This Teaching Routine Takes Just 5 Minutes. Its Impact Lasts Much Longer — from edweek.org by Elizabeth Heubeck
Unlocking productivity and personalizing learning with AI — from educationblog.microsoft.com by Microsoft Education Team
Today, we’re announcing the next wave of AI innovations from Microsoft Education that will help unlock productivity and personalize learning. This includes expanded Copilot for Microsoft 365 availability and Loop coming to education. We’re also sharing news about AI built for education such as Reading Coach and features designed to free up time for educators and personalize learning. As part of our continued work to build AI literacy, we’ve launched our latest course for educators and a new learning path on Microsoft Learn. And earlier this week we outlined Microsoft’s position and themes for policymakers to consider around advancing youth online safety and wellness.
With the latest AI technology, we have an opportunity to provide learners with personalized, engaging, and transformative reading experiences. Reading Coach, a Learning Accelerator now powered by generative AI, does just that. You can sign up for a preview of Reading Coach today and try it for yourself at coach.microsoft.com.
Recap: Winter AI Institute for Teachers — from umcetl.substack.com
Last week, CETL partnered with the Department of Writing and Rhetoric to offer a second iteration of the AI Institute for Teachers to an audience of UM instructors from across disciplines. Nearly 60 faculty from 26 different departments and schools attended the three-day event. In a wide variety of interactive sessions designed by Institute leader Marc Watkins, participants examined the impact of generative AI on teaching and learning, working in small groups to consider how to approach AI in their own disciplines.
If you’re not a UM faculty member or couldn’t attend the sessions, we have good news! All the materials from the Institute are publicly available at the following links:
And we’ve written a short recap of the Institute here.
Learn with AI — from the University of Maine
Rather than try to ban this technology from classrooms outright, the Learning With AI project asks if this moment offers an opportunity to introduce students to the ethical and economic questions wreaked by these new tools, as well as to experiment with progressive forms of pedagogy that can exploit them.
From DSC:
I can’t agree more with Stephen and Simon here:
I’ll never stop blogging: it’s an itch I have to scratch – and I don’t care if it’s an outdated format
Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, Dec 26, 2023
I have various blogs for different types of writing, some popular, some deliciously obscure. And there’s no such thing as an outdated format. I write about what I like to write about.
Excerpt of the article by Simon Reynolds:
Even if nobody reads them, I’ll always be drawn to the freedom blogs offer. I can ramble about any subject I choose.
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I miss the inter-blog chatter of the 2000s, but in truth, connectivity was only ever part of the appeal. I’d do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone.
Two other items from Stephen that caught my eye recently. The first item below is a great little AI tool that lets you input the URL of a video and receive a nice summary of the video.
Summarize.Tech
Summarize, LLC, Dec 23, 2023
Commentary by Stephen Downes
Newspocalypse now
Mike Orren, Nieman Lab, Dec 19, 2023
Commentary by Stephen Downes
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This is significant because trends in education have pretty reliably followed trends in media by about ten years. Closed access classes and tuition revenue may feel pretty secure right now, but in a decade the bottom will be falling out of the market and higher education will be in the same shambles the news industry is today. “We will learn that the less something looks like what we have now, the better chance it has of being the thing on the other side of death.”
Generative AI Is Set to Shake Up Education — from morganstanley.com
While educators debate the risks and opportunities of generative AI as a learning tool, some education technology companies are using it to increase revenue and lower costs.
Key Takeaways
- Contrary to the view that generative AI is undermining education, it could ultimately improve access and quality.
- Education technology companies have opportunities from generative AI that markets may be missing.
- Generative AI could bring $200 billion in value to the global education sector by 2025.
- Reskilling and retraining alone could require $6 billion in investments by 2025, with edtech companies poised to fill that need.
Outgoing SNHU president: AI means universities must change ‘dramatically’ — from msn.com by Steven Porter
In his next chapter, LeBlanc will work with a team of researchers to study emerging AI trends, impacts on education, and opportunities to innovate. (The initiative harkens back to his early scholarship. During grad school decades ago, LeBlanc studied the ways computers could impact how societies think.)
LeBlanc said the AI-induced changes on the horizon will require educational institutions to reimagine how they assess student learning and grapple with implications for privacy and data security. There are also bigger questions about what jobs will go away and what jobs will be created, which influences the fields of study schools will offer, he said.
AI & Education: A Year in Review — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
The top five use cases & most popular tools among educators at the end of 2023 – the year than Gen AI shook-up education
Use Case #1: Content Creation
Use Case #2: Brainstorming & Ideation
Use Case #3: Research & Analysis
Use Case #4: Writing & Communicating
Use Case #5: Task Automation
I Used ChatGPT for 12 Months. Here Are Some Hidden Gems That Will Change Your Life — from theaigirl.substack.com by Diana Dovgopol
Transform your life with these ChatGPT’s hidden gems.
1. Summarize videos, articles, papers and posts
Here’s how it works (note that you need to enable browsing or plugins for this)
- Find the video/article/paper/post.
- Copy the link.
- Ask ChatGPT to summarize it for you.
AI ADVISORY BOARDS: Giving Students and Teachers a Voice — from aiadvisoryboards.wordpress.com
My mission is to spread awareness about the incredible potential of AI and AI advisory boards in education. Through my website, aiadvisoryboards.wordpress.com, I aim to inspire educators, administrators, and students to embrace AI and create innovative learning environments.
Report Update: Human and Computer Deep Learning and the Future of Humanity — from by Stefan Bauschard
New Chapter on School Guidance; updates on technology, the labor markets, and deep learning
DC: Reminds me of an upcoming “feature” I just read about. Trust is already a fragile thing. Are we sure we want this?!
A person’s image & voice can already be mimicked. Now add their communications to the growing list as well?
“Just because we can…”https://t.co/D4t8QHmbeO
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) October 11, 2023
Next month Microsoft Corp. will start making its artificial intelligence features for Office widely available to corporate customers. Soon after, that will include the ability for it to read your emails, learn your writing style and compose messages on your behalf.
From DSC:
As readers of this blog know, I’m generally pro-technology. I see most technologies as tools — which can be used for good or for ill. So I will post items both pro and con concerning AI.
But outsourcing email communications to AI isn’t on my wish list or to-do list.
The economic potential of generative AI — from mckinsey.com; via Superhuman
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DC: It should prove to be interesting & fun to watch how #AI and #XR related technologies will be integrated into games & the #gamification of #learning .https://t.co/HO2CftqNrs via @VRScout
— 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.
Ethan Mollick
5 Steps to Transforming Images into Videos Using AI Tools — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
A simple guide to layering AI tools for quick video creation
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‘Nobody wins in an academic-integrity arms race’ — from chonicle.com by Ian Wilhelm
How artificial intelligence is changing the way college thing about cheating
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?
GPT-4 Can Use Tools Now—That’s a Big Deal — from every.to by Dan Shipper; resource via Sam DeBrule
What “function calling” is, how it works, and what it means
Excerpt:
…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.
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The full 12 uses are here: https://edgeoflearning.com/your-new-teaching-superpower-ai-tools/
The AI Tools in Education Database — from kiwi-path-612.notion.site by EdTech Insiders
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
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.
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Time for Class 2023 Study finds students are earlier adopters of generative AI tools than faculty, and majority (69%) of learners prefer hybrid, blended or online course formats — from globenewswire.com by Tyton Partners
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AI Could Prevent Hiring Bias — Unless It Makes It Worse — from nerdwallet.com by Anna Helhoski
Advocates say AI can eliminate human biases in hiring. Skeptics point out that AI tools are trained by … humans.
Excerpt:
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.
…
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
Also related to AI in hiring, see:
4 in 10 Companies Will Be Using AI Interviews by 2024 — from resumebuilder.com
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.
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PowerSchool Announces Collaboration with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to Provide Personalized Learning at Scale in K-12 Education — from powerschool.com
Large-scale language models integrated within PowerSchool Performance Matters and PowerSchool LearningNav products will empower educators in delivering transformative personalized learning pathways
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…
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FETC 2023 Virtual Roundtable: How AI Will Transform K-12 Education
AI could be the great equalizer!
Holly Clark
Example screenshots:
Three-Dimensional Narratives Spring from Antique Books in Emma Taylor’s Meticulous Paper Sculptures — from thisiscolossal.com by Kate Mothes
Also see:
Barry Underwood Illuminates Human Presence in the Landscape in Geometric Light Sculptures — from thisiscolossal.com by Kate Mothes