only during class or having phones in backpacks or lockers don’t work.

I do not support classroom bans on smartphones. In part my logic is based in research experience I do have and this work involved cyberbullying. A couple of things I remember from the research are that cyberbullying very rarely originated using school equipment (cell phones were less of an issue at the time), but the targets and originators of cyberbullying typically involved students from the same schools. For this second reason, most assumed schools were in the best position to address the problem. The key point here is that bullying actions originated outside of schools (homes and homes of friends), but schools were in the best position to provide “educational remedies”. Some aspects of the cellphone and mental health issues are similar.

I see classroom use of cellphones as a convenience not that different from the use of laptops, chromebooks, or tablets. All devices could be used to access damaging or useful experiences. However, students would be in a supervised environment, unlike the situation in the home or other locations outside of the classroom. In allowing the use of phones (or other digital devices) teachers do not only monitor use, but have opportunities to focus on productive uses AND explore the damaging issues in a group setting.

You may not agree with my position, but I think the logic is sound and recognizes that phone use is far more frequently unsupervised outside of classrooms than within classrooms. It is easy to target schools and ignore the reality that parents are more likely to ignore what their children are doing on their phones for much longer periods of time. Experiences within schools are not the core source of problems that may exist.

The importance of a whole group experience also has two sides. Yes, if no student can use a phone in school then there are no haves and have nots. Nothing about this solves what happens outside of classrooms. Addressing the issues of what students experience online is going to be more consistent and probably effective when all students experience issues as part of a formal curriculum.

So, I don’t think banning phones in classrooms solves a mental health problem. I think the science on mental health and adolescence is still unclear. I disagree with what Haidt said in response to Swisher’s probing. His position eventually came down to “if it isn’t cellphones then what is it”. When there are positives and negatives associated with an activity (perhaps causally and perhaps not), simple solutions rarely produce a substantial advantage.

References:

Links are provided when possible. Other sources are cited below.

Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2020). The welfare effects of social media. American Economic Review, 110(3), 629-676.

Ferguson, C. J., Kaye, L. K., Branley-Bell, D., Markey, P., Ivory, J. D., Klisanin, D., Elson, M., Smyth, M., Hogg, J. L., McDonnell, D., Nichols, D., Siddiqui, S., Gregerson, M., & Wilson, J. (2022). Like this meta-analysis: Screen media and mental health. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 53(2), 205–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/pro0000426

Solving the three party online content problem: Party rights and responsibilities

I want to offer an analysis of what I think the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved in producing, sharing, and consuming online content should be. The parties that make up this system seem obvious. What I propose is that we consider the rights and responsibilities of these three parties more carefully.

Content creators: Whether it is text, images, or videos delivered as part of a blog or social media site, content is present because someone created it. I suppose I now have to amend this claim to add “unless it was created by AI”. I created this post. I assume you have created content as well.

Content consumers: Those who view or listen to online content are consumers of that content.

Infrastructure Providers: Infrastructure providers provide the bridge between content creators and content consumers. Providers offer hosting services that accept input from creators and provide it to consumers. Infrastructure providers would include companies such as Google (Blogger), Facebook, X, Medium, Substack, companies that rent hosting services to creators (I use Bluehost), etc.

The identification of these three interconnected parties seems straightforward. Now, what about rights and responsibilities? I think of rights and responsibilities as related to the flow of information. A party either accepts the conditions established earlier in the flow or refuses to participate. A lack of participation may encourage the parties already involved to modify their expectations. When describing the rights and responsibilities among these parties, what I propose here is what I consider ethical rather than what is possible. There are ways around nonparticipation as the only option. I regard these approaches as unethical.

Content creators and infrastructure providers have early roles in this flow. At this point, what are the expectations of the infrastructure provider? What are the conditions to be assumed by the content creator? Does the infrastructure provider assume content presentation is their exclusive opportunity or can the content creator offer the same content under other conditions by other providers? Does the provider assume any editorial control beyond the rejection of obvious inappropriate material? Does the infrastructure provider pick and choose what they will accept? Revenue opportunities must be clearly understood. Are decisions made independently (e.g., ads can be added, subscription fees charged) or are such decisions collaborative and are the parties subject to a specified method for sharing any income generated?

As for the infrastructure provider and the consumer, the flow of content must be based on transparency. The ethical options for the consumer are to use the content as provided or not, but this must be an informed decision. In situations in which personal information is being collected to compensate the provider and the content creator, the consumer must understand what information is being collected and for what purpose. An important distinction here is between the use of information to target ads that directly support the infrastructure provider and content creator and the collection of information for a secondary purpose (e.g., third party ads that collect information that is used by or sold to other parties not associated with the exchange between the consumer and the infrastructure provider). Consumers should have a way to determine if either or both methods for collecting their information are being used.

The content creator and the consumer have a similar relationship. If the content requires a subscription, it is obvious what the consumer is expected to provide in compensation for the content. Including ads to generate revenue is murkier. I don’t accept that the consumer has a right to block an ad as both the infrastructure provider and the content creator have a right to compensation for content that is being consumed.

Are arrangements that work available?

The only arrangements that work in satisfying what I consider the rights and responsibilities of all parties are subscription services (e.g., Substack, Medium). It is clear what all parties contribute and get with subscription services.

I do think ad-supported system can work unless purposefully misused. Ad revenue used to work in other industries (television), but cable successfully challenged this approach by offering subscription content. In that case, consumers wanted more than a system that worked at one level. but did not provide enough.

The example I would offer to support a better ad-based approach is Brave. Brave allows content creators to sign up to receive compensation when content consumers using Brave view ad-supported content from these providers. When consumers make this commitment, they can receive compensation from companies using Brave to display ads. Yes, I said consumers receive compensation for viewing ads. Brave then provides a way those receiving this revenue can compensate the content creators. Brave takes a cut when users make this commitment.

The Brave system works when content creators are paying to share their content. Then, if consumers accept ads (they can use the system to just block ads) and if these consumers then share revenue generated with content creators, the system works. So, I pay Bluehost to provide infrastructure for sharing my blog. I have enrolled my blog with Brave. If consumers make use of Brave and use the revenue they receive for viewing ads to compensate content creators, then I should receive compensation based on how frequently my content is viewed.

I like this system as an example of what is possible. I am also realistic and will indicate that I spend far more to rent the infrastructure I use to share content than I receive from the Brave system. Part of my deficit is my responsibility. Whether readers visit my content or not is not the responsibility of the infrastructure I rent or Brave. However, I also cannot control whether a content consumer uses the Brave browser and that part of the system is not my responsibility. This is what I mean by a system that potentially address what all contribute and receive from a system.

Those readers not using Brave see Google ads rather than Brave ads on my blog.

Here is an earlier post I wrote about the Brave environment

Summary

I think there are long-term realities that will control the online experience related to how the parties involved are compensated. There are legitimate concerns related to the collection of personal information to target ads and there are legitimate concerns for how costs of operation and the compensation of content creators will be covered. Subscription-based services are one solution. This seems to be what is happening with television and more and more with online content. I think a different ad-based approach is also possible. This post attempted to offer an analysis of the factors that are responsible for the pressures for change.