pace of change

Why we don’t intuitively get how fast the world is changing.

Our brains understand linear not exponential growth.

30 linear steps = +30
30 exponential steps = +1 billion pic.twitter.com/z9a42eFmZM

— Misha (@mishadavinci) July 29, 2023

From DSC:
Which reminds me of some graphics:

The pace has changed -- don't come onto the track in a Model T

Education was once the No. 1 major for college students. Now it’s an afterthought. [Picchi & Bangalore]

On 07/24/2023, in career development, change, education, education reform, K-12 related, pace of change, parents/guardians, student-related, teachers, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Education was once the No. 1 major for college students. Now it’s an afterthought. — from cbsnews.com by Aimee Picchi & Sanvi Bangalore; via GSV

Today, education is an afterthought for many college students, who are more likely to study business, engineering, and even the visual and performing arts, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics. Even as the population of college students has increased by 150% since 1970, the number of bachelor’s degrees in education has plummeted by almost 50% — a steeper drop than that for English, literature and foreign language majors.

On a somewhat-related note, also see:

‘We’re going to have to be a little more nimble’: How school districts are responding to AI — from by Javeria Salman
School districts are training teachers on generative AI and encouraging them to experiment with the tools for lesson planning and remedial help

Roschelle said he wants to see school leaders and educators experiment in ways that don’t carry big risks for students, such as changing a few lesson plans. “I personally would advise school districts not to rush into buying a particular product, but really treat this year as a chance to educate yourself,” he said.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE, which recently published a guide on AI in collaboration with AASA, the School Superintendents Association. What schools need to do, he said, is provide teachers with a better understanding of what AI is and share examples of how to use it.

National ChatGPT Survey: Teachers Accepting AI Into Classrooms & Workflow — Even More Than Students — from the74million.org by Greg Toppo
42% of students use ChatGPT, up from 33% in a prior survey. Their teachers are way ahead of them, with now 63% saying they’ve used the tool on the job

Teachers … and parents … believe it’s legit
Teachers who use ChatGPT overwhelmingly give it good reviews. Fully 84% say it has positively impacted their classes, with about 6 in 10 (61%) predicting it will have “legitimate educational uses that we cannot ignore.”

New Book Aims to Reshape the Future of Learning (With Your Help) — from samchaltain.substack.com by Sam Chaltain

What circumstances would be required for the existing educational model to be deemed obsolete?
What stands in the way of those circumstances coming to pass?
And if you were to craft a tool that actually helped people create those circumstances, what would you want that sort of resource to be, say, and do?

Last week, in Istanbul, a select group of educators, architects, students and entrepreneurs met to wrestle with those questions, as part of a yearlong collaborative design project.

What small changes could have the biggest impact and help spark the larger revolution we seek?

Will the future even have occupations — and if so, what are they most likely to be?

What is most essential to know and embody in the next 25 years?

The Great Unbundling — from educationnext.org by Joseph Olchefske and Steven Adamowski
Is the parents’ rights movement opening a new frontier in school choice?

The mindsets of parents are changing—rapidly—as they make decisions about the schooling of their children. Over the past few years, a convergence of two megatrends—pandemic desperation and parental-rights politics—has driven many families to reconsider the traditional school model and find ways of “unbundling” their children’s schooling into discrete elements that are controlled by the parent rather than the school.

While parent-led unbundling is not a new phenomenon, the current movement has expanded so quickly that it’s been dubbed “the Great Unbundling” of K–12 schooling.

The Great Unbundling is now influencing the education marketplace, as a broad set of nonschool vendors have responded to this unprecedented demand by pitching their education services directly to families: “microschools,” online courses, private tutoring, learning pods, and outdoor learning experiences.

Yes, AI could profoundly disrupt education. But maybe that’s not a bad thing — from theguardian.com by Rose Luckin; with thanks to Will Richardson and Homa Tavangar for this resource
Humans need to excel at things AI can’t do – and that means more creativity and critical thinking and less memorisation

Staying ahead of AI will mean radically rethinking what education is for, and what success means. Human intelligence is far more impressive than any AI system we see today. We possess a rich and diverse intelligence, much of which is unrecognised by our current education system.

How we can teach children so they survive AI – and cope with whatever comes next — from theguardian.com by George Monbiot
It’s not enough to build learning around a single societal shift. Students should be trained to handle a rapidly changing world

I don’t claim to have definitive answers. But I believe certain principles would help. One is that rigidity is lethal. Any aspect of an education system that locks pupils in to fixed patterns of thought and action will enhance their vulnerability to rapid and massive change. For instance, there could be no worse preparation for life than England’s Standard Assessment Tests, which dominate year 6 teaching. If the testimony of other parents I know is representative, SATs are a crushing experience for the majority of pupils, snuffing out enthusiasm, forcing them down a narrow, fenced track and demanding rigidity just as their minds are seeking to blossom and expand.

Education, to the greatest extent possible, should be joyful and delightful, not only because joy and delight are essential to our wellbeing, but also because we are more likely to withstand major change if we see acquiring new knowledge and skills as a fascinating challenge, not a louring threat.

BRINGING AI TO SCHOOL: TIPS FOR SCHOOL LEADERS— a mini ebook from ISTE

Artificial Intelligence is having a major impact on education. Whether you are excited or
concerned about AI, as a school leader you have a responsibility to ensure AI is approached
thoughtfully and appropriately in your school community and informs your vision for teaching and learning. This guide will help you quickly gain the background you need as a learning leader in an AI infused world.

Schools that have been successful in bringing AI into their schools in purposeful ways have some common strategies. The following five strategies are critical for a successful AI culture in your school.

The Potential Impact of AI Technology on Education. — from medium.com by Happiness Uduak

In this article, we’ll explore the potential impact of AI on education, and then take a look at how it could shape the human view of learning for good.

Teaching Through Asking Rather Than Telling — from edutopia by Jay Schauer
High school teachers can promote active learning by strategically replacing some direct instruction with questions that produce thoughtful conversations.

Does much of your teaching resemble the lectures you and 20 or 50 or 400 of your closest college friends received from a “sage on the stage”? Are you frustrated that most of your students won’t remember much from the fascinating information you just delivered to them for 15 or 30 or 55 minutes? If so, maybe it’s time to implement more ARTT—Ask, Rather Than Tell—into your teaching.

I started doing a lot of asking in order to help students make connections, establish common baseline understandings, and identify knowledge gaps or areas of misunderstanding, rather than telling them information. My lectures then evolved into more meaningful conversations.

Best Free Virtual Labs — from techlearning.com by Diana Restifo
These best virtual lab sites and apps are all free, highly engaging, and informative—and most don’t require registration

Many schools don’t have robust in-person laboratory facilities, instead relying primarily on dry textbooks to teach difficult STEM topics. But even schools with quality labs can benefit from these innovative and flexible online simulations.

The following top virtual lab sites and apps are all free, highly engaging, and informative—and most don’t require registration. Since most browsers no longer support Java or Flash, sites built exclusively with those outdated technologies have been excluded.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launching new education-focused state department — from detroitnews.com by Craig Mauger and Chad Livengood

Whitmer’s office said Wednesday the new Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Achievement and Potential, or MiLEAP, will feature offices governing early childhood education, higher education and “education partnerships.”

“Establishing MiLEAP ensures all available resources, data and dollars are aligned around a single vision — supporting an education system focused on lifelong learning that can support the economy of the future and helping anyone make it in Michigan,” according to a “talking points” document obtained by The Detroit News on Wednesday morning.

How to Get Kids to Read for Fun — from nataliewexler.substack.com by Natalie Wexler
An overemphasis on analytical skills can make reading a joyless task.

Schools have been giving students isolated bits of text rather than letting them sink their teeth into engaging novels, and they’ve prioritized teaching analytical reading skills over allowing kids to immerse themselves in a good story.

Celebrating Student Interests to Create a Positive High School Culture — from edutopia.org by Nicole Rossi-Mumpower
Events that center students’ picks in art, music, and food can create powerful opportunities for them to increase their sense of belonging.

Modeled after the First Friday events that take place in many cities and towns (when community members gather to experience local culture), First Fridays at school offer students a chance to listen to music, view art, and sample cuisine.?The tradition has become a cornerstone of our school community and is replicable across school sites.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A MEANINGFUL SCHOOL CULTURE
Creating a positive school climate and culture is essential for student success. When students feel like they are an important part of the community, they’re more likely to be engaged in their learning and have a positive attitude toward school.

Accenture announces jaw-dropping $3 billion investment in AI [Franzen] + numerous other AI-related items

On 06/16/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Adobe, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business, corporate / business world, economics, education, education technology, Europe, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Microsoft, open courseware and systems, pace of change, pedagogy, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, skills, strategy, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Accenture announces jaw-dropping $3 billion investment in AI — from venturebeat.com by Carl Franzen; via Superhuman

Excerpt:

The generative AI announcements are coming fast and furious these days, but among the biggest in terms of sheer dollar commitments just landed: Accenture, the global professional services and consulting giant, today announced it will invest $3 billion (with a “b”!) in AI over the next three years in building out its team of AI professionals and AI-focused solutions for its clients.

“There is unprecedented interest in all areas of AI, and the substantial investment we are making in our Data & AI practice will help our clients move from interest to action to value, and in a responsible way with clear business cases,” said Julie Sweet, Accenture’s chairwoman and CEO.

Also related/see:

Artificial intelligence creates 40,000 new roles at Accenture — from computerweekly.com by Karl Flinders
Accenture is planning to add thousands of AI experts to its workforce as part of a $3bn investment in its data and artificial intelligence practice

Why leaders need to evolve alongside generative AI — from fastcompany.com by Kelsey Behringer
Even if you’re not an educator, you should not be sitting on the sidelines watching the generative AI conversation being had around you—hop in.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Leaders should be careful to watch and support education right now. At the end of the day, the students sitting in K-12 and college classrooms are going to be future CPAs, lawyers, writers, and teachers. If you are parenting a child, you have skin in the game. If you use professional services, you have skin in the game. When it comes to education, we all have skin in the game.
…
Students need to master fundamental skills like editing, questioning, researching, and verifying claims before they can use generative AI exceptionally well.

GenAI & Education: Enhancement, not Replacement — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philipa Hardman
How to co-exist in the age of automation

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

[On 6/15/23, I joined] colleagues from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Stanford, Harvard and other others at the first meeting of the GenAI Summit. Our shared goal [was] to help to educate universities & schools in Europe about the impact of Generative AI on their work.

…how can we effectively communicate to education professionals that generative AI will enhance their work rather than replace them?

A recent controlled study found that ChatGPT can help professionals increase their efficiency in routine tasks by ~35%. If we keep in mind that the productivity gains brought by the steam engine in the nineteenth century was ~25%, this is huge.

As educators, we should embrace the power of ChatGPT to automate the repetitive tasks which we’ve been distracted by for decades. Lesson planning, content creation, assessment design, grading and feedback – generative AI can help us to do all of these things faster than ever before, freeing us up to focus on where we bring most value for our students.

Google, one of AI’s biggest backers, warns own staff about chatbots — from reuters.com by Jeffrey Dastin and Anna Tong

Excerpt:

SAN FRANCISCO, June 15 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) is cautioning employees about how they use chatbots, including its own Bard, at the same time as it markets the program around the world, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Google parent has advised employees not to enter its confidential materials into AI chatbots, the people said and the company confirmed, citing long-standing policy on safeguarding information.

The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier — from mckinsey.com
Generative AI’s impact on productivity could add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy—and the era is just beginning.

Preparing for the Classrooms and Workplaces of the Future: Generative AI in edX — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A Q&A with Anant Agarwal

Adobe Firefly for the Enterprise — Dream Bigger with Adobe Firefly.
Dream it, type it, see it with Firefly, our creative generative AI engine. Now in Photoshop (beta), Illustrator, Adobe Express, and on the web.

Apple Vision Pro, Higher Education and the Next 10 Years — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kim
How this technology will play out in our world over the next decade.

Zoom can now give you AI summaries of the meetings you’ve missed — from theverge.com by Emma Roth

Mercedes-Benz Is Adding ChatGPT to Cars for AI Voice Commands — from decrypt.co by Jason Nelson; via Superhuman
The luxury automaker is set to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot into its Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) feature in the U.S.

Professors Plan Summer AI Upskilling, With or Without Support — from insidehighered.com by Susan D’Agostino
Academics seeking respite from the fire hose of AI information and hot takes launch summer workshops. But many of the grass-roots efforts fall short of meeting demand.

Excerpt:

In these summer faculty AI workshops, some plan to take their first tentative steps in redesigning assignments to recognize the AI-infused landscape. Others expect to evolve their in-progress teaching-with-AI practices. At some colleges, full-time staff will deliver the workshops or pay participants for professional development time. But some offerings are grassroots efforts delivered by faculty volunteers attended by participants on their own time. Even so, many worry that the efforts will fall short of meeting demand.

From DSC:
We aren’t used to this pace of change. It will take time for faculty members — as well as Instructional Designers, Instructional Technologists, Faculty Developers, Learning Experience Designers, Librarians, and others — to learn more about AI and its implications for teaching and learning. Faculty are learning. Staff are learning. Students are learning. Grace is needed. And faculty/staff modeling what it is to learn themselves is a good thing for students to see as well.

Also relevant/see:

It takes a village… Reflections on sustainable learning design — from The Educationalist (educationalist.substack.com) by Alexandra Mihai

Excerpts:

This can be done first and foremost through collaboration, bringing more people at the table, in a meaningful workflow, whereby they can make the best use of their expertise. Moreover, we need to take a step back and keep the big picture in mind, if we want to provide our students with a valuable experience.
…
This is all about creating and nurturing partnerships. Thinking in an inclusive way about who is at the table when we design our courses and our programmes and who we are currently missing. Generally speaking, the main actors involved should be: teaching staff, learning design professionals (under all their various names) and students. Yes, students. Although we are designing for their learning, they are all too often not part of the process.

In order to yield results, collaborative practice needs to be embedded in the institutional fabric, and this takes time. Building silos happens fast, breaking them is a long term process. Creating a culture of dialogue, with clear and replicable processes is key to making collaborative learning design work.

From DSC:
To me, Alexandra is addressing the topic of using teams to design, develop, and teach/offer courses. This is where a variety of skills and specialties can come together to produce an excellent learning experience. No one individual has all of the necessary skills — nor the necessary time. No way.

Webinars from Tom Barrett regarding AI for Education — a free webinar series

Webinar 6 replay
- Miriam Scott – Head of Digital Education at Hillbrook Anglican School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
- Laura Bain – Head of Emerging Technologies and Innovation, Matthew Flinders Anglican College, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
- Nicole Dyson – Founder & CEO, Future Anything, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Webinar 5 replay
- In the fifth free webinar on AI for Education, I am joined by Dean Pearman, Head of Education at Beaconhills College and Tom Oliphant, Head of Technology and Enterprise at St John’s Grammar School. We explore questions about creativity, design and the new skills that are emerging. Join us to invest in your AI Literacy. Expand your toolset, broaden your understanding, and challenge your thinking.
Webinar 4 replay
- You are watching the fourth free webinar, a dialogue about AI for education with Sophie Fenton, Steve Brophy and hosted by Tom Barrett Building Blocks – key AI concepts to learn. Practical frameworks for navigating the challenges of AI for education. Be part of a dialogue on provocations about AI and human centred education, truth and identity.
Webinar 3 replay – Claire Amos and Philly Wintle
Webinar 2 replay – Gemma Rainger and Dr Nick Jackson
Webinar 1 replay – Chantelle Love, Pip Cleaves and Steve Brophy

Using ChatGPT in Math Lesson Planning — from edutopia.org by Kristen Moore
Artificial intelligence tools are useful beyond language arts classes. Math teachers can use them to save time and create interesting lessons.

Democratic Inputs to AI — from openai.com
Our nonprofit organization, OpenAI, Inc., is launching a program to award ten $100,000 grants to fund experiments in setting up a democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow, within the bounds defined by the law.

AI Canon — from a16z.com (Andreessen Horowitz) by Derrick Harris, Matt Bornstein, and Guido Appenzeller; via The Neuron newsletter

Excerpts:

Research in artificial intelligence is increasing at an exponential rate. It’s difficult for AI experts to keep up with everything new being published, and even harder for beginners to know where to start. So, in this post, we’re sharing a curated list of resources we’ve relied on to get smarter about modern AI. We call it the “AI Canon” because these papers, blog posts, courses, and guides have had an outsized impact on the field over the past several years.

Table of contents

A gentle introduction
Foundational learning
Tech deep dive
Practical guides to building with LLMs
Market analysis
Landmark research results

Generative AI hits Adobe Photoshop!

What new grads can expect as they enter the working world — from mckinsey.com by Patrick Guggenberger, Dana Maor, Michael Park, and Patrick Simon

Excerpt:

May 21, 2023 It’s officially the season of caps, gowns, and stoles—and new grads are gearing up for entry into the world of work at a time when organizations are undergoing massive shifts. “The shifts include complex questions about how to organize for speed to shore up resilience, find the right balance between in-person and remote work models, address employees’ declining mental health, and build new institutional capabilities at a time of rapid technological change, among others,” write Patrick Guggenberger, Dana Maor, Michael Park, and Patrick Simon in a new report. These changes have significant implications for structures, processes, and people. How can new grads set themselves up for success in a quickly evolving environment? If you’re a soon-to-be new grad or know one, check out our newly refreshed special collection for insights and interviews on topics including productivity, hybrid work models, worker preferences, tech trends, and much more.

On a somewhat relevant posting (it has to do with career development as well), also see:

From Basic to Brand: How to Build and Use a Purposeful LinkedIn Profile — from er.educause.edu by Ryan MacTaggart and Laurie Burruss
Developing a professional brand helps higher education professionals establish meaningful work-related connections and build credibility in their area of expertise.

The (almost daily) AI posting!

On 04/26/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, copyright/ownership/NFTs, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, music, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, professional development, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

EdTech Is Going Crazy For AI — from joshbersin.com by Josh Bersin

Excerpts:

This week I spent a few days at the ASU/GSV conference and ran into 7,000 educators, entrepreneurs, and corporate training people who had gone CRAZY for AI.

No, I’m not kidding. This community, which makes up people like training managers, community college leaders, educators, and policymakers is absolutely freaked out about ChatGPT, Large Language Models, and all sorts of issues with AI. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge fan of this. But the frenzy is unprecedented: this is bigger than the excitement at the launch of the i-Phone.

Second, the L&D market is about to get disrupted like never before. I had two interactive sessions with about 200 L&D leaders and I essentially heard the same thing over and over. What is going to happen to our jobs when these Generative AI tools start automatically building content, assessments, teaching guides, rubrics, videos, and simulations in seconds?

The answer is pretty clear: you’re going to get disrupted. I’m not saying that L&D teams need to worry about their careers, but it’s very clear to me they’re going to have to swim upstream in a big hurry. As with all new technologies, it’s time for learning leaders to get to know these tools, understand how they work, and start to experiment with them as fast as you can.

Speaking of the ASU+GSV Summit, see this posting from Michael Moe:

EIEIO…Brave New World
By: Michael Moe, CFA, Brent Peus, Owen Ritz

Excerpt:

Last week, the 14th annual ASU+GSV Summit hosted over 7,000 leaders from 70+ companies well as over 900 of the world’s most innovative EdTech companies. Below are some of our favorite speeches from this year’s Summit…

***

Also see:

Imagining what’s possible in lifelong learning: Six insights from Stanford scholars at ASU+GSV — from acceleratelearning.stanford.edu by Isabel Sacks

Excerpt:

High-quality tutoring is one of the most effective educational interventions we have – but we need both humans and technology for it to work. In a standing-room-only session, GSE Professor Susanna Loeb, a faculty lead at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, spoke alongside school district superintendents on the value of high-impact tutoring. The most important factors in effective tutoring, she said, are (1) the tutor has data on specific areas where the student needs support, (2) the tutor has high-quality materials and training, and (3) there is a positive, trusting relationship between the tutor and student. New technologies, including AI, can make the first and second elements much easier – but they will never be able to replace human adults in the relational piece, which is crucial to student engagement and motivation.

ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Google’s Bard—AI is infiltrating the lives of billions.

The 1% who understand it will run the world.

Here’s a list of key terms to jumpstart your learning:

— Misha (@mishadavinci) April 23, 2023

A guide to prompting AI (for what it is worth) — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
A little bit of magic, but mostly just practice

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Being “good at prompting” is a temporary state of affairs. The current AI systems are already very good at figuring out your intent, and they are getting better. Prompting is not going to be that important for that much longer. In fact, it already isn’t in GPT-4 and Bing. If you want to do something with AI, just ask it to help you do the thing. “I want to write a novel, what do you need to know to help me?” will get you surprisingly far.
…

The best way to use AI systems is not to craft the perfect prompt, but rather to use it interactively. Try asking for something. Then ask the AI to modify or adjust its output. Work with the AI, rather than trying to issue a single command that does everything you want. The more you experiment, the better off you are. Just use the AI a lot, and it will make a big difference – a lesson my class learned as they worked with the AI to create essays.

From DSC:
Agreed –> “Being “good at prompting” is a temporary state of affairs.” The User Interfaces that are/will be appearing will help greatly in this regard.

From DSC:
Bizarre…at least for me in late April of 2023:

FaceTiming live with AI… This app came across the @ElunaAI Discord and I was very impressed with its responsiveness, natural expression and language, etc…

Feels like the beginning of another massive wave in consumer AI products.

…who’s seen the movie HER? pic.twitter.com/By3dsew91Z

— Roberto Nickson (@rpnickson) April 26, 2023

Excerpt from Lore Issue #28: Drake, Grimes, and The Future of AI Music — from lore.com

Here’s a summary of what you need to know:

The rise of AI-generated music has ignited legal and ethical debates, with record labels invoking copyright law to remove AI-generated songs from platforms like YouTube.
Tech companies like Google face a conundrum: should they take down AI-generated content, and if so, on what grounds?
Some artists, like Grimes, are embracing the change, proposing new revenue-sharing models and utilizing blockchain-based smart contracts for royalties.
The future of AI-generated music presents both challenges and opportunities, with the potential to create new platforms and genres, democratize the industry, and redefine artist compensation.

The Need for AI PD — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Educators need training on how to effectively incorporate artificial intelligence into their teaching practice, says Lance Key, an award-winning educator.

“School never was fun for me,” he says, hoping that as an educator he could change that with his students. “I wanted to make learning fun.” This ‘learning should be fun’ philosophy is at the heart of the approach he advises educators take when it comes to AI.

Coursera Adds ChatGPT-Powered Learning Tools — from campustechnology.com by Kate Lucariello

Excerpt:

At its 11th annual conference in 2023, educational company Coursera announced it is adding ChatGPT-powered interactive ed tech tools to its learning platform, including a generative AI coach for students and an AI course-building tool for teachers. It will also add machine learning-powered translation, expanded VR immersive learning experiences, and more.

Coursera Coach will give learners a ChatGPT virtual coach to answer questions, give feedback, summarize video lectures and other materials, give career advice, and prepare them for job interviews. This feature will be available in the coming months.

From DSC:
Yes…it will be very interesting to see how tools and platforms interact from this time forth. The term “integration” will take a massive step forward, at least in my mind.

From DSC:
Regarding the core curricula of colleges and universities…

For decades now, faculty members have taught what they wanted to teach and what interested them. They taught what they wanted to research vs. what the wider marketplace/workplace needed. They were not responsive to the needs of the workplace — nor to the needs of their students!

And this situation has been all the more compounded by the increasing costs of obtaining a degree plus the exponential pace of change. We weren’t doing a good job before this exponential pace of change started taking place — and now it’s (almost?) impossible to keep up.

The bottom line on the article below: ***It’s sales.***

Therefore, it’s about what you are selling — and at what price. The story hasn’t changed much. The narrative (i.e., the curricula and more) is pretty much the same thing that’s been sold for years.

But the days of faculty members teaching whatever they wanted to are over, or significantly waning.

Faculty members, faculty senates, provosts, presidents, and accreditors are reaping what they’ve sown.

The questions are now:

Will new seeds be sown?
Will new crops arise in the future?
Will there be new narratives?
Will institutions be able to reinvent themselves (one potential example here)? Or will their cultures not allow such significant change to take place? Will alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education continue to pick up steam?

A Profession on the Edge — from chronicle.com by Eric Hoover
Why enrollment leaders are wearing down, burning out, and leaving jobs they once loved.

Excerpts:

Similar stories are echoing throughout the hallways of higher education. Vice presidents for enrollment, as well as admissions deans and directors, are wearing down, burning out, and leaving jobs they once loved. Though there’s no way to compile a chart quantifying the churn, industry insiders describe it as significant. “We’re at an inflection point,” says Rick Clark, executive director of undergraduate admission at Georgia Tech. “There have always been people leaving the field, but not in the numbers we’re seeing now.”

Some are being shoved out the door by presidents and boards. Some are resigning out of exhaustion, frustration, and disillusionment. And some who once sought top-level positions are rethinking their ambitions. “The pressures have ratcheted up tenfold,” says Angel B. Pérez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, known as NACAC. “I talk with someone each week who’s either leaving the field or considering leaving.”

From DSC:
This quote points to what I’m trying to address here:

Dahlstrom and other veterans of the field say they’ve experienced something especially disquieting: an erosion of faith in the transformational power of higher education. Though she sought a career in admissions to help students, her disillusionment grew after taking on a leadership role. She became less confident that she was equipped to effect positive changes, at her institution or beyond, especially when it came to the challenge of expanding college access in a nation of socioeconomic disparities: “I felt like a cog in a huge machine that’s not working, yet continues to grind while only small, temporary fixes are made.”

Major announcements from a key vendor in the AI space — NVIDIA

On 03/21/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, art, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, creativity, design, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Holographic comms, human-computer interaction (HCI), immersion, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, languages and translation, media/film, Metaverse, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, NVIDIA, online media, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, society, technology (general), tools, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual courts and law firms, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, Web3, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Explore Breakthroughs in AI, Accelerated Computing, and Beyond at GTC — from nvidia.com
The Conference for the Era of AI and the Metaverse

Addendums on 3/22/23:

Generative AI for Enterprises — from nvidia.com
Custom-built for a new era of innovation and automation.

Excerpt:

Impacting virtually every industry, generative AI unlocks a new frontier of opportunities—for knowledge and creative workers—to solve today’s most important challenges. NVIDIA is powering generative AI through an impressive suite of cloud services, pre-trained foundation models, as well as cutting-edge frameworks, optimized inference engines, and APIs to bring intelligence to your enterprise applications.

NVIDIA AI Foundations is a set of cloud services that advance enterprise-level generative AI and enable customization across use cases in areas such as text (NVIDIA NeMo™), visual content (NVIDIA Picasso), and biology (NVIDIA BioNeMo™). Unleash the full potential with NeMo, Picasso, and BioNeMo cloud services, powered by NVIDIA DGX™ Cloud—the AI supercomputer.

5 Ideas To Incorporate AI In Your eLearning Course — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas

Summary:

Artificial Intelligence is now taking the world of learning by storm. Here are 5 ways you can successfully incorporate AI in online learning.

Let’s say you’re training sales reps on handling different customer personalities. You can use this technology to diversify your branching scenarios so that trainees can also speak and not only type. This way, not only will the training become more realistic, but you’ll also be able to assess and work on additional elements, such as tone of voice, volume, speech tempo, etc.

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve [tfsx.com]

On 03/03/2023, in business, business side of he, future, innovation, leadership, organizational change, pace of change, skills, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve — from tfsx.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

According to famed futurist Richard Slaughter, foresight (also known as futures thinking or futuring) is “the ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent and functional forward view, and to use the insights arising in useful organizational ways.”² In other words, foresight is a way to examine the paths the future might take, using qualitative and quantitative metrics, and then use the insights gained from this analysis to navigate our uncertain and changing world with purpose.

“The art and science of futuring is fast becoming a necessary skill, where we read signals, see trends and ruthlessly test our own assumptions…Like the ability to make a budget or think critically, it’s a skill that anyone who has to make long-range decisions should, and can, acquire.”³

From DSC:
The development of these futuring skills needs to begin in K-12 and continue into vocational programs as well as in college.

Also relevant/see:

The future isn’t what it used to be: Here’s how strategic foresight can help — from weforum.org

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Three-quarters (75%) of organizations are not prepared for the pace of change in and around their industry.
Across sectors, we all need to rethink how we operate to both survive and thrive in the future.
Foresight can help individuals and organizations be more future prepared, innovative and agile.

The exponential pace of change

A quick and sobering guide to cloning yourself — from oneusefulthing.substack.com by Professor Ethan Mollick
It took me a few minutes to create a fake me giving a fake lecture.

Excerpt:

I think a lot of people do not realize how rapidly the multiple strands of generative AI (audio, text, images, and video) are advancing, and what that means for the future.

With just a photograph and 60 seconds of audio, you can now create a deepfake of yourself in just a matter of minutes by combining a few cheap AI tools. I’ve tried it myself, and the results are mind-blowing, even if they’re not completely convincing. Just a few months ago, this was impossible. Now, it’s a reality.

To start, you should probably watch the short video of Virtual Me and Real Me giving the same talk about entrepreneurship. Nothing about the Virtual Me part of the video is real, even the script was completely AI-generated.

.

From DSC:
Also, I wanted to post the resource below just because I think it’s an excellent question!

If ChatGPT Can Disrupt Google In 2023, What About Your Company? — from forbes.com by Glenn Gow

Excerpts:

Board members and corporate execs don’t need AI to decode the lessons to be learned from this. The lessons should be loud and clear: If even the mighty Google can be potentially overthrown by AI disruption, you should be concerned about what this may mean for your company.
…
Professions that will be disrupted by generative AI include marketing, copywriting, illustration and design, sales, customer support, software coding, video editing, film-making, 3D modeling, architecture, engineering, gaming, music production, legal contracts, and even scientific research. Software applications will soon emerge that will make it easy and intuitive for anyone to use generative AI for those fields and more.
.

ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base – analyst note — from reuters.com by Krystal Hu

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Feb 1 (Reuters) – ChatGPT, the popular chatbot from OpenAI, is estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history, according to a UBS study on Wednesday.

The report, citing data from analytics firm Similarweb, said an average of about 13 million unique visitors had used ChatGPT per day in January, more than double the levels of December.

“In 20 years following the internet space, we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app,” UBS analysts wrote in the note.

From DSC:
This reminds me of the current exponential pace of change that we are experiencing…

..and how we struggle with that kind of pace.

Here’s the list of sources: https://t.co/fJd4rh8kLy. The larger resource area at https://t.co/bN7CReGIEC has sample ChatGPT essays, strategies for mitigating harm, and questions for teachers to ask as well as a listserv.

— Anna Mills, amills@mastodon.oeru.org, she/her (@EnglishOER) January 11, 2023

ChatGPT Creator Is Talking to Investors About Selling Shares at $29 Billion Valuation — from wsj.com by Berber Jin and Miles Kruppa
Tender offer at that valuation would make OpenAI one of the most valuable U.S. startups

Here’s how Microsoft could use ChatGPT — from The Algorithm by Melissa Heikkilä

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Microsoft is reportedly eyeing a $10 billion investment in OpenAI, the startup that created the viral chatbot ChatGPT, and is planning to integrate it into Office products and Bing search. The tech giant has already invested at least $1 billion into OpenAI. Some of these features might be rolling out as early as March, according to The Information.

This is a big deal. If successful, it will bring powerful AI tools to the masses. So what would ChatGPT-powered Microsoft products look like? We asked Microsoft and OpenAI. Neither was willing to answer our questions on how they plan to integrate AI-powered products into Microsoft’s tools, even though work must be well underway to do so. However, we do know enough to make some informed, intelligent guesses. Hint: it’s probably good news if, like me, you find creating PowerPoint presentations and answering emails boring.

And speaking of Microsoft and AI, also see:

7 reasons why Microsoft is winning the AI war — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

I have maintained for several years, including a book ‘AI for Learning’, that AI is the technology of the age and will change everything. This is unfolding as we speak but it is interesting to ask who the winners are likely to be.

Donald Clark

The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI — from maggieappleton.com by
Proving you’re a human on a web flooded with generative AI content

Assumed audience:

People who have heard of GPT-3 / ChatGPT, and are vaguely following the advances in machine learning, large language models, and image generators. Also people who care about making the web a flourishing social and intellectual space.

That dark forest is about to expand. Large Language Models (LLMs) that can instantly generate coherent swaths of human-like text have just joined the party.

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis Urges Caution on AI — from time.com by Billy Perrigo

It is in this uncertain climate that Hassabis agrees to a rare interview, to issue a stark warning about his growing concerns. “I would advocate not moving fast and breaking things.”
…
“When it comes to very powerful technologies—and obviously AI is going to be one of the most powerful ever—we need to be careful,” he says. “Not everybody is thinking about those things. It’s like experimentalists, many of whom don’t realize they’re holding dangerous material.” Worse still, Hassabis points out, we are the guinea pigs.

Demis Hassabis

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Hassabis says these efforts are just the beginning. He and his colleagues have been working toward a much grander ambition: creating artificial general intelligence, or AGI, by building machines that can think, learn, and be set to solve humanity’s toughest problems. Today’s AI is narrow, brittle, and often not very intelligent at all. But AGI, Hassabis believes, will be an “epoch-defining” technology—like the harnessing of electricity—that will change the very fabric of human life. If he’s right, it could earn him a place in history that would relegate the namesakes of his meeting rooms to mere footnotes.

But with AI’s promise also comes peril. In recent months, researchers building an AI system to design new drugs revealed that their tool could be easily repurposed to make deadly new chemicals. A separate AI model trained to spew out toxic hate speech went viral, exemplifying the risk to vulnerable communities online. And inside AI labs around the world, policy experts were grappling with near-term questions like what to do when an AI has the potential to be commandeered by rogue states to mount widespread hacking campaigns or infer state-level nuclear secrets.

AI-assisted plagiarism? ChatGPT bot says it has an answer for that — from theguardian.com by Alex Hern
Silicon Valley firm insists its new text generator, which writes human-sounding essays, can overcome fears over cheating

Excerpt:

Headteachers and university lecturers have expressed concerns that ChatGPT, which can provide convincing human-sounding answers to exam questions, could spark a wave of cheating in homework and exam coursework.

Now, the bot’s makers, San Francisco-based OpenAI, are trying to counter the risk by “watermarking” the bot’s output and making plagiarism easier to spot.

Schools Shouldn’t Ban Access to ChatGPT — from time.com by Joanne Lipman and Rebecca Distler

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Students need now, more than ever, to understand how to navigate a world in which artificial intelligence is increasingly woven into everyday life. It’s a world that they, ultimately, will shape.

We hail from two professional fields that have an outsize interest in this debate. Joanne is a veteran journalist and editor deeply concerned about the potential for plagiarism and misinformation. Rebecca is a public health expert focused on artificial intelligence, who champions equitable adoption of new technologies.

We are also mother and daughter. Our dinner-table conversations have become a microcosm of the argument around ChatGPT, weighing its very real dangers against its equally real promise. Yet we both firmly believe that a blanket ban is a missed opportunity.

ChatGPT: Threat or Menace? — from insidehighered.com by Steven Mintz
Are fears about generative AI warranted?

And see Joshua Kim’s A Friendly Attempt to Balance Steve Mintz’s Piece on Higher Ed Hard Truths out at nsidehighered.com | Comparing the health care and higher ed systems.

I spent New Years building GPTZero — an app that can quickly and efficiently detect whether an essay is ChatGPT or human written

— Edward Tian (@edward_the6) January 3, 2023

What Leaders Should Know About Emerging Technologies — from forbes.com by Benjamin Laker

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The rapid pace of change is driven by a “perfect storm” of factors, including the falling cost of computing power, the rise of data-driven decision-making, and the increasing availability of new technologies. “The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent,” concluded Andrew Doxsey, co-founder of Libra Incentix, in an interview. “Unlike previous technological revolutions, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is evolving exponentially rather than linearly. Furthermore, it disrupts almost every industry worldwide.”

I asked ChatGPT to write my cover letters. 2 hiring managers said they would have given me an interview but the letters lacked personality. — from businessinsider.com by Beatrice Nolan

Key points:

An updated version of the AI chatbot ChatGPT was recently released to the public.
I got the chatbot to write cover letters for real jobs and asked hiring managers what they thought.
The managers said they would’ve given me a call but that the letters lacked personality.

.

I mentor a young lad with poor literacy skills who is starting a landscaping business. He struggles to communicate with clients in a professional manner.

I created a GPT3-powered Gmail account to which he sends a message. It responds with the text to send to the client. pic.twitter.com/nlFX9Yx6wR

— Danny Richman (@DannyRichman) December 1, 2022

A class action lawsuit has been filed against several companies that use image-generating AI with datasets gained amorally. The outcome could affect how AI art is regulated in the future.#AI #ML #futurism #IntelligenceFactory #digitaltransformation #DX https://t.co/XhzLWc9Qxt pic.twitter.com/nWBB12aFMb

— Matthew Lamons (@mlamons1) January 15, 2023

So excited to share this quick ChatGPT Teacher Prompt Guide that is aligned with CESE’s What Works Best Framework. Download it for free with the link in my bio ? #chatgpt #edutech #wwb #whatworksbest pic.twitter.com/9qio14Mgzf

— Andrew Herft (@HerftEducator) January 7, 2023

Learning Ecosystems

“Why we don’t intuitively get how fast the world is changing.” [Misha]

The (almost daily) AI posting!

Major announcements from a key vendor in the AI space — NVIDIA

5 Ideas To Incorporate AI In Your eLearning Course [Pappas]

Leaders who practice foresight stay ahead of the innovation curve [tfsx.com]

A quick and sobering guide to cloning yourself [Professor Ethan Mollick]

ChatGPT sets record for fastest-growing user base – analyst note [Hu]

Resources and “big deals” about ChatGPT and AI

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