How To Get Hired During the AI Apocalypse — from kathleendelaski.substack.com by Kathleen deLaski
And other discussions to have with your kids on the way to college graduation

A less temporary, more existential threat to the four year degree: AI could hollow out the entry level job market for knowledge workers (i.e. new college grads). And if 56% of families were saying college “wasn’t worth it” in 2023,(WSJ), what will that number look like in 2026 or beyond? The one of my kids who went to college ended up working in a bike shop for a year-ish after graduation. No regrets, but it came as a shock to them that they weren’t more employable with their neuroscience degree.

A colleague provided a great example: Her son, newly graduated, went for a job interview as an entry level writer last month and he was asked, as a test, to produce a story with AI and then use that story to write a better one by himself. He would presumably be judged on his ability to prompt AI and then improve upon its product. Is that learning how to DO? I think so. It’s using AI tools to accomplish a workplace task.


Also relevant in terms of the job search, see the following gifted article:

‘We Are the Most Rejected Generation’ — from nytimes.com by David Brooks; gifted article
David talks admissions rates for selective colleges, ultra-hard to get summer internships, a tough entry into student clubs, and the job market.

Things get even worse when students leave school and enter the job market. They enter what I’ve come to think of as the seventh circle of Indeed hell. Applying for jobs online is easy, so you have millions of people sending hundreds of applications each into the great miasma of the internet, and God knows which impersonal algorithm is reading them. I keep hearing and reading stories about young people who applied to 400 jobs and got rejected by all of them.

It seems we’ve created a vast multilayered system that evaluates the worth of millions of young adults and, most of the time, tells them they are not up to snuff.

Many administrators and faculty members I’ve spoken to are mystified that students would create such an unforgiving set of status competitions. But the world of competitive exclusion is the world they know, so of course they are going to replicate it. 

And in this column I’m not even trying to cover the rejections experienced by the 94 percent of American students who don’t go to elite schools and don’t apply for internships at Goldman Sachs. By middle school, the system has told them that because they don’t do well on academic tests, they are not smart, not winners. That’s among the most brutal rejections our society has to offer.


Fiverr CEO explains alarming message to workers about AI — from iblnews.org
Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman recently warned his employees about the impact of artificial intelligence on their jobs.

The Great Career Reinvention, and How Workers Can Keep Up — from workshift.org by Michael Rosenbaum

A wide range of roles can or will quickly be replaced with AI, including inside sales representatives, customer service representatives, junior lawyers, junior accountants, and physicians whose focus is diagnosis.


Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath — from axios.com by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen

Dario Amodei — CEO of Anthropic, one of the world’s most powerful creators of artificial intelligence — has a blunt, scary warning for the U.S. government and all of us:

  • AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.
  • Amodei said AI companies and government need to stop “sugar-coating” what’s coming: the possible mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs.

Why it matters: Amodei, 42, who’s building the very technology he predicts could reorder society overnight, said he’s speaking out in hopes of jarring government and fellow AI companies into preparing — and protecting — the nation.

 

In ‘The Quilters,’ Men in a Missouri Prison Sew Gifts for Children — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert

In a room bigger than most at South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri, a group of men has volunteered for a creative project that stretches beyond prison walls. For about 40 hours each week, they cut and stitch quilts for children in foster care or with disabilities, sewing vibrant, patterned patchworks and finding joy and camaraderie while doing so.

 


Excerpt:

 

Boys Are Struggling in School. What Can Be Done? — from edweek.org by Rick Hess
Scholar Richard Reeves says it’s time to take a hard look at gender equity

Rick: What kinds of strategies do you think would help?

Richard: In education, we should expand the use of male-friendly teaching methods, such as more hands-on and active learning approaches. We should also consider redshirting boys—starting them in school a year later—to account for developmental differences between boys and girls. We should also introduce more male mentors and role models in schools, particularly in elementary education, where male teachers are scarce. In the workforce, apprenticeship and vocational training programs need to be expanded to create pathways into stable employment for young men who may not pursue a four-year degree. Career counseling should also emphasize diverse pathways to ensure that boys who may not thrive in a traditional academic setting still have opportunities for success. Additionally, fatherhood policies should recognize the importance of male engagement in family life, supporting fathers in their role as caregivers and providers.


While on the topic of K12 education, also see:

How Electives Help All Students Succeed — from edutopia.org by Miriam Plotinsky
Giving students a choice of electives increases engagement and allows them to develop skills outside of core academic subjects.

I recently conducted a student focus group on the topic of school attendance. One of the participants, a high school junior who admitted to being frequently late or absent, explained why she still came to school: “I never want to miss Drama. My teacher is awesome. Her class is the reason I show up every day.” As the rest of the focus group chimed in with similar thoughts, I reflected on the power that elective courses hold for students of all ages.

These courses, from jazz band to yoga, cement students’ sense of self not just in their primary and secondary years, but also in their journey toward adulthood. In these tight economic times, schools or districts often slash electives to save money on staffing, which is highly detrimental to student success. Instead, not only should budget cuts be made elsewhere, but also elective offerings should increase to heighten student choice and well-being.


Learners need: More voice. More choice. More control. -- this image was created by Daniel Christian

 

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

 

From AI avatars to virtual reality crime scenes, courts are grappling with AI in the justice system — from whec.com by Rio Yamat
The family of a man who died in a road rage shooting incident played a video showing a likeness of him generated with AI.

Defense attorney Jason Lamm won’t be handling the appeal, but said a higher court will likely be asked to weigh in on whether the judge improperly relied on the AI-generated video when sentencing his client.

Courts across the country have been grappling with how to best handle the increasing presence of artificial intelligence in the courtroom. Even before Pelkey’s family used AI to give him a voice for the victim impact portion — believed to be a first in U.S. courts — the Arizona Supreme Court created a committee that researches best AI practices.

In Florida, a judge recently donned a virtual reality headset meant to show the point of view of a defendant who said he was acting in self-defense when he waved a loaded gun at wedding guests. The judge rejected his claim.

Experts say using AI in courtrooms raises legal and ethical concerns, especially if it’s used effectively to sway a judge or jury. And they argue it could have a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities facing prosecution.

AI can be very persuasive, Harris said, and scholars are studying the intersection of the technology and manipulation tactics.


Poll: 1 in 3 would let an AI lawyer represent them — from robinai.com

April 29 2025: A major new survey, from legal intelligence platform Robin AI, has revealed a severe lack of trust in the legal industry. Just 1 in 10 people across the US and UK said they fully trust law firms, but while increasingly open to AI-powered legal services, few are ready to let technology take over without human oversight.

Perspectus Global polled a representative sample of 4,152 people across both markets. An overwhelming majority see Big Law as “expensive”, “elitist” or “intimidating” but only 30% of respondents would allow a robot lawyer — that is, an AI system acting alone — to represent them in a legal matter. On average, respondents said they would need a 57% discount to choose an AI lawyer over a human.

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Harvey Made Legal Tech Cool Enough for Silicon Valley to Care Again — from businessinsider.com by Melia Russell

In just three years, the company, which builds software for analyzing and drafting documents using legally tuned large language models, has drawn blue-chip law firms, Silicon Valley investors, and a stampede of rivals hoping to catch its momentum. Harvey has raised over half a billion dollars in capital, sending its valuation soaring to $3 billion.

 

Sleep No More: Live experiential learning that’s more like an escape room than a classroom — from chieflearningofficer.com by Clare S. Dygert
The time for passive learning is over. Your learners are ready for experiences that resonate, challenge and transform, and they’re looking to you to provide them.

Live experiential learning: ILT as usual?
Is live experiential learning, or LEL, just a surface rebranding of traditional instructor-led training?

Absolutely not. In fact, LEL is as distant from traditional ILT as Sleep No More is from traditional theater.

Instead of sitting politely, nodding along — or nodding off — as an instructor carefully reads aloud from their slide deck, learners roam about, get their hands dirty and focus on the things that matter to them (yes, even if that means they don’t get to every topic or encounter them in the way we would have liked).

In short, LEL has the ability to shake up your learners, in a good way. And when they realize that this isn’t learning as usual, they land in a mental space that makes them more curious and receptive.

So what does this look like, really? And how does it work?


Improving team performance with collaborative problem-solving — from chieflearningofficer.com by
Exercises for improving the way your team communicates, trusts each other, solves problems and makes decisions.

As learning and development leaders, you can create fun, engaging and challenging exercises for teams that develop these important characteristics and improve numerous markers of team efficacy. Exercises to improve team performance should be focused on four themes: negotiation, agreement, coordination and output. In this article, I’ll discuss each type of exercise briefly, then how I use a framework to create challenging and engaging exercises to improve collaborative problem-solving and performance on my teams.


Microlearning Secrets from Marketers: How to Make Learning Stick — from learningguild.com by Danielle Wallace

Marketers have spent billions of dollars testing what works—and their insights can revolutionize microlearning. By borrowing from marketing’s best strategies, L&D professionals can create microlearning that cuts through the noise, engages learners, and drives real behavior change.

If marketing can make people remember a product, L&D can make people remember a skill.

 

In many traditional school buildings, the design sends an unspoken message: “Sit down. Follow instructions. Stay within the lines.”

But imagine what students might believe about themselves and the world if their learning environment said instead:

“You belong here. Your ideas matter. Explore freely.”


For another item related to learning spaces, see:

Choosing the Right Technology for Today’s HyFlex Classroom — from edtechmagazine.com by Gaurav Bradoo
Long-lasting adoption of the HyFlex learning modality means higher education institutions shouldn’t be afraid to invest in tools that can enhance the student experience.

The answer? Solutions built for quick and easy installation, designed to work across multiple platforms and equipped with remote update and troubleshooting features. Anything we can do to reduce the number of cords, components and required steps during installation will assist AV staff. Prioritizing user-friendly design will cut down on help tickets across the lifespan of a device, and choosing features such as remote update capability can streamline maintenance. The bottom line is that simplicity and ease of deployment are not nice-to-haves. They are essential.

I’ve visited universities where instructors are faced with control panels with laminated cheat sheets next to them. These panels are often overloaded, acting as the room system as well, and not designed with simplicity or teaching flow in mind as it relates to capturing and streaming content for HyFlex teaching.


Along the lines of learning and working/office spaces…I’d like to thank Daan van Rossum for this next article (below emphasis from DSC). Daan mentioned that:

  • Phil Kirschner (ex-McKinsey, WeWork, JLL, Forbes contributor) just published a sharp piece on The Workline entitled Vibe Officing: The Antidote to Office Mandates.
  • In it, Phil introduces “Vibe Officing”—challenges the mandate-vs-flexibility debate with a third way: designing office spaces people want to return to, not because they’re told to, but because they actually enjoy being there. He also touches on how AI can enable personalized nudges to improve workplace journeys.


 

We Visited Rumeysa Ozturk in Detention. What We Saw Was a Warning to Us All. — from nytimes.com by Edward J. Markey, Jim McGovern, and Ayanna Pressley. This is a gifted article.

When we met Ms. Ozturk in Basile, she told us she feared for her life when she was taken off the streets of her neighborhood, not knowing who had grabbed her or where they were taking her. She said that at each step of her transit — from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont to Louisiana — her repeated requests to contact her lawyer were denied. Inside the detention center, she was inadequately fed, kept in facilities with extremely cold temperatures and denied personal necessities and religious accommodations. She suffered asthma attacks for which she lacked her prescribed medication. Despite all this — and despite being far away from her loved ones — we were struck by her unwavering spirit.

Why did the Trump administration target her? By all accounts, it’s because she was one of the authors of an opinion essay for The Tufts Daily criticizing her university’s response to resolutions that the Tufts student senate passed regarding Israel and Gaza.

This is not immigration enforcement. This is repression. This is authoritarianism.
.

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Teens, Social Media and Mental Health — from pewresearch.org by Michelle Faverio, Monica Anderson, and Eugenie Park
Most teens credit social media with feeling more connected to friends. Still, roughly 1 in 5 say social media sites hurt their mental health, and growing shares think they harm people their age

Rising rates of poor mental health among youth have been called a national crisis. While this is often linked to factors like the COVID-19 pandemic or poverty, some officials, like former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, name social media as a major threat to teenagers.

Our latest survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and their parents finds that parents are generally more worried than their children about the mental health of teenagers today.

And while both groups call out social media’s impact on young people’s well-being, parents are more likely to make this connection.1

Still, teens are growing more wary of social media for their peers. Roughly half of teens (48%) say these sites have a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022. But fewer (14%) think they negatively affect them personally.

 

Reflections on “Are You Ready for the AI University? Everything is about to change.” [Latham]

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Are You Ready for the AI University? Everything is about to change. — from chronicle.com by Scott Latham

Over the course of the next 10 years, AI-powered institutions will rise in the rankings. US News & World Report will factor a college’s AI capabilities into its calculations. Accrediting agencies will assess the degree of AI integration into pedagogy, research, and student life. Corporations will want to partner with universities that have demonstrated AI prowess. In short, we will see the emergence of the AI haves and have-nots.

What’s happening in higher education today has a name: creative destruction. The economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term in 1942 to describe how innovation can transform industries. That typically happens when an industry has both a dysfunctional cost structure and a declining value proposition. Both are true of higher education.

Out of the gate, professors will work with technologists to get AI up to speed on specific disciplines and pedagogy. For example, AI could be “fed” course material on Greek history or finance and then, guided by human professors as they sort through the material, help AI understand the structure of the discipline, and then develop lectures, videos, supporting documentation, and assessments.

In the near future, if a student misses class, they will be able watch a recording that an AI bot captured. Or the AI bot will find a similar lecture from another professor at another accredited university. If you need tutoring, an AI bot will be ready to help any time, day or night. Similarly, if you are going on a trip and wish to take an exam on the plane, a student will be able to log on and complete the AI-designed and administered exam. Students will no longer be bound by a rigid class schedule. Instead, they will set the schedule that works for them.

Early and mid-career professors who hope to survive will need to adapt and learn how to work with AI. They will need to immerse themselves in research on AI and pedagogy and understand its effect on the classroom. 

From DSC:
I had a very difficult time deciding which excerpts to include. There were so many more excerpts for us to think about with this solid article. While I don’t agree with several things in it, EVERY professor, president, dean, and administrator working within higher education today needs to read this article and seriously consider what Scott Latham is saying.

Change is already here, but according to Scott, we haven’t seen anything yet. I agree with him and, as a futurist, one has to consider the potential scenarios that Scott lays out for AI’s creative destruction of what higher education may look like. Scott asserts that some significant and upcoming impacts will be experienced by faculty members, doctoral students, and graduate/teaching assistants (and Teaching & Learning Centers and IT Departments, I would add). But he doesn’t stop there. He brings in presidents, deans, and other members of the leadership teams out there.

There are a few places where Scott and I differ.

  • The foremost one is the importance of the human element — i.e., the human faculty member and students’ learning preferences. I think many (most?) students and lifelong learners will want to learn from a human being. IBM abandoned their 5-year, $100M ed push last year and one of the key conclusions was that people want to learn from — and with — other people:

To be sure, AI can do sophisticated things such as generating quizzes from a class reading and editing student writing. But the idea that a machine or a chatbot can actually teach as a human can, he said, represents “a profound misunderstanding of what AI is actually capable of.” 

Nitta, who still holds deep respect for the Watson lab, admits, “We missed something important. At the heart of education, at the heart of any learning, is engagement. And that’s kind of the Holy Grail.”

— Satya Nitta, a longtime computer researcher at
IBM’s Watson
Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY
.

By the way, it isn’t easy for me to write this. As I wanted AI and other related technologies to be able to do just what IBM was hoping that it would be able to do.

  • Also, I would use the term learning preferences where Scott uses the term learning styles.

Scott also mentions:

“In addition, faculty members will need to become technologists as much as scholars. They will need to train AI in how to help them build lectures, assessments, and fine-tune their classroom materials. Further training will be needed when AI first delivers a course.”

It has been my experience from working with faculty members for over 20 years that not all faculty members want to become technologists. They may not have the time, interest, and/or aptitude to become one (and vice versa for technologists who likely won’t become faculty members).

That all said, Scott relays many things that I have reflected upon and relayed for years now via this Learning Ecosystems blog and also via The Learning from the Living [AI-Based Class] Room vision — the use of AI to offer personalized and job-relevant learning, the rising costs of higher education, the development of new learning-related offerings and credentials at far less expensive prices, the need to provide new business models and emerging technologies that are devoted more to lifelong learning, plus several other things.

So this article is definitely worth your time to read, especially if you are working in higher education or are considering a career therein!


Addendum later on 4/10/25:

U-M’s Ross School of Business, Google Public Sector launch virtual teaching assistant pilot program — from news.umich.edu by Jeff Karoub; via Paul Fain

Google Public Sector and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business have launched an advanced Virtual Teaching Assistant pilot program aimed at improving personalized learning and enlightening educators on artificial intelligence in the classroom.

The AI technology, aided by Google’s Gemini chatbot, provides students with all-hours access to support and self-directed learning. The Virtual TA represents the next generation of educational chatbots, serving as a sophisticated AI learning assistant that instructors can use to modify their specific lessons and teaching styles.

The Virtual TA facilitates self-paced learning for students, provides on-demand explanations of complex course concepts, guides them through problem-solving, and acts as a practice partner. It’s designed to foster critical thinking by never giving away answers, ensuring students actively work toward solutions.

 

What trauma-informed practice is not — from timeshighereducation.com by Kate Cantrell, India Bryce, and Jessica Gildersleeve from The University of Southern Queensland
Before trauma-informed care can be the norm across all areas of the university, academic and professional staff need to understand what it is. Here, three academics debunk myths and demystify best practice

Recently, we conducted focus groups at our university to better ascertain how academics, administrators and student support staff perceive the purpose and value of trauma-informed practice, and how they perceive their capacity to contribute to organisational change.

We discovered that while most staff were united on the importance of trauma-informed care, several myths persist about what trauma-informed practice is (and is not). Some academic staff, for example, conflated teaching about trauma with trauma-informed teaching, confused trigger warnings with trigger points and, perhaps most alarmingly – given the prevalence of trauma exposure and risk among university students – misjudged trauma-informed practice as “the business of psychologists” rather than educators.

 

Cultivating Speaking and Listening Skills in the Primary Grades — from edutopia.org by Rachel Scheer
Early elementary teachers can use these strategies to help students improve their oral communication skills.

The good news? There are many engaging and effective strategies to develop these interpersonal skills, and most are easy to incorporate into daily classroom routines. I use the strategies below to directly teach, model, and practice these essential communication skills at a developmentally appropriate level: turn-taking, small group speaking and listening, whole group speaking and listening, and accountable talk.

From DSC:
I love the parts about practicing how to LISTEN. We need more of that in our communications with one another…as well as when we are praying to God.


Teaching Students About Corporate Influences in a Curriculum — from edutopia.org by Elaine Alvey
By uncovering any hidden interests in a curriculum, teachers can open important discussions about media literacy with students.

These instances underscore the need for educators to be vigilant in vetting materials, recognizing that even seemingly reputable sources can harbor hidden agendas, necessitating a robust approach to media and information literacy both for ourselves and for students.

How to Spot Corporate Influences in Your Curriculum
So, how do we, as educators, navigate this minefield? Media literacy strategies offer important tools to equip ourselves and our students to analyze information landscapes intentionally, including the curricular resources we evaluate for use in our classrooms.
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From DSC:
I would encourage you to take a look at the work my sister Sue Ellen Christian has been doing re: media literacy, news literacy, and more. She created the Wonder Media website to discuss those topics. Plus she collaborated with several other people and organizations to develop a large, professionally-done exhibit re: these important topics.
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Boosting Engagement in World Language Classes With Games — from edutopia.org by Rachelle Dené Poth
Middle school teachers can use a variety of tech and no-tech games to help students build skills in the target language.

As a world language educator, I’ve always sought innovative ways to engage my students through meaningful learning experiences as they build their language skills. One way we do this is through gameplay. The benefits of games go far beyond simply learning and increased retention of vocabulary or grammar. Games can also foster collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills, making learning fun for students.


How Administrators Can Respond—Instead of React—in Tough Situations — from edutopia.org by Jessica Cabeen
These strategies can help school leaders stay self-regulated in the middle of frustrating and stressful moments.

Conversations That Might Be Better Left for Later
Not every conversation needs to happen in the heat of the moment. Some of the most productive conversations happen after we’ve given ourselves time to regulate. Here are a few categories of conversations that might benefit from a pause:

  • Difficult feedback conversations. If emotions are running high, it might be best to wait until you can approach the discussion with clarity and empathy. A rushed or reactive conversation can shut down dialogue rather than encourage growth.
  • Conflict resolution. When two parties are upset, stepping in immediately to mediate can sometimes escalate tensions. A brief pause allows for perspective-taking and a calmer, solution-oriented approach.
  • Big-picture decisions. When stress is high, it’s easy to make decisions based on immediate pressures rather than long-term goals. Giving yourself space to step back ensures that decisions align with your leadership vision.
  • Personal or emotional responses. If you feel personally triggered by a comment, criticism, or situation, take time to process before responding. Self-awareness in these moments can prevent regretful words or actions.

So the next time frustration creeps in, take a breath. Pause before you speak, type, or react. Because more often than not, the best response isn’t the fastest one—it’s the one that comes from a place of clarity, patience, and purpose.

 

AI Can’t Fix Bad Learning — from nafez.substack.com by Nafez Dakkak
Why pedagogy and good learning design still come first, and why faster isn’t always better.

I’ve followed Dr. Philippa Hardman’s work for years, and every time I engage with her work, I find it both refreshing and deeply grounded.

As one of the leading voices in learning design, Philippa has been able to cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters: designing learning experiences that actually work.

In an era where AI promises speed and scale, Philippa is making a different argument: faster isn’t always better. As the creator of Epiphany AI—figma for learning designers—Philippa is focused on closing the gap between what great learning design should look like and what’s actually being delivered.

While many AI tools optimize for the average, she believes the future belongs to those who can leverage AI without compromising on expertise or quality. Philippa wants learning designers to be more ambitious using AI to achieve what wasn’t possible before.

In this conversation, we explore why pedagogy must lead technology, how the return on expertise is only increasing in an AI-driven world, and why building faster doesn’t always mean building better.

An excerpted graphic:




Pearson, AWS Collaborate to Enhance AI-Powered Learning Functionality — from cloudwars.com

Pearson, the global educational publisher, and AWS have expanded their existing partnership to enhance AI-driven learning. AWS will help Pearson to deliver AI-powered lesson generation and more for educators, support workforce skilling initiatives, and continue an ongoing collaboration with Pearson VUE for AWS certification.


 

2025 College Hopes & Worries Survey Report — from princetonreview.com
We surveyed 9,317 college applicants and parents about their dream schools and their biggest college admission and financial aid challenges.
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© 2025 | Daniel Christian