How to Navigate Customer Service — from marketoonist.com by Tom Fishburne
On 09/19/2025,
in business, corporate / business world, Emotion, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
On 09/19/2025,
in creativity, credentialing, digital learning, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, more voice more choice more control, participation, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, project-based learning, real-world assignments, skills, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, vendors, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Small, Rural Central California High School Continues To Defy Standardized Education — from gettingsmart.com by Michael Niehoff
Key Points
- Minarets High School prioritizes student-centered learning with innovative programs like project-based learning, digital tools, and unique offerings.
- Emphasis on student voice and personalized learning fosters engagement, creativity, and real-world preparation, setting a benchmark for educational innovation.
Let High Schoolers Do Less? Let High Schoolers Experience More — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark and Nate McClennen
Key Points
- High school should focus on personalized and purposeful learning experiences that engage students and build real-world skills.
- Traditional transcripts should be replaced with richer learning and experience records to better communicate students’ skills to higher education and employers.
“Americans want to grant more control to students themselves, prioritizing a K-12 education where all students have the option to choose the courses they want to study based on interests and aspirations.”
Research on motivation and engagement supports personalized and purposeful learning. Students are more motivated when they see relevance and have some choice. We summarize this in six core principles to which schools should strive.
New Effort Pushes the U.S. to Stop Getting ‘Schooled’ and Start Learning — from workshift.org by Elyse Ashburn
The Big Idea: A new collaborative effort led out of the Stanford center aims to tackle that goal—giving clearer shape to what it would mean to truly build a new “learning society.” As a starting point, the collaborative released a report and set of design principles this week, crafted through a year of discussion and debate among about three dozen fellows in leadership roles in education, industry, government, and research.
The fellows landed on nine core principles—including that working is learning and credentials are a means, not an end—designed to transition the United States from a “schooled society” to a “learning society.”
“Universal access to K-12 education and the massification of access to college were major accomplishments of 20th century America,” Stevens says. “But all that schooling also has downsides that only recently have come into common view. Conventional schooling is expensive, bureaucratic, and often inflexible.”
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How Substitute Teachers Can Connect With Their Students — from edutopia.org by Zachary Shell
Five enriching strategies to help subs stay involved and make a difference in the classroom.
I’ve since found enrichment in substitute teaching. Along the way, I’ve compiled a handful of strategies that have helped me stay involved and make a difference, one day at a time. Those strategies—which are useful for new substitutes still learning the ropes, as well as full-time teachers who are scaling back to substitute duties—are laid out below.
A Quiet Classroom Isn’t Always an Ideal Classroom — from edutopia.org by Clementina Jose
By rethinking what a good day in the classroom looks and sounds like, new teachers can better support their students.
If your classroom hums with the energy of students asking questions, debating ideas, and working together, you haven’t failed. You’ve succeeded in building a space where learning isn’t about being compliant, but about being alive and present.
On 09/17/2025,
in 21st century, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, Europe, experimentation, India, legislatures / government / legal, society, UK, United States, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
3 Work Trends – Issue 87 — from the World Economic Forum
1. #AI adoption is delivering real results for early movers
Three years into the generative AI revolution, a small but growing group of global companies is demonstrating the tangible potential of AI. Among firms with revenues of $1 billion or more:
- 17% report cost savings or revenue growth of at least 10% from AI.
- Almost 80% say their AI investments have met or exceeded expectations.
- Half worry they are not moving fast enough and could fall behind competitors.
The world’s first AI cabinet member — from therundown.ai by Zach Mink, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma, Joey Liu & Jennifer Mossalgue
PLUS: Startup produces 3,000 AI podcast episodes weekly
The details:
- Prime Minister Edi Rama unveiled Diella during a cabinet announcement this week, calling her the first member “virtually created by artificial intelligence”.
- The AI avatar will evaluate and award all public tenders where the government contracts private firms.
- Diella already serves citizens through Albania’s digital services portal, processing bureaucratic requests via voice commands.
- Rama claims the AI will eliminate bribes and threats from decision-making, though the government hasn’t detailed what human oversight will exist.
The Rundown AI’s article links to:
- Albania appoints world’s first AI-made minister — from politico.eu by Alice Taylor
Diella, who is powered by artificial intelligence, will handle public procurement.
Anthropic Economic Index report: Uneven geographic and enterprise AI adoption — from anthropic.com
In other words, a hallmark of early technological adoption is that it is concentrated—in both a small number of geographic regions and a small number of tasks in firms. As we document in this report, AI adoption appears to be following a similar pattern in the 21st century, albeit on shorter timelines and with greater intensity than the diffusion of technologies in the 20th century.
To study such patterns of early AI adoption, we extend the Anthropic Economic Index along two important dimensions, introducing a geographic analysis of Claude.ai conversations and a first-of-its-kind examination of enterprise API use. We show how Claude usage has evolved over time, how adoption patterns differ across regions, and—for the first time—how firms are deploying frontier AI to solve business problems.
How human-centric AI can shape the future of work — from weforum.org by Sapthagiri Chapalapalli
- Last year, use of AI in the workplace increased by 5.5% in Europe alone.
- AI adoption is accelerating, but success depends on empowering people, not just deploying technology.
- Redesigning roles and workflows to combine human creativity and critical thinking with AI-driven insights is key.
Organizations are having to rapidly adapt their business models. Image: TCS
Using ChatGPT to get a job — from linkedin.com by Ishika Rawat
On 09/17/2025,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Microsoft, online learning, Open AI, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From EdTech to TechEd: The next chapter in learning’s evolution — from linkedin.com by Lev Gonick
A day in the life: The next 25 years
A learner wakes up. Their AI-powered learning coach welcomes them, drawing their attention to their progress and helping them structure their approach to the day. A notification reminds them of an upcoming interview and suggests reflections to add to their learning portfolio.
Rather than a static gradebook, their portfolio is a dynamic, living record, curated by the student, validated by mentors in both industry and education, and enriched through co-creation with maturing modes of AI. It tells a story through essays, code, music, prototypes, journal reflections, and team collaborations. These artifacts are not “submitted”, they are published, shared, and linked to verifiable learning outcomes.
And when it’s time to move, to a new institution, a new job, or a new goal, their data goes with them, immutable, portable, verifiable, and meaningful.
From DSC:
And I would add to that last solid sentence that the learner/student/employee will be able to control who can access this information. Anyway, some solid reflections here from Lev.
AI Could Surpass Schools for Academic Learning in 5-10 Years — from downes.ca with commentary from Stephen Downes
I know a lot of readers will disagree with this, and the timeline feels aggressive (the future always arrives more slowly than pundits expect) but I think the overall premise is sound: “The concept of a tipping point in education – where AI surpasses traditional schools as the dominant learning medium – is increasingly plausible based on current trends, technological advancements, and expert analyses.”
The world’s first AI cabinet member — from therundown.ai by Zach Mink, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma, Joey Liu & Jennifer Mossalgue
The Rundown: In this tutorial, you will learn how to combine NotebookLM with ChatGPT to master any subject faster, turning dense PDFs into interactive study materials with summaries, quizzes, and video explanations.
Step-by-step:
- Go to notebooklm.google.com, click the “+” button, and upload your PDF study material (works best with textbooks or technical documents)
- Choose your output mode: Summary for a quick overview, Mind Map for visual connections, or Video Overview for a podcast-style explainer with visuals
- Generate a Study Guide under Reports — get Q&A sets, short-answer questions, essay prompts, and glossaries of key terms automatically
- Take your PDF to ChatGPT and prompt: “Read this chapter by chapter and highlight confusing parts” or “Quiz me on the most important concepts”
- Combine both tools: Use NotebookLM for quick context and interactive guides, then ChatGPT to clarify tricky parts and go deeperPro Tip: If your source is in EPUB or audiobook, convert it to PDF before uploading. Both NotebookLM and ChatGPT handle PDFs best.
Claude can now create and edit files — from anthropic.com
Claude can now create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slide decks, and PDFs directly in Claude.ai and the desktop app. This transforms how you work with Claude—instead of only receiving text responses or in-app artifacts, you can describe what you need, upload relevant data, and get ready-to-use files in return.
Also see:
- Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic — from techcrunch.com byRebecca Bellan
Microsoft will pay to use Anthropic’s AI in Office 365 apps, The Information reports, citing two sources. The move means that Anthropic’s tech will help power new features in Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint alongside OpenAI’s, marking the end of Microsoft’s previous reliance solely on the ChatGPT maker for its productivity suite. Microsoft’s move to diversify its AI partnerships comes amid a growing rift with OpenAI, which has pursued its own infrastructure projects as well as a potential LinkedIn competitor.
Ep. 11 AGI and the Future of Higher Ed: Talking with Ray Schroeder
In this episode of Unfixed, we talk with Ray Schroeder—Senior Fellow at UPCEA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Springfield—about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and what it means for the future of higher education. While most of academia is still grappling with ChatGPT and basic AI tools, Schroeder is thinking ahead to AI agents, human displacement, and AGI’s existential implications for teaching, learning, and the university itself. We explore why AGI is so controversial, what institutions should be doing now to prepare, and how we can respond responsibly—even while we’re already overwhelmed.
Best AI Tools for Instructional Designers — from blog.cathy-moore.com by Cathy Moore
Data from the State of AI and Instructional Design Report revealed that 95.3% of the instructional designers interviewed use AI in their daily work [1]. And over 85% of this AI use occurs during the design and development process.
These figures showcase the immense impact AI is already having on the instructional design world.
If you’re an L&D professional still on the fence about adding AI to your workflow or an AI convert looking for the next best tools, keep reading.
This guide breaks down 5 of the top AI tools for instructional designers in 2025, so you can streamline your development processes and build better training faster.
But before we dive into the tools of the trade, let’s address the elephant in the room:
3 Human Skills That Make You Irreplaceable in an AI World — from gettingsmart.com/ by Tom Vander Ark and Mason Pashia
Key Points
-
Update learner profiles to emphasize curiosity, curation, and connectivity, ensuring students develop irreplaceable human skills.
-
Integrate real-world learning experiences and mastery-based assessments to foster agency, purpose, and motivation in students.
On 09/17/2025,
in faith, global, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the Lord is to be praised.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Fear of man will prove to be a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
On 09/17/2025,
in colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, skills, society, sociology, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
The waiting game — from college-inside.beehiiv.com by Charlotte West
College Inside breaks down the numbers from a first-of-its kind report on higher education in Illinois prisons.
For every person enrolled in higher education at Illinois prisons, someone else is waiting for their turn, according to new state data that reveals a system where access to college depends largely on where someone is incarcerated.
Right now, roughly 2,000 people in Illinois prisons are participating in higher education programs, according to a report released at the beginning of September. That’s about 1 out of every 15 people incarcerated in the state. At the same time, though, another 2,000 are stuck on waiting lists to get into classes because there’s not enough programming available.
Another 700 people on supervised release — Illinois’ version of parole — are also enrolled in higher education, per the report. Those numbers include enrollment in both college classes, and career and technical education.
On 09/09/2025,
in art, creativity, education, Emotion, ideas, society, teachers, United States,
by Daniel Christian
In Rural Wisconsin, Pat Perry Connects the Various Forces That Shape Our World — from thisiscolossal.com by Pat Perry & Grace Ebert
To conceptualize the work, the collective helped to contact and secure permissions from the teachers pictured, and with the exception of the woman in the red floral garment at the bottom of the piece—she’s the artist’s mother and a retired educator—all work in the area. And why teachers? Perry explains:
Day after day, people find purpose. They wake up early, show up with intention, and try to make sense of things—not just for themselves, but also for others. Teachers do this every day. Not for recognition, and rarely for much pay. It’s a repetitive act of maintenance that holds things together. Choosing to shoulder that task, even while standing at the edge of something vast and indifferent, is a quiet act of defiance. Amidst overwhelmingness and uncontrollableness and unanswerableness, teachers—and all custodians of human affairs—keep meaning in the world by steadily and stubbornly tending to it.
While you’re out there, also see:
Song Dong’s Monumental Installations Mirror Memories, Globalization, and Impermanence — from thisiscolossal.com by Song Dong and Kate Mothes
On 09/05/2025,
in adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, funding / grants, higher education, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
Higher ed’s ‘hunker-down mindset’ — from open-campus-dispatch.beehiiv.com by Colleen Murphy
A tight housing market and a fragile job market mean those working in higher ed have fewer options than ever.
Faculty and administrators could be just as constrained by the golden handcuffs of a 2% interest rate as everybody else. That makes them less likely to move for a new job, Kelchen said, especially since they’re unlikely to get the type of salary increase they’d need to offset more pricey mortgage payments. Plus, even finding an affordable house in the first place could be a challenge right now.
All of this contributes to what Kelchen called a “hunker-down mindset” in higher ed.
“Even if the institutions are giving out pay raises, the pay raises aren’t matching housing costs,” Kelchen said. “And then that creates a pressure to stay.”
While that might seem like a “first-world problem,” it also affects college and university staff members, Kelchen told me. Often the only way for staff members to make more money is to move universities — there aren’t the same in-house growth opportunities as there are for faculty. But that’s easier said than done.