career development

Advice for students: Be adaptable. Be agile. Be lifelong learners. [Christian]

On 01/22/2025, in business, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, ideas, lifelong learning, productivity / tips and tricks, reinvent, skills, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, training / L&D, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

‘Lazy and Mediocre’ HR Team Fired After Manager’s Own CV Gets Auto-Rejected in Seconds, Exposing System Failure

On 01/21/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, career development, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, intelligent systems, IT in HE, UK, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

‘Lazy and Mediocre’ HR Team Fired After Manager’s Own CV Gets Auto-Rejected in Seconds, Exposing System Failure — from ibtimes.co.uk by Vinay Patel
The automated system’s error highlights the potential for bias and inefficiency in technology-driven HR practices

An entire HR team was terminated after their manager discovered and confirmed that their system automatically rejected all candidates — including his own application.

The manager wrote in their comment, “Auto rejection systems from HR make me angry.” They explained that while searching for a new employee, their HR department could not find a single qualified candidate in three months. As expected, the suspicious manager decided to investigate.

“I created myself a new email and sent them a modified version of my CV with a fake name to see what was going on with the process,” they wrote. “And guess what, I got auto-rejected. HR didn’t even look at my CV.”

When the manager reported the issue to upper management, “half of the HR department was fired in the following weeks.” A typographical error with significant consequences caused the entire problem.

The manager works in the tech industry and was trying to hire developers. However, HR had set up the system to search for developers with expertise in the wrong development software and one that no longer exists.

From DSC:
Back in 2017, I had survived several rounds of layoffs at the then Calvin College (now Calvin University) but I didn’t survive the layoff of 12 people in the spring of 2017. I hadn’t needed to interview for a new job in quite a while. So boy, did I get a wake-up call with discovering that Applicant Tracking Systems existed and could be tough to get past. (Also, the old-school job replacement firm that Calvin hired wasn’t much help in dealing with them either.)

I didn’t like these ATSs then, and I still have my concerns about them now. The above article points out that my concerns were/are at least somewhat founded. And if you take the entire day to research and apply for a position — only to get an instant reply back from the ATS — it’s very frustrating and discouraging.

Plus the ATSs may not pick up on nuances. An experienced human being might be able to see that a candidate’s skills are highly relevant and/or transferable to the position that they’re hiring for.

Networking is key of course. But not everyone has been taught about networking and not everyone gets past the ATS to get their resume viewed by a pair of human eyes. HR, IT, and any other relevant groups here need to be very careful with programming their ATSs.

A Community College’s Guide to Building Strong Partnerships [eddesignlab.org]

On 01/21/2025, in Amazon, business, career development, collaboration, communications, community colleges, higher education, instructional design, leadership, learning ecosystem, skills, society, strategy, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

A Community College’s Guide to Building Strong Partnerships — from eddesignlab.org

This November 2024 guidebook offers higher education practitioners actionable strategies for building and sustaining partnerships that both meet regional needs and support students, families, and communities. This work was based on the design and delivery of dual enrollment pathways as part of the Lab’s Designers in Residence 2.0: Accelerating Pathways project.
…
The practices and case studies shared here are informed by higher education leaders across six community colleges as part of the Lab’s Designers in Residence program.

We have organized the guidebook based on core elements of a strong partnerships strategy, alongside how to establish a strong foundation and sustain and maintain the partnerships you’ve built. Through our research, we’ve identified four key elements of strong partnerships:

+ Communication and collaboration
+ Shared vision
+ Adaptive and responsive
+ Action-oriented

You will find guiding questions, tools, and case studies within each of the four elements.
.

Also from The Education Design Lab:

Skills Validation Guidebook: 10 Steps to Design a High-Quality Skills Validator
The Skills Validation Guidebook (October 2024) aims to inform + empower designers of skill validators, such as educators, instructional designers, and hiring managers, to support stakeholders in the skills-based ecosystem.

The Real Deal: A series exploring what we know about the quality of nondegree credentials. [workshift.org]

On 01/21/2025, in adult learning, Alternatives, career development, corporate / business world, credentialing, higher education, marketplaces, new business models, quality, by Daniel Christian

The Real Deal — from workshift.org
A series exploring what we know about the quality of nondegree credentials.

The above link/page includes the posting:

Understanding Influencers in the World of Nondegree Credentials — by Michelle Van Noy and Tom Hilliard
There’s no single arbiter of nondegree quality, but rather a host of “quality influencers” who seek to shape the market.

They respond to needs that the degree-credit system has not efficiently met: quick start-up, shorter sequences, relationships with third-party credential issuers, real-time employer engagement, and so on. The complexity of the needs of the market and of learners has led to a proliferation of diverse credentials, and a landscape that continues to evolve in surprising directions.

Amid this complexity, there’s no one single arbiter of quality but rather a host of “quality influencers” who seek to shape the market in different ways. Exploring who those influencers are, how they approach their work, and what they seek to accomplish is essential to understanding what quality means for noncredit credentials—and what could happen in years to come.

The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025

On 01/09/2025, in adult learning, career development, change, future, global / globalization, lifelong learning, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 — from weforum.org

10 Higher Ed Trends to Watch In 2025 — from insidetrack.org

While “polarization” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2024, we have some early frontrunners for 2025 — especially when it comes to higher education. Change. Agility. Uncertainty. Flexibility. As we take a deep dive into the trends on tap for higher education in the coming year, it’s important to note that, with an incoming administration who has vowed to shake things up, the current postsecondary system could be turned on its head. With that in mind, we wade into our yearly look at the topics and trends that will be making headlines — and making waves — in the year ahead.

#Highereducation #learningecosystems #change #trends #businessmodels #trends #onlinelearning #AI #DEI #skillsbasedlearning #skills #alternatives #LearningandEmploymentRecords #LERs #valueofhighereducation #GenAI

The Best of AI 2024: Top Winners Across 9 Categories — from aiwithallie.beehiiv.com by Allie Miller
2025 will be our weirdest year in AI yet. Read this so you’re more prepared.

Top AI Tools of 2024 — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer (behind a paywall)
Which AI tools stood out for me in 2024? My list.

Memorable AI Tools of 2024
Catergories included:

Useful
Popular
Captures the zeighest of AI product innovation
Fun to try
Personally satisfying

NotebookLM
Perplexity
Claude
…

New “best” AI tool? Really? — from theneurondaily.com by Noah and Grant
PLUS: A free workaround to the “best” new AI…

What is Google’s Deep Research tool, and is it really “the best” AI research tool out there?
…
Here’s how it works: Think of Deep Research as a research team that can simultaneously analyze 50+ websites, compile findings, and create comprehensive reports—complete with citations.

Unlike asking ChatGPT to research for you, Deep Research shows you its research plan before executing, letting you edit the approach to get exactly what you need.
…
It’s currently free for the first month (though it’ll eventually be $20/month) when bundled with Gemini Advanced. Then again, Perplexity is always free…just saying.

We couldn’t just take J-Cal’s word for it, so we rounded up some other takes:

Income Stream Surfers compared it to Perplexity …
Teacher’s Tech demo’d how prompt detail drastically affects results…
Olivio Sarikas used it to analyze tweet performance …

Our take: We then compared Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, and Deep Research (which we’re calling DR, or “The Docta” for short) on robot capabilities from CES revealed:

An excerpt from today’s Morning Edition from Bloomberg

Global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years—a net 3% of the workforce—as AI takes on more tasks, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence survey. Back, middle office and operations are most at risk. A reminder that Citi said last year that AI is likely to replace more jobs in banking than in any other sector. JPMorgan had a more optimistic view (from an employee perspective, at any rate), saying its AI rollout has augmented, not replaced, jobs so far.

LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise 2025: The 25 fastest-growing jobs in the U.S.

On 01/09/2025, in adult learning, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, skills, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise 2025: The 25 fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. — from linkedin.com

Professionals are navigating rapid change, and staying ahead of the curve is no easy feat. Recent LinkedIn research shows that 64% of workers feel overwhelmed by the pace of workplace shifts, from navigating AI to managing multi-generational teams. At the same time, U.S. workers’ confidence in their job securityis the lowest it’s been since the start of the pandemic.

But as the workplace continues to evolve, new opportunities arise. That’s exactly what our annual Jobs on the Rise list uncovers — the fastest-growing jobs over the past three years and the trends defining the future of work. From the rise of AI roles to the resurgence in travel and hospitality positions, the 2025 ranking highlights sectors with sustainable growth in today’s changing workforce. (You can read more about our methodology at the bottom of this article.)

The list is a roadmap that can point you in the right direction at any stage of your career. Under each job title, you can explore the most common skills, top hiring regions, remote and hybrid availability and more. And you can turn those insights into action by exploring open roles, honing your skills through LinkedIn Learning courses (free for all members until Feb. 15) or joining the conversation in the collaborative article for each featured role.

“Increasing AI Fluency Among Enterprise Employees, Sr. Mgmt. & Executives” [Brandon] + several other items from the Learning Guild

On 01/07/2025, in adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, microlearning, skills, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Increasing AI Fluency Among Enterprise Employees, Senior Management & Executives — from learningguild.com by Bill Brandon

In other words, individual learning leaders need to obtain information from surveys and studies that are directly useful in their curriculum planning. This article attempts, in these early days, to provide some specific guidelines for AI curriculum planning in enterprise organizations.

The two reports identified in the first paragraph help to answer an important question. What can enterprise L&D teams do to improve AI fluency in their organizations?

The Future of Workplace Learning: Adaptive Strategies for Navigating Change — from learningguild.com by Rachel Rosenfeldt

The Importance of Building a ‘Change Muscle’
The ability to test and learn, pivot quickly, and embrace change is an increasingly foundational skill that all employees, no matter the level of experience or seniority, need in 2025 and beyond. Adaptable organizations significantly outperform more change-averse peers on nearly every metric, ranging from revenue growth to employee engagement. In other words, having agility and adaptability embedded in your culture pays dividends. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they represent distinct yet interconnected aspects of organizational success:

Agility refers to the ability to swiftly and efficiently respond to immediate challenges or opportunities. It’s about being nimble and proactive, making quick decisions, and adjusting to navigate short-term obstacles.
Adaptability is a broader concept that encompasses the capacity to evolve and thrive in the face of long-term shifts in the environment. It’s about being resilient and flexible by modifying strategies and structures to align with fundamental changes in the market or industry.

And a quick comment from DSC:

Agility and adaptability are key skills/orientations/expectations that we need to help our K-16 students build. Changes can happen quickly, as those of us who worked several decades can attest to.

— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) January 6, 2025

Addressing Skills Gaps in Enterprise L&D: A High-Level Overview — from learningguild.com by Bill Brandon

Employees’ skills and abilities must match the skills and abilities required for their jobs; when they do, organizational performance and productivity improve.

Skills gaps occur when there are mismatches between employees’ skills and capabilities and the skills and capabilities needed for their work. As technology and work become more complex, identifying and correcting skills gaps become essential to optimizing employee performance.

This article discusses various methods involving skills inference and predictive analytics in addition to traditional methods to pinpoint and prevent skills gaps.

A Practical Framework for Microlearning Success: A Guide for Learning Leaders — from by Robyn A. Defelice, PhD

Another year, another opportunity to bring microlearning into your performance and talent development strategy! This is especially appealing as more and more organizations strive to deliver training in ways that meet the fast-paced needs of their employees.

However, implementing a microlearning strategy that aligns with organizational outcomes and sustains performance is no small feat. Learning and Development (L&D) leaders often grapple with questions like: Where do we start; How do we ensure our efforts are effective; and What factors should we evaluate?

The Microlearning Effectiveness (MLE) Framework offers a practical approach to addressing these challenges. Instead of rigid rules, the framework acts as a guide, encouraging leaders to evaluate their efforts against six key components:

Goals or measurable outcomes
Purpose
Potential
Evaluation
Implementation
Distributed practice

1-800-CHAT-GPT—12 Days of OpenAI: Day 10

Per The Rundown: OpenAI just launched a surprising new way to access ChatGPT — through an old-school 1-800 number & also rolled out a new WhatsApp integration for global users during Day 10 of the company’s livestream event.

How Agentic AI is Revolutionizing Customer Service — from customerthink.com by Devashish Mamgain

Agentic AI represents a significant evolution in artificial intelligence, offering enhanced autonomy and decision-making capabilities beyond traditional AI systems. Unlike conventional AI, which requires human instructions, agentic AI can independently perform complex tasks, adapt to changing environments, and pursue goals with minimal human intervention.

This makes it a powerful tool across various industries, especially in the customer service function. To understand it better, let’s compare AI Agents with non-AI agents.
…
Characteristics of Agentic AI

- Autonomy: Achieves complex objectives without requiring human collaboration.
- Language Comprehension: Understands nuanced human speech and text effectively.
- Rationality: Makes informed, contextual decisions using advanced reasoning engines.
- Adaptation: Adjusts plans and goals in dynamic situations.
- Workflow Optimization: Streamlines and organizes business workflows with minimal oversight.

Clio: A system for privacy-preserving insights into real-world AI use — from anthropic.com

How, then, can we research and observe how our systems are used while rigorously maintaining user privacy?

Claude insights and observations, or “Clio,” is our attempt to answer this question. Clio is an automated analysis tool that enables privacy-preserving analysis of real-world language model use. It gives us insights into the day-to-day uses of claude.ai in a way that’s analogous to tools like Google Trends. It’s also already helping us improve our safety measures. In this post—which accompanies a full research paper—we describe Clio and some of its initial results.

Evolving tools redefine AI video — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Google’s Veo 2, Kling 1.6, Pika 2.0 & more

AI video continues to surpass expectations
The AI video generation space has evolved dramatically in recent weeks, with several major players introducing groundbreaking tools.

Here’s a comprehensive look at the current landscape:

Veo 2…
Pika 2.0…
Runway’s Gen-3…
Luma AI Dream Machine…
Hailuo’s MiniMax…
OpenAI’s Sora…
Hunyuan Video by Tencent…

There are several other video models and platforms, including …

A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education — from petergray.substack.com by Peter Gray; with thanks to Dr. Kate Christian for this resource
What will replace k-12 and college?

A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education
I don’t know just how or how fast the change will happen, but I think the days of K-12 and four years of college are numbered and sanity will begin to prevail in the educational world. I envision a future with something like the following three-phase approach to education:

Phase I. Discovery: Learning about your world, your self, and how the two fit together.…
Phase II. Exploring a career path.…
Phase III. Becoming credentialed for specialized work.…

Several items re: the higher ed and K-12 learning ecosystems

On 12/12/2024, in accreditation, Asia, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, career development, colleges, community colleges, curriculum, education, education reform, education technology, engagement / engaging students, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, innovation, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, pathways, skills, society, sociology, strategy, teachers, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

Teacher Shortage: Is Hybrid or Remote Teaching the Answer? — from edtechmagazine.com by Adam Stone
In these uncertain times, K–12 schools use technology to better support students and teachers.

How Can Remote or Hybrid Teaching Help?
A shift to virtual learning can help close the gaps.

First, remote work can draw more people into the field. “For some folks, particularly with the pandemic and teaching for a year or more online, they found that model appealing to them from a professional and personal standpoint,” Carbaugh says.

While many educators still prefer face-to-face interactions, he says, others may find the ability to work from home appealing.

Virtual learning can also broaden the candidate pool in hard-to-fill roles. In STEM, for instance, “you might have someone who is willing to teach a class for you in addition to their normal job,” Speegle says. “They can teach computer science, biology or calculus for an hour a day, and they’re done.”

What Happens When Public School Districts Embrace Hybrid Schools? — from asthe74million.org by Eric Wearne & Tom Loud
With a fifth of its school-age children engaged in homeschooling, one Tennessee district found a way to connect them to the public system

With one in five school-age children engaged in homeschooling, Blount County Schools decided in 2018 to offer an option aimed at bridging the best of both homeschooling and public school, while offering a flexible schedule and college preparatory academics.
…
While the hybrid schooling model is not necessarily new, two developments have emerged in recent years. First, interest in attending, founding, and working at these schools has increased since the Covid pandemic; and second, conventional public-school systems are starting to get into the game.

Launchpad Jobs — from burningglassinstitute.org; via Paul Fain’s Education Pipeline posting

Launchpad Jobs highlights how nondegree workers can achieve career success through strategic job choices. It reveals that nearly 2 million workers without college degrees earn six-figure salaries, demonstrating that fulfilling and well-paying careers are accessible without a traditional four-year education.

The report identifies key 73 roles, termed “Launchpad Jobs,” that offer a combination of strong wages, job stability, and upward mobility. These include positions such as EMTs, electricians, and bank tellers, which often serve as steppingstones to long-term success. Using big data analysis of career histories this report maps the trajectories of workers starting in various roles, showcasing how initial job choices influence future earnings and advancement potential.

Why College Freshman Enrollment Declined and What it Could Mean for Students — from usnews.com by Sarah Wood
Experts cite possible reasons for the 5% overall enrollment drop in fall 2024 and implications for the current admission cycle.

From DSC:
Speaking of learning ecosystems, this next piece is absolutely incredible in terms of learning ecosystems from other nations!!!

China leads world in massive open online courses: Ministry of Education — from globaltimes.cn by Chen Xi; via GSV

China has established the world’s largest online education system, according to a document sent by the Ministry of Education to the Global Times on Wednesday.

As of now, the country has developed over 30 various online course platforms, with more than 97,000 massive open online courses (MOOCs) made available, 483 million registered users, and 1.39 billion learning instances. Additionally, 440 million instances of students obtaining course credits have been recorded, making China’s number of MOOCs and learners the highest in the world, according to the document.

Furthermore, a national smart education platform – the Smart Education of China in Higher Education – has launched 31,000 high-quality online courses, with 78,000 teachers participating in teaching and over 16.82 million users visiting, with more than 93 million visits, covering 183 countries and regions worldwide.

Many of these courses have garnered high praise among global students.

2025 Job Skills Report — from coursera.org

Uncover the fastest-growing skills with the Job Skills Report 2025. This practical resource draws on data from Coursera’s 5 million enterprise learners to highlight the skills and learning experiences that employees, students, and job seekers will prioritize for career success* in 2025.

This year’s report reveals that generative AI (GenAI) is the most in-demand skill, with enterprise course enrollments soaring by 866% year-over-year. By upskilling learners globally, industry, higher education, and governments can unlock AI’s potential $15.7 trillion in global economic value ?by 2030.**

Access the report to:

Identify the fastest-growing skills in AI, business, data science, and technology.
Compare skill priorities of students, employees, and job seekers.
Understand how learners engage with AI learning experiences.

Break the monopoly on higher education pathways — from fastcompany.com by Antonio Gutierrez; via GSV
New models prove that younger and underserved populations are finding success with skills-based programs and hybrid educational models.

The Duet-SNHU model proves that accessible, flexible, and cost-effective alternatives are possible and scalable. Meanwhile, the explosion of nondegree credentials offers additional pathways to skills-focused career readiness, reflecting a growing appetite for innovation in education. To remain competitive in the global economy, the U.S. must embrace these alternatives while reforming traditional institutions.

Policymakers must prioritize funding based on performance metrics like graduation rates and job placements, and accreditors must hold institutions accountable for real-world outcomes. Business leaders, educators, and community stakeholders must champion scalable models that deliver equity and opportunity. The stakes are too high to cling to an outdated system. By disrupting the status quo, we can create an education system that serves all Americans and strengthens the economy for generations to come.

“OpenAI wants to pair online courses with chatbots” [Wiggers] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosytems

On 12/07/2024, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, business, career development, change, changing business models, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, new business models, online learning, Open AI, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, skills, society, sociology, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

What Students Are Saying About Teachers Using A.I. to Grade — from nytimes.com by The Learning Network; via Claire Zau
Teenagers and educators weigh in on a recent question from The Ethicist.

Is it unethical for teachers to use artificial intelligence to grade papers if they have forbidden their students from using it for their assignments?

That was the question a teacher asked Kwame Anthony Appiah in a recent edition of The Ethicist. We posed it to students to get their take on the debate, and asked them their thoughts on teachers using A.I. in general.

While our Student Opinion questions are usually reserved for teenagers, we also heard from a few educators about how they are — or aren’t — using A.I. in the classroom. We’ve included some of their answers, as well.

OpenAI wants to pair online courses with chatbots — from techcrunch.com by Kyle Wiggers; via James DeVaney on LinkedIn

If OpenAI has its way, the next online course you take might have a chatbot component.

Speaking at a fireside on Monday hosted by Coeus Collective, Siya Raj Purohit, a member of OpenAI’s go-to-market team for education, said that OpenAI might explore ways to let e-learning instructors create custom “GPTs” that tie into online curriculums.

“What I’m hoping is going to happen is that professors are going to create custom GPTs for the public and let people engage with content in a lifelong manner,” Purohit said. “It’s not part of the current work that we’re doing, but it’s definitely on the roadmap.”

15 Times to use AI, and 5 Not to — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
Notes on the Practical Wisdom of AI Use

There are several types of work where AI can be particularly useful, given the current capabilities and limitations of LLMs. Though this list is based in science, it draws even more from experience. Like any form of wisdom, using AI well requires holding opposing ideas in mind: it can be transformative yet must be approached with skepticism, powerful yet prone to subtle failures, essential for some tasks yet actively harmful for others. I also want to caveat that you shouldn’t take this list too seriously except as inspiration – you know your own situation best, and local knowledge matters more than any general principles. With all that out of the way, below are several types of tasks where AI can be especially useful, given current capabilities—and some scenarios where you should remain wary.

Learning About Google Learn About: What Educators Need To Know — from techlearning.com by Ray Bendici
Google’s experimental Learn About platform is designed to create an AI-guided learning experience

Google Learn About is a new experimental AI-driven platform available that provides digestible and in-depth knowledge about various topics, but showcases it all in an educational context. Described by Google as a “conversational learning companion,” it is essentially a Wikipedia-style chatbot/search engine, and then some.

In addition to having a variety of already-created topics and leading questions (in areas such as history, arts, culture, biology, and physics) the tool allows you to enter prompts using either text or an image. It then provides a general overview/answer, and then suggests additional questions, topics, and more to explore in regard to the initial subject.

The idea is for student use is that the AI can help guide a deeper learning process rather than just provide static answers.

What OpenAI’s PD for Teachers Does—and Doesn’t—Do — from edweek.org by Olina Banerji
What’s the first thing that teachers dipping their toes into generative artificial intelligence should do?

They should start with the basics, according to OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence research companies. Last month, the company launched an hour-long, self-paced online course for K-12 teachers about the definition, use, and harms of generative AI in the classroom. It was launched in collaboration with Common Sense Media, a national nonprofit that rates and reviews a wide range of digital content for its age appropriateness.

…the above article links to:

ChatGPT Foundations for K–12 Educators — from commonsense.org

This course introduces you to the basics of artificial intelligence, generative AI, ChatGPT, and how to use ChatGPT safely and effectively. From decoding the jargon to responsible use, this course will help you level up your understanding of AI and ChatGPT so that you can use tools like this safely and with a clear purpose.

Learning outcomes:

Understand what ChatGPT is and how it works.
Demonstrate ways to use ChatGPT to support your teaching practices.
Implement best practices for applying responsible AI principles in a school setting.

Takeaways From Google’s Learning in the AI Era Event — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by Sarah Morin, Alex Sarlin, and Ben Kornell
Highlights from Our Day at Google + Behind-the-Scenes Interviews Coming Soon!

NotebookLM: The Start of an AI Operating System
Google is Serious About AI and Learning
Google’s LearnLM Now Available in AI Studio
Collaboration is King
If You Give a Teacher a Ferrari

Rapid Responses to AI — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
Top experts call for better data and more short-term training as tech transforms jobs.

AI could displace middle-skill workers and widen the wealth gap, says landmark study, which calls for better data and more investment in continuing education to help workers make career pivots.
…
Ensuring That AI Helps Workers
Artificial intelligence has emerged as a general purpose technology with sweeping implications for the workforce and education. While it’s impossible to precisely predict the scope and timing of looming changes to the labor market, the U.S. should build its capacity to rapidly detect and respond to AI developments.
That’s the big-ticket framing of a broad new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Congress requested the study, tapping an all-star committee of experts to assess the current and future impact of AI on the workforce.

“In contemplating what the future holds, one must approach predictions with humility,” the study says…

“AI could accelerate occupational polarization,” the committee said, “by automating more nonroutine tasks and increasing the demand for elite expertise while displacing middle-skill workers.”
…
The Kicker: “The education and workforce ecosystem has a responsibility to be intentional with how we value humans in an AI-powered world and design jobs and systems around that,” says Hsieh.

AI Predators: What Schools Should Know and Do — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
AI is increasingly be used by predators to connect with underage students online. Yasmin London, global online safety expert at Qoria and a former member of the New South Wales Police Force in Australia, shares steps educators can take to protect students.

The threat from AI for students goes well beyond cheating, says Yasmin London, global online safety expert at Qoria and a former member of the New South Wales Police Force in Australia.

Increasingly at U.S. schools and beyond, AI is being used by predators to manipulate children. Students are also using AI generate inappropriate images of other classmates or staff members. For a recent report, Qoria, a company that specializes in child digital safety and wellbeing products, surveyed 600 schools across North America, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Why We Undervalue Ideas and Overvalue Writing — from aiczar.blogspot.com by Alexander “Sasha” Sidorkin

A student submits a paper that fails to impress stylistically yet approaches a worn topic from an angle no one has tried before. The grade lands at B minus, and the student learns to be less original next time. This pattern reveals a deep bias in higher education: ideas lose to writing every time.

This bias carries serious equity implications. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including first-generation college students, English language learners, and those from under-resourced schools, often arrive with rich intellectual perspectives but struggle with academic writing conventions. Their ideas – shaped by unique life experiences and cultural viewpoints – get buried under red ink marking grammatical errors and awkward transitions. We systematically undervalue their intellectual contributions simply because they do not arrive in standard academic packaging.

Google Scholar’s New AI Outline Tool Explained By Its Founder — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Google Scholar PDF reader uses Gemini AI to read research papers. The AI model creates direct links to the paper’s citations and a digital outline that summarizes the different sections of the paper.

Google Scholar has entered the AI revolution. Google Scholar PDF reader now utilizes generative AI powered by Google’s Gemini AI tool to create interactive outlines of research papers and provide direct links to sources within the paper. This is designed to make reading the relevant parts of the research paper more efficient, says Anurag Acharya, who co-founded Google Scholar on November 18, 2004, twenty years ago last month.

The Four Most Powerful AI Use Cases in Instructional Design Right Now — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Insights from ~300 instructional designers who have taken my AI & Learning Design bootcamp this year

AI-Powered Analysis: Creating Detailed Learner Personas…
AI-Powered Design: Optimising Instructional Strategies…
AI-Powered Development & Implementation: Quality Assurance…
AI-Powered Evaluation: Predictive Impact Assessment…

How Are New AI Tools Changing ‘Learning Analytics’? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young
For a field that has been working to learn from the data trails students leave in online systems, generative AI brings new promises — and new challenges.

In other words, with just a few simple instructions to ChatGPT, the chatbot can classify vast amounts of student work and turn it into numbers that educators can quickly analyze.

Findings from learning analytics research is also being used to help train new generative AI-powered tutoring systems.
…
Another big application is in assessment, says Pardos, the Berkeley professor. Specifically, new AI tools can be used to improve how educators measure and grade a student’s progress through course materials. The hope is that new AI tools will allow for replacing many multiple-choice exercises in online textbooks with fill-in-the-blank or essay questions.

Increasing AI Fluency Among Enterprise Employees, Senior Management & Executives — from learningguild.com by Bill Brandon

This article attempts, in these early days, to provide some specific guidelines for AI curriculum planning in enterprise organizations.

The two reports identified in the first paragraph help to answer an important question. What can enterprise L&D teams do to improve AI fluency in their organizations?

You could be surprised how many software products have added AI features. Examples (to name a few) are productivity software (Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace); customer relationship management (Salesforce and Hubspot); human resources (Workday and Talentsoft); marketing and advertising (Adobe Marketing Cloud and Hootsuite); and communication and collaboration (Slack and Zoom). Look for more under those categories in software review sites.

What We Talk about When We Talk about Networking — from michelleweise.substack.com by Dr. Michelle Weise, Julia Freeland Fisher, and Nitzan Pelman
Networking, Social Capital & the Goldilocks Ask

I recently had a chance to sit down with Julia Freeland Fisher, Director of Education at the Christensen Institute, and Nitzan Pelman, CEO of Climb Together and founder of Climb Hire, for a live CGN webinar on tapping into our networks (some of you may recall, I wrote about these two phenomenal women in my post, “Who You Know … A Little Bit: The Power of Weak Ties”).

I love getting to learn from their constantly evolving thinking on cultivating and mobilizing social capital. And in this episode, we get super tactical on the how-to’s of networking for young people.

From DSC:
Tell your kids or grandkids to watch this. I didn’t have a CLUE about networking when I graduated from high school — and even from college. It took me years to get an accurate understanding of the place and power of networking. And that it’s not all about looking out for #1 and taking from/manipulating/exploiting others. But it’s about sharing resources, learning and connecting with others, helping others connect with relevant others, and more.

I hope that we can produce more items like this to help the next generation get started and navigate their careers.

A New Era for Law Firm Learning and Development [Kubicki]

On 12/04/2024, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, law schools, Legal operations, legislatures / government / legal, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, by Daniel Christian

(An excerpt from Brainyacts #253 12/3/24)

A New Era for Law Firm Learning and Development — from brainyacts.beehiiv.com by Josh Kubicki

By becoming early adopters, law firms can address two critical challenges in professional development:

1. Empowering Educators and Mentors
Generative AI equips legal educators, practice group leaders, and mentors with tools to amplify their impact. It assists with:

Content generation: …
Research facilitation: …
Skill-building frameworks: …

…
2. Cracking the Personalized Learning Code
Every lawyer’s learning needs are unique. Generative AI delivers hyper-personalized educational experiences that adapt to an individual’s role, practice area, and career stage. This addresses the “Two Sigma Problem” (the dramatic performance gains of one-on-one tutoring) by making tailored learning scalable and actionable. Imagine:

AI-driven tutors: …
Instant feedback loops: …
Adaptive learning models: …

Case Study: Building AI Tutors in Legal Education
…
Moving Beyond CLEs: A New Vision for Professional Development…

Learning Ecosystems

A Community College’s Guide to Building Strong Partnerships [eddesignlab.org]

The Real Deal: A series exploring what we know about the quality of nondegree credentials. [workshift.org]

LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise 2025: The 25 fastest-growing jobs in the U.S.

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