IBM Commits to Train 2 Million AI Learners for Free by 2026 — from campustechnology.com by Kate Lucariello

As part of the 2023 78th General Assembly of the United Nations, IBM announced it will train, for free, 2 million learners in artificial intelligence worldwide within the next three years, building on its existing commitment to skill 30 million learners by 2030.

The free program, called IBM SkillsBuild, will use its career-building platforms to partner with universities around the world to develop and make available new generative AI courses, with a significant focus on adult learners in underrepresented communities.



Goldman Sachs CIO is ‘anxious to see results’ from GenAI, but moving carefully — from venturebeat.com by Sharon Goldman

Consider Marco Argenti, CIO at Goldman Sachs — who told me in a recent interview that the leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm has, nearly a year after ChatGPT was released, put exactly zero generative AI use cases into production. Instead, the company is “deeply into experimentation” and has a “high bar” of expectation before deployment. Certainly this is a highly-regulated company, so careful deployment must always be the norm. But Goldman Sachs is also far from new to implementing AI-driven tools — but is still treading slowly and carefully.

 

The Learning & Employment Records (LER) Ecosystem Map — with thanks to Melanie Booth on LinkedIn for this resource
Driving Opportunity and Equity Through Learning & Employment Records

The Learning & Employment Records (LER) Ecosystem Map

Imagine A World Where…

  • Everyone is empowered to access learning and earning opportunities based on what they know and can do, whether those skills and abilities are obtained through degrees, work experiences, or independent learning.
  • People can capture and communicate the skills and competencies they’ve acquired across their entire learning journey — from education, experience and service — with more ease, confidence, and clarity than a traditional resume.
  • Learners and earners control their information and can curate their skills to take advantage of every opportunity they are truly qualified to pursue, opening up pathways that help address systemic inequities.
  • Employers can tap into a wider talent pool and better match applicants to opportunities with verifiable credentials that represent skills, competencies, and achievements.

This is the world that we believe can be created by Learning and Employment Records (LERs), i.e. digital records of learning and work experiences that are linked to and controlled by learners and earners. An interoperable, well-governed LER ecosystem has the potential to transform the future of work so that it is more equitable, efficient, and effective for everyone involved— individuals, training and education providers, employers, and policymakers.


Also per Melanie Booth, see:

 

Creating an ‘ecosystem’ to close the Black talent gap in technology — from mckinsey.com (emphasis below from DSC)

Chris Perkins, associate partner, McKinsey: Promoting diversity in tech is more nuanced than driving traditional diversity initiatives. This is primarily because of the specialized hard and soft skills required to enter tech-oriented professions and succeed throughout their careers. Our research shows us that various actors, such as nonprofits, for-profits, government agencies, and educational institutions are approaching the problem in small pockets. Could we help catalyze an ecosystem with wraparound support across sectors?

To design this, we have to look at the full pipeline and its “leakage” points, from getting talent trained and in the door all the way up to the C-suite. These gaps are caused by lack of awareness and support in early childhood education through college, and lack of sponsorship and mentorship in early- and mid- career positions.

 

Canva’s new AI tools automate boring, labor-intensive design tasks — from theverge.com by Jess Weatherbed
Magic Studio features like Magic Switch automatically convert your designs into blogs, social media posts, emails, and more to save time on manually editing documents.


Canva launches Magic Studio, partners with Runway ML for video — from bensbites.beehiiv.com by Ben Tossell

Here are the highlights of launched features under the new Magic Studio:

  • Magic Design – Turn ideas into designs instantly with AI-generated templates.
  • Magic Switch – Transform content into different formats and languages with one click.
  • Magic Grab – Make images editable like Canva templates for easy editing.
  • Magic Expand – Use AI to expand images beyond the original frame.
  • Magic Morph – Transform text and shapes with creative effects and prompts.
  • Magic Edit – Make complex image edits using simple text prompts.
  • Magic Media – Generate professional photos, videos and artworks from text prompts.
  • Magic Animate – Add animated transitions and motion to designs instantly.
  • Magic Write – Generate draft text and summaries powered by AI.



Adobe Firefly

Meet Adobe Firefly -- Adobe is going hard with the use of AI. This is a key product along those lines.


Addendums on 10/11/23:


Adobe Releases New AI Models Aimed at Improved Graphic Design — from bloomberg.com
New version of Firefly is bigger than initial tool, Adobe says Illustrator, Express programs each get own generative tools


 


The next phase of digital whiteboarding for Google Workspace— from workspaceupdates.googleblog.com

What’s changing

In late 2024, we will wind down the Jamboard whiteboarding app as well as continue with the previously planned end of support for Google Jamboard devices. For those who are impacted by this change, we are committed to help you transition:

    • We are integrating whiteboard tools such as FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro across Google Workspace so you can include them when collaborating in Meet, sharing content in Drive, or scheduling in Calendar.

The Teacher’s Guide for Transitioning from Jamboard to FigJam — from tommullaney.com by Tom Mullaney


 

Instructional Design Careers and Freelancing Presentations — from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
A collection of my presentations and podcasts on instructional design careers and freelancing, including transitioning from teaching to ID.

Instructional design careers and freelancing presentations -- from Christy Tucker

 

What Will Determine AI’s Impact on College Teaching? 5 Signs to Watch. — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie (behind a paywall)

One of the biggest challenges to navigate now is the fact that more digital tools will come with generative AI already embedded in them, says Annette Vee, director of composition and an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “It’s everywhere in professional writing.”

“We need to be fundamentally rethinking ways we teach writing, so we are thinking about integrating tools mindfully,” says Vee, who helped develop a new resource, TextGenEd, that provides guidance in this area. “The real challenge is how do we teach courses that are preparing students and that are smart about generative AI? We have very few teachers currently equipped to do that work.”

“It’s best if there are real stakes attached to the work, for example, an authentic audience the student is writing to,” he writes. “A subject on which students have both sufficient interest and knowledge in order to feel as though they can write convincingly to this audience also matters a lot.”


Also relevant/see — via Robert Gibson on LinkedIn:

Learnt.ai — Built for Learning Specialists — from learnt.ai
Harness the power of artificial intelligence to enhance your learning and development efforts with our easy-to-use platform – no technical expertise required!

Introducing Learnt.ai – a revolutionary collection of AI-powered content generation tools and AI chatbots that are specifically designed to support the common writing tasks of educationalists and learning and development professionals. Imagine being able to generate learning objectives on any topic of your choice, create engaging icebreakers and activities, write assessment questions with ease, and so much more.


Also relevant/see:

An AI and higher education panel — from aiandacademia.substack.com by Bryan Alexander
Live notes

Today I took in a webinar on AI and higher education. The American Association of Colleges and Universities hosted “The AI Revolution: Transforming Higher Education for the Workforce of Tomorrow” and I’d like to share my running notes.


Also relevant/see:

Students’ Perspectives on Using AI — from er.educause.edu by Sarah J. Buszka, Jeremy Cortez, and Isabella Meltzer

Students are using artificial intelligence tools to assist them in their academic careers. Three students share their viewpoints on the tools they use and how using these tools helps them in their coursework and prepares them for the professional world.


Also relevant/see:

Why Professors Are Polarized on AI — from insidehighered.com by Susan D’Agostino
Academics who perceive threats to education from AI band together as a survival mechanism. The resulting alliances echo divisions formed during online learning’s emergence.

 

An excerpt from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ posting from Brandon Busteed on LinkedIn:

6. Create externship programs for faculty. Many college and university faculty have never worked outside of academia. Given a chance to be exposed to modern workplaces and work challenges, faculty will find innovative and creative ways to weave more work-integrated learning into their curriculum.

From DSC:
This is a great idea — thanks Brandon!

I might add another couple of thoughts here as well:

  • And/or treat your Adjunct Faculty Members much better as well!
  • And/or work with more L&D Departments at local companies (i.e., to develop closer, more beneficial/WIN-WIN collaborations).
 

The Prompt #14: Your Guide to Custom Instructions — from noisemedia.ai by Alex Banks

Whilst we typically cover a single ‘prompt’ to use with ChatGPT, today we’re exploring a new feature now available to everyone: custom instructions.

You provide specific directions for ChatGPT leading to greater control of the output. It’s all about guiding the AI to get the responses you really want.

To get started:
Log into ChatGPT ? Click on your name/email bottom left corner ? select ‘Custom instructions’


Meet Zoom AI Companion, your new AI assistant! Unlock the benefits with a paid Zoom account — from blog.zoom.us by Smita Hashim

We’re excited to introduce you to AI Companion (formerly Zoom IQ), your new generative AI assistant across the Zoom platform. AI Companion empowers individuals by helping them be more productive, connect and collaborate with teammates, and improve their skills.

Envision being able to interact with AI Companion through a conversational interface and ask for help on a whole range of tasks, similarly to how you would with a real assistant. You’ll be able to ask it to help prepare for your upcoming meeting, get a consolidated summary of prior Zoom meetings and relevant chat threads, and even find relevant documents and tickets from connected third-party applications with your permission.

From DSC:
You can ask AI Companion to catch you up on what you missed during a meeting in progress.”

And what if some key details were missed? Should you rely on this? I’d treat this with care/caution myself.



A.I.’s un-learning problem: Researchers say it’s virtually impossible to make an A.I. model ‘forget’ the things it learns from private user data — from fortune.com by Stephen Pastis (behind paywall)

That’s because, as it turns out, it’s nearly impossible to remove a user’s data from a trained A.I. model without resetting the model and forfeiting the extensive money and effort put into training it. To use a human analogy, once an A.I. has “seen” something, there is no easy way to tell the model to “forget” what it saw. And deleting the model entirely is also surprisingly difficult.

This represents one of the thorniest, unresolved, challenges of our incipient artificial intelligence era, alongside issues like A.I. “hallucinations” and the difficulties of explaining certain A.I. outputs. 


More companies see ChatGPT training as a hot job perk for office workers — from cnbc.com by Mikaela Cohen

Key points:

  • Workplaces filled with artificial intelligence are closer to becoming a reality, making it essential that workers know how to use generative AI.
  • Offering specific AI chatbot training to current employees could be your next best talent retention tactic.
  • 90% of business leaders see ChatGPT as a beneficial skill in job applicants, according to a report from career site Resume Builder.

OpenAI Plugs ChatGPT Into Canva to Sharpen Its Competitive Edge in AI — from decrypt.co by Jose Antonio Lanz
Now ChatGPT Plus users can “talk” to Canva directly from OpenAI’s bot, making their workflow easier.

This strategic move aims to make the process of creating visuals such as logos, banners, and more, even more simple for businesses and entrepreneurs.

This latest integration could improve the way users generate visuals by offering a streamlined and user-friendly approach to digital design.


From DSC:
This Tweet addresses a likely component of our future learning ecosystems:


Large language models aren’t people. Let’s stop testing them as if they were. — from technologyreview.com by Will Douglas Heaven
With hopes and fears about this technology running wild, it’s time to agree on what it can and can’t do.

That’s why a growing number of researchers—computer scientists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, linguists—want to overhaul the way they are assessed, calling for more rigorous and exhaustive evaluation. Some think that the practice of scoring machines on human tests is wrongheaded, period, and should be ditched.

“There’s a lot of anthropomorphizing going on,” she says. “And that’s kind of coloring the way that we think about these systems and how we test them.”

“There is a long history of developing methods to test the human mind,” says Laura Weidinger, a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind. “With large language models producing text that seems so human-like, it is tempting to assume that human psychology tests will be useful for evaluating them. But that’s not true: human psychology tests rely on many assumptions that may not hold for large language models.”


We Analyzed Millions of ChatGPT User Sessions: Visits are Down 29% since May, Programming Assistance is 30% of Use — from sparktoro.com by Rand Fishkin

In concert with the fine folks at Datos, whose opt-in, anonymized panel of 20M devices (desktop and mobile, covering 200+ countries) provides outstanding insight into what real people are doing on the web, we undertook a challenging project to answer at least some of the mystery surrounding ChatGPT.



Crypto in ‘arms race’ against AI-powered scams — Quantstamp co-founder — from cointelegraph.com by Tom Mitchelhill
Quantstamp’s Richard Ma explained that the coming surge in sophisticated AI phishing scams could pose an existential threat to crypto organizations.

With the field of artificial intelligence evolving at near breakneck speed, scammers now have access to tools that can help them execute highly sophisticated attacks en masse, warns the co-founder of Web3 security firm Quantstamp.


 

How do you create and maintain an e-learning portfolio without pitfalls? — from linkedin.com by various authors

If you are an e-learning professional, you know how important it is to showcase your skills and projects to potential clients, employers, or collaborators. An e-learning portfolio is a collection of your best work that demonstrates your abilities, creativity, and experience in designing, developing, and delivering online learning solutions. But how do you create and maintain an e-learning portfolio without pitfalls? In this article, you will learn some tips and best practices to help you avoid common mistakes and make your portfolio stand out.


Speaking of career-related postings, I thought this was an interesting article:

In Praise of the Meandering Career — from every.to by Simone Stolzoff
Build a compass, not a map

Midjourney prompt/"meandering career" Midjourney prompt/”meandering career”

There’s a common misconception that our résumés ought to tell a linear story, free from breaks, twists, and turns. But this assumption is not borne out in reality. Nearly three out of every four college graduates work in a field unrelated to their major. The average worker holds over a dozen jobs by their fifties. And over half of today’s college students will work jobs that don’t yet exist.

Taking a nontraditional path will force you to grapple with what matters
The greatest benefit of a nontraditional path is that you have to figure out what you care about. Rather than an employer telling you what you should value, you have to do the hard work of determining what you value for yourself.

 

From DSC:
Time will tell.

Per Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO: “This system-wide industry micro-credential program sets an innovative blueprint for the future of higher education.”

***

University Of Texas, Coursera Launch Historic Micro-credential Partnership — from forbes.com by Michael T. Nietzel

The University of Texas and Coursera, the online learning platform and a pioneer of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), are launching a large-scale, industry-recognized micro-credential program. The collaboration was announced today in a blogpost by Coursera.

Through the new partnership, every student, faculty, and staff (and even alumni) across all nine universities in the University of Texas (UT) System will gain access to Courser’s Career Academy for no additional cost to them.

 

The future of learning and skilling with AI in the picture — from chieflearningofficer.com by Janice Burns
Janice Burns, chief transformation officer at Degreed, looks at how AI is impacting the future of learning and skilling.

Sections include:

  • Saving L&D time
  • Recommending and personalizing
  • ‘As you need it’ learning 
  • A career coach for everyone?
  • More advances coming
  • Be mindful of the limitations
  • Remain open to the changes coming

Also relevant/see:


Who Will Train Digital (Legal) Talent At Scale? — from forbes.com by Mark A. Cohen

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The urgency to fill existing and prospective positions with digital talent and to upskill those already in the workforce are among the reasons why leading companies have boldly assessed and transformed their enterprise talent management strategies. Some key initiatives leading companies are undertaking include:

  • Direct involvement by the C-Suite in the formulation of the enterprise talent strategy and lifecycle;
  • A paradigmatic hiring shift from diplomas to skills;
  • Increased investment in upskilling and career advancement to promote retention and to identify high-performers early on;
  • Targeted collaboration with universities focused on training in areas of existing and projected talent supply demand
  • Promoting a learning-for-life mindset and encouraging creative thinking, cross-cultural collaboration, and forging a culture that values these and other humanistic values.
  • Collaborating with other companies to create joint solutions for fulfilling skill demand

Practical, powerful employee education: How interactivity supports greater learning online — from chieflearningofficer.com by Natasha Nicholson

Consider this comparison: In more passive online learning, a participant will learn primarily by listening, watching and observing. Conversely, in an interactive model, the participant will be expected to engage with a story or situation by being asked to make choices that will show potential consequences.

Here are some of the elements that, when combined, make interactive learning especially effective:

 

Skilled Trades School — from uei.edu with thanks to Noah Adam for this resource

Excerpt:

UEI College provides students with a wide range of career training opportunities for those who enjoy hands-on work and are interested in building, fixing, or designing things. UEI College’s programs range from HVAC Training to Automotive Technician Training. Our skilled trades programs are designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in your chosen trade. With experienced instructors, hands-on training, and suitable facilities, we are able to provide you with a comprehensive education that prepares you for a successful career in the skilled trades.

 

A cam/mic/light/teleprompter remote kit for non-tech-savvy guests, including Shure MV7 — from provideocoalition.com by Allan Tépper

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Inspired by my recent Review: Shure MV7 dynamic hybrid studio microphone – near, far and beyond, Beaker Films of Fairfield, Connecticut, US has developed and deployed a first batch of 10 kits to capture remote conversations from different locations worldwide. Beaker Films is frequently contracted to record remote interviews or testimonials from medical professionals. For this project, Beaker Films’ clients wanted consistent, high quality audio and video, but with 3 additional challenges: they preferred to have no visible microphone in the shot, they needed a teleprompter function and the whole kit needed to be as simple as possible for non-technical guests.




Speaking of A/V-related items, also see:

Seven worlds one planet at the BBC Earth Experience — from inavateonthenet.net by Paul Milligan

‘Holographic’ animal-free zoo opens in Australia — from inavateonthenet.net

XR Lab opens in UK college — from inavateonthenet.net

West Suffolk College in the UK has opened its Extended Reality Lab (XR Lab), the facilities comprise of four distinct areas: an Immersion Lab, a Collaboration Theatre, a Green Room, and a Conference Room. The project was designed by architects WindsorPatania for Eastern Colleges Group.

CJP to create virtual studio for Solent University — from inavateonthenet.net

Systems integrator CJP Broadcast Service Solutions, has won a tender to build a virtual production environment for Solent University in the UK.

The new facilities, converted from an existing studio space, will provide students on the film production courses with outstanding opportunities to develop their creative output.

 

Generative AI and the future of work in America — from mckinsey.com by Kweilin Ellingrud, Saurabh Sanghvi, Gurneet Singh Dandona, Anu Madgavkar, Michael Chui, Olivia White, and Paige Hasebe

At a glance

  • During the pandemic (2019–22), the US labor market saw 8.6 million occupational shifts, 50 percent more than in the previous three-year period.
  • By 2030, activities that account for up to 30 percent of hours currently worked across the US economy could be automated—a trend accelerated by generative AI.
  • Federal investment to address climate and infrastructure, as well as structural shifts, will also alter labor demand.
  • An additional 12 million occupational transitions may be needed by 2030.
  • The United States will need workforce development on a far larger scale as well as more expansive hiring approaches from employers.

Employers will need to hire for skills and competencies rather than credentials, recruit from overlooked populations (such as rural workers and people with disabilities), and deliver training that keeps pace with their evolving needs.


The AI-Powered, Totally Autonomous Future of War Is Here — from wired.com by Will Knight
Ships without crews. Self-directed drone swarms. How a US Navy task force is using off-the-shelf robotics and artificial intelligence to prepare for the next age of conflict.

From DSC:
Hhhhmmmmm…..not good. Is anyone surprised by this? No, I didn’t think so either. That’s why the United States and China are so heated up about semiconductor chips.


AI puts glitch in graduates’ employment plans — from hrdive.com by Ginger Christ
Recent grads are worried how AI will affect their career prospects, a new survey found.

Excerpt:

  • The proliferation of new technologies like generative artificial intelligence is making recent graduates uneasy, a new study released Thursday found. A third of the 1,000 people who graduated in the past year said they are second-guessing their career choice, while roughly half reported questioning their workforce preparedness and feeling threatened by AI, according to the 2023 Employability Report by Cengage Group, a global education technology company.

“The workplace has changed rapidly in the last few years, and now we are witnessing a new shift as AI begins to reshape worker productivity, job requirements, hiring habits and even entire industries,” Michael Hansen, Cengage Group CEO, said in a news release. 

Along these lines, also see:

AI Boom Creates Concerns for Recent Graduates — from insidehighered.com by  Lauren Coffey

More than half of recent graduates question whether they are properly prepared for the workforce in light of the rise of artificial intelligence, a survey finds.

There is also more of a preference for skills training credentials. Among employers, nearly 40 percent said skills training credentials are most important, while only 19 percent ranked a college degree as most important.

However, recent graduates did cite an issue with most higher education institutions’ ability to teach employability skills. In 2023, 43 percent of students said their degree program taught them the necessary skills for their first job, down 20 percentage points from 2022.


Instructure, Khan Academy Announce Major Partnership On AI Tutoring, Teaching
— from forbes.com by Derek Newton

The news is that Instructure, one of the few public education companies and the market leader in learning management with their signature product Canvas, struck a partnership with Khan Academy to create an AI-powered tutoring and teaching assistant tool – merging Khan’s innovative instructional content and Instructure’s significant reach, scale, and data insights. The partnership and related tools will be known as Khanmigo, according to the announcement.

On brand names alone, this is a big deal. On potential impact, it could be even bigger.


How To Use AI to Write Scenarios — from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
How can you use AI to write scenarios for learning? Read this example with prompts and results using ChatGPT and Bard.

Excerpts:

So far, I have found these tools helpful in generating ideas, writing first drafts, and summarizing. They work better for general knowledge tasks than really specific topics unless I provide more details to them, which makes sense.

This post isn’t going to give you “5 magical prompts to instantly write scenarios for you” or anything like that. Instead, this is a “working out loud” post where I’ll share some prompts I have used.

Christy’s posting includes:

  1. “The Meeting from Hell”
  2. “The Backstabbing Coworker”
  3. “The Boss from Hell”
  4. “The Office Romance Gone Wrong”
  5. “The New Hire with Attitude”

Some potential tools for you to check out:



The Rise of the Talent Economy — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
How Education & Training Will Dictate the Future & Impact of AI

“Talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.”

In short, the demand for AI skills requires a significant transformation in training and education models. To bridge the global skills gap, educational institutions, online learning providers, and employers must design and deliver training programs that cater to the rapidly evolving AI-driven labor market. 


How ChatGPT killed my discussion boards and prompted new prompts — from timeshighereducation.com by Sara Cline; per Robert Gibson on LinkedIn
Advice on learning and discussion prompts that require students to think beyond the remit of AI responses

Excerpts:

To combat this problem, we modified some of our prompts this summer to try to prevent students from using AI to avoid learning. I’m sharing some of our strategies in the hope that they help you out as you adapt your course to a world of generative AI.

  1. Use prompts that force a personal opinion.
  2. Have students include their source(s) as an attachment.
  3. Use current or local events.
  4. Have them take and caption a photo.
  5. Draw a diagram or chart.
  6. Build and explain a 3D model.
  7. Include timestamps from lecture videos.
  8. Scrap the discussion boards.

Dark web ChatGPT is here… — from therundown.ai

The Rundown: A new cybercrime generative AI tool called FraudGPT is being advertised on the Dark web and Telegram channels, offering offensive capabilities like crafting spear-phishing emails and creating undetectable malware.

Why it matters: Scammers can now look more realistic than ever before and at a larger scale. The sad truth is that the emergence of cybercrime AI tools like FraudGPT is just beginning.


From DSC:
If true and if it could help build and/or contribute to cloud-based learner profiles,  this could be huge.


Wayfair’s AI tool can redraw your living room and sell you furniture — from theverge.com by Wes Davis
The home decoration company’s new Decorify AI remodeling tool is clumsy but could be effective for visualization while remodeling.

A living room -- Wayfair is experimenting with using AI technologies to help people envision interior design moves

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian