Merlyn Mind, an AI-powered digital assistant platform, announced the launch of a suite of large language models (LLMs) specifically tailored for the education sector under an open-source license.
Designing courses in an age of AI— from teachinginhighered.com by Maria Andersen Maria Andersen shares about designing courses in an age of artificial intelligence (AI) on episode 469 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
With generative AI, we have an incredible acceleration of change happening.
Their most recognisable role is to partner with faculty and provide them with inspiration, expertise and support in their teaching. But a broader role is emerging at institutional level- helping create a culture where people value talking about teaching and more generally, fostering a culture of continuous learning. In this respect, CTLs act as agents of change, aiming to influence the organizational (learning) environment.
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CTLs are part of an ecosystem, internally and externally, and they have the potential to play a very important role, that of a network node. Internally, this can mean connecting various silos within the university, a much needed task, while externally it implies establishing collaboration flows with other CTLs that can in turn lead to broader inter-university collaboration. Making use of the full potential of this role can make a big difference for the success of a CTL.
Speaking of Teaching & Learning Centers, also see:
7 Questions on Engaging Faculty in Digital Accessibility — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly We asked the Technical College System of Georgia’s accessibility champions how they help instructors create a more inclusive learning experience for all students.
Now a nonprofit co-founded by Havens has invented a computational programming platform built around one of the few technologies that people in prison do have access to: highly restricted, text-only e-mail. And as this facility begins to offer new opportunities, more and more incarcerated people are working on advanced mathematics to give meaning to their years behind bars.
“The proposed transaction will complement Thomson Reuters existing AI roadmap and builds on its recent initiatives, including a commitment to invest more than $100 million annually on AI capabilities, the development of new generative AI experiences across its product suite, as well as a new plugin with Microsoft and Microsoft 365 Copilot for legal professionals,” TR’s announcement said.
From DSC: I post this to show how AI continues to make inroads into the legal realm — and how serious vendors are about it. I believe AI-enabled applications will eventually increase access to justice for the citizens of the United States of America.
Below is an addendum on 6/28/23 that further illustrates how serious vendors are about AI:
Databricks announced it will pay $1.3 billion to acquire MosaicML, an open source startup with neural networks expertise that has built a platform for organizations to train large language models and deploy generative AI tools based on them.
Higher ed may appear less impacted on the surface. But a small yet critical cohort of students and families has been heavily affected – students and parents who take out private student loans. Private student loans are a small piece of the overall student loan puzzle, representing roughly 8% of outstanding student debt (~$146.9 billion) according to a March 2023 analysis from Federal Student Aid.
… Private student loans have gotten way more expensive With that context in mind, it’s worth analyzing how the rise in interest rates has impacted borrowing costs for families. The numbers are staggering. As the Fed has hiked interest rates, private loan borrowing costs have more than doubled since November of 2021. The average interest rate on a 10-year private student loan has jumped from a low of 3.3% in November 2021 to 7% at the end of May 2023. Interest rates for 5-year private loans have skyrocketed even faster, jumping from a low of 2.4% all the way to 8.70% across the same period. .
Tuesday, June 6, 2023 – Far too often, individuals in higher education don’t understand the nuances of how accreditors operate and the role they play in supporting—or constraining—institutions. Jeff and Michael welcome Barbara Brittingham, former president of the New England Commission on Higher Education, to give the history of accreditation, break down how accrediting agencies operate, show how they compare to one another, and delve into how they might evolve in the future with an eye toward how these organizations impact institutional transformation and support learners in achieving their education and career goals. This episode is made possible with support from Ascendium Education Group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Course Hero. .
On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia was joined by Rich Novak to evaluate the changes in higher education over the past decade, and the opportunities ahead for continuing education. .
Partnering With Higher Education I believe that companies can gain a competitive edge in hiring and retention by establishing long-term partnerships with educators, universities and other pedagogically-driven institutions. However, it is crucial to design these partnerships with scale and replication in mind in order to avoid high costs and low adoption rates that can result in failure.
Establishing a successful partnership will also require companies and universities to determine and agree on the skill-based outcomes they aim to achieve. They will have to find effective ways to share data, develop timelines and measure success for both parties.
This is a shift from traditional partnerships, which often focus on research and innovation initiatives. With this, intellectual property was the outcome of the collaboration. Instead, in a reskilling partnership, in-demand skills are the outcome. .
EDUCAUSE and WCET QuickPoll Results: Current Trends in Microcredential Design and Delivery — from er.educause.edu by Jenay Robert Microcredentialing programs remain nascent at many institutions, but interest continues to grow. As the demand for flexible learning experiences increases, stakeholders might find renewed interest in and uses for microcredentials.
We needed to identify people to interview—classroom teachers, district leaders, maybe a reading researcher—and then I would need to interview them. I would also need to write the scripts, incorporating audio clips from the interviews. Then I would need to record the narration, which someone would have to integrate with the interview clips. Plus a lot of other stuff I wasn’t even aware of.
But I’m delighted to report that we’ve actually done it! The first episode is set to drop on June 28th, and you can listen to the trailer right now, here. You’ll also find links on that page to various podcast platforms where you can subscribe.
From DSC: If you don’t mind providing me with feedback here on what you think of this new podcast (as new recordings become available), I’d appreciate it.
This moment requires agility — and L&D can lead the way.
For individuals, agility fuels career growth and relevance. For organizations, agility equals the ability to survive and thrive even amid economic headwinds.
And what is agility if not constant learning? To build a resilient and adaptable future, learning leaders are working across HR to ensure everyone has the tools, the career paths, and the skills to succeed.
Read on for insights and ideas to power your own path.
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 23, 2023
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On giving AI eyes and ears— from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick AI can listen and see, with bigger implications than we might realize.
Excerpt:
But even this is just the beginning, and new modes of using AI are appearing, which further increases their capabilities. I want to show you some examples of this emerging world, which I think will soon introduce a new wave of AI use cases, and accompanying disruption.
We need to recognize that these capabilities will continue to grow, and AI will be able to play a more active role in the real world by observing and listening. The implications are likely to be profound, and we should start thinking through both the huge benefits and major concerns today.
Even though generative AI is a new thing, it doesn’t change why students cheat. They’ve always cheated for the same reason: They don’t find the work meaningful, and they don’t think they can achieve it to their satisfaction. So we need to design assessments that students find meaning in.
Tricia Bertram Gallant
Caught off guard by AI— from chonicle.com by Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano Professor scrambled to react to ChatGPT this spring — and started planning for the fall
Excerpt:
Is it cheating to use AI to brainstorm, or should that distinction be reserved for writing that you pretend is yours? Should AI be banned from the classroom, or is that irresponsible, given how quickly it is seeping into everyday life? Should a student caught cheating with AI be punished because they passed work off as their own, or given a second chance, especially if different professors have different rules and students aren’t always sure what use is appropriate?
…OpenAI built tool use right into the GPT API with an update called function calling. It’s a little like a child’s ability to ask their parents to help them with a task that they know they can’t do on their own. Except in this case, instead of parents, GPT can call out to external code, databases, or other APIs when it needs to.
Each function in function calling represents a tool that a GPT model can use when necessary, and GPT gets to decide which ones it wants to use and when. This instantly upgrades GPT capabilities—not because it can now do every task perfectly—but because it now knows how to ask for what it wants and get it. .
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How ChatGPT can help disrupt assessment overload— from timeshighereducation.com by David Carless Advances in AI are not necessarily the enemy – in fact, they should prompt long overdue consideration of assessment types and frequency, says David Carless
Excerpt:
Reducing the assessment burden could support trust in students as individuals wanting to produce worthwhile, original work. Indeed, students can be co-opted as partners in designing their own assessment tasks, so they can produce something meaningful to them.
A strategic reduction in quantity of assessment would also facilitate a refocusing of assessment priorities on deep understanding more than just performance and carries potential to enhance feedback processes.
If we were to tackle assessment overload in these ways, it opens up various possibilities. Most significantly there is potential to revitalise feedback so that it becomes a core part of a learning cycle rather than an adjunct at its end. End-of-semester, product-oriented feedback, which comes after grades have already been awarded, fails to encourage the iterative loops and spirals typical of productive learning. .
Since AI in education has been moving at the speed of light, we built this AI Tools in Education database to keep track of the most recent AI tools in education and the changes that are happening every day.This database is intended to be a community resource for educators, researchers, students, and other edtech specialists looking to stay up to date. This is a living document, so be sure to come back for regular updates.
These claims conjure up the rosiest of images: human resource departments and their robot buddies solving discrimination in workplace hiring. It seems plausible, in theory, that AI could root out unconscious bias, but a growing body of research shows the opposite may be more likely.
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Companies’ use of AI didn’t come out of nowhere: For example, automated applicant tracking systems have been used in hiring for decades. That means if you’ve applied for a job, your resume and cover letter were likely scanned by an automated system. You probably heard from a chatbot at some point in the process. Your interview might have been automatically scheduled and later even assessed by AI.
From DSC:
Here was my reflection on this:
DC: Along these lines, I wonder if Applicant Tracking Systems cause us to become like typecast actors and actresses — only thought of for certain roles. Pigeonholed.
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 23, 2023
In June, ResumeBuilder.com surveyed more than 1,000 employees who are involved in hiring processes at their workplaces to find out about their companies’ use of AI interviews.
The results:
43% of companies already have or plan to adopt AI interviews by 2024
Two-thirds of this group believe AI interviews will increase hiring efficiency
15% say that AI will be used to make decisions on candidates without any human input
More than half believe AI will eventually replace human hiring managers
Watch OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the Future of AI — from bloomberg.com Sam Altman, CEO & Co-Founder, OpenAI discusses the explosive rise of OpenAI and its products and what an AI-laced future can look like with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at the Bloomberg Technology Summit.
The implementation of generative AI within these products will dramatically improve educators’ ability to deliver personalized learning to students at scale by enabling the application of personalized assessments and learning pathways based on individual student needs and learning goals. K-12 educators will also benefit from access to OpenAI technology…
Schools and organizations are human systems, filled with opportunities.
And yet there is a profound difference between building from a foundation of schooling and building from a foundation of learning.
Rather than simply replicate and scale the arrangements of schooling, we must seize the possibility to shift from a schooling system to a learning ecosystem to truly empower learners, educators, and parents to create a virtuous future for themselves and their communities.
Louka Parry
Our challenge will be how we choose to redesign and remake our experiences, environments, and ecosystems so that we unlock our true creative potential and thrive in the future.
After chronicling 160+ AI tools (which is surely only a small fraction of the total), we’re seeing a few clear patterns among the tools that have come out so far- here are 10 categories that are jumping out!
“I don’t usually get worked up about announcements but I see promise in JFF’s plans for a new Center for Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Work, in no small part because the organization bridges higher ed, K-12 education, employers, and policymakers.”
BOSTON June 14, 2023 —Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit that drives transformation in the U.S. education and workforce systems, today announced the launch of its new Center for Artificial Intelligence &the Future of Work. This center will play an integral role in JFF’s mission and newly announced 10-year North Star goal to help 75 million people facing systemic barriers to advancement work in quality jobs. As AI’s explosive growth reshapes every aspect of how we learn, work, and live, this new center will serve as a nexus of collaboration among stakeholders from every part of the education-to-career ecosystem to explore the most promising opportunities—and profound challenges—of AI’s potential to advance an accessible and equitable future of learning and work.
OpenAI Considers ‘App Store’ For ChatGPT — from searchenginejournal.com by; with thanks to Barsee at AI Valley for this resource OpenAI explores launching an ‘app store’ for AI models, potentially challenging current partners and expanding customer reach.
Highlights:
OpenAI considers launching an ‘app store’ for customized AI chatbots.
This move could create competition with current partners and extend OpenAI’s customer reach.
Early interest from companies like Aquant and Khan Academy shows potential, but product development and market positioning challenges remain.
The rise of artificial intelligence, especially generative AI, boosts productivity in content creation–text, code, images and increasingly video.
Here are six preliminary conclusions about the nature of work and learning.
Wonder Tools: AI to try— from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan 9 playful little ways to explore AI
Excerpt:
Create a personalized children’s story ? | Schrodi Collaborate with AI on a free customized, illustrated story for someone special. Give your story’s hero a name, pick a genre (e.g. comedy, thriller), choose an illustration style (e.g. watercolor, 3d animation) and provide a prompt to shape a simple story. You can even suggest a moral. After a minute, download a full-color PDF to share. Or print it and read your new mini picture book aloud.
Generate a quiz ? | Piggy Put in a link, a topic, or some text and you’ll get a quiz you can share, featuring multiple-choice or true-false questions. Example: try this quick entrepreneurship quiz Piggy generated for me.
Q: How will generative AI impact teaching and learning in the near and long term?
Baker Stein: One-on-one tutoring at scale is finally being unlocked for learners around the world. This type of quality education is no longer only available to students with the means to hire a private tutor.I’m also particularly excited to see how educators make use of generative AI tools to create courses much faster and likely at a higher quality with increased personalization for each student or even by experimenting with new technologies like extended reality. Professors will be able to put their time toward high-impact activities like mentoring, researching and office hours instead of tedious course-creation tasks. This helps open up the capacity for educators to iterate on their courses faster to keep pace with industry and global changes that may impact their field of study.
Another important use case is how generative AI can serve as a great equalizer for students when it comes to writing, especially second language learners.
DC: This is the type of thing that might impact the interface design of future #AI related applications. If so, our current efforts to refine prompts may have a shorter lifespan that we expected.https://t.co/MuNMf2kGwL
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 26, 2023
Why it matters: The best AI assistants will be the ones that require the least prompting. They’ll get to know who you are, what you need, and your modus operandi. Profiles are a good starting point, but we believe the game-changer will be larger context windows (that’s nerd-speak for the amount of context ChatGPT can handle). .
From DSC: And how about taking this a step further and remembering — or being able to access — our constantly updated Cloud-Based Learning Profiles?
Thanks for dropping by my Learning Ecosystems blog!
My name is Daniel Christian and this blog seeks to cover the teaching and learning environments within the K-12 (including homeschooling, learning pods/micro-schools), collegiate, and corporate training spaces -- whether those environments be face-to-face, blended, hyflex, or 100% online.
Just as the organizations that we work for have their own learning ecosystems, each of us has our own learning ecosystem. We need to be very intentional about enhancing those learning ecosystems -- as we all need to be lifelong learners in order to remain marketable and employed. It's no longer about running sprints (i.e., getting a 4-year degree or going to a vocational school and then calling it quits), but rather, we are all running marathons now (i.e., we are into lifelong learning these days).
