LearnLM is our new family of models fine-tuned for learning, and grounded in educational research to make teaching and learning experiences more active, personal and engaging.
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AI in Education: Google’s LearnLM product has incredible potential — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer and Nick Potkalitsky
Google’s Ed Suite is giving Teachers new ideas for incorporating AI into the classroom.
We often talk about what Generative AI will do for coders, healthcare, science or even finance, but what about the benefits for the next generation? Permit me if you will, here I’m thinking about teachers and students.
It’s no secret that some of the most active users of ChatGPT in its heyday, were students. But how are other major tech firms thinking about this?
I actually think one of the best products with the highest ceiling from Google I/O 2024 is LearnLM. It has to be way more than a chatbot, it has to feel like a multimodal tutor. I can imagine frontier model agents (H) doing this fairly well.
What if everyone, everywhere could have their own personal AI tutor, on any topic?
ChatGPT4o Is the TikTok of AI Models — from nickpotkalitsky.substack.com by Nick Potkalitsky
In Search of Better Tools for AI Access in K-12 Classrooms
Nick makes the case that we should pause on the use of OpenAI in the classrooms:
In light of these observations, it’s clear that we must pause and rethink the use of OpenAI products in our classrooms, except for rare cases where accessibility needs demand it. The rapid consumerization of AI, epitomized by GPT4o’s transformation into an AI salesperson, calls for caution.
The Future of AI in Education: Google and OpenAI Strategies Unveiled — from edtechinsiders.substack.comby Ben Kornell
Google’s Strategy: AI Everywhere
Key Points
- Google will win through seamless Gemini integration across all Google products
- Enterprise approach in education to make Gemini the default at low/no additional cost
- Functional use cases and model tuning demonstrate Google’s knowledge of educators
OpenAI’s Strategy: ChatGPT as the Front Door
Key Points
- OpenAI taking a consumer-led freemium approach to education
- API powers an app layer that delivers education-specific use cases
- Betting on a large user base + app marketplace
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How generative AI expands curiosity and understanding with LearnLM — from blog.google
LearnLM is our new family of models fine-tuned for learning, and grounded in educational research to make teaching and learning experiences more active, personal and engaging.
Generative AI is fundamentally changing how we’re approaching learning and education, enabling powerful new ways to support educators and learners. It’s taking curiosity and understanding to the next level — and we’re just at the beginning of how it can help us reimagine learning.
Today we’re introducing LearnLM: our new family of models fine-tuned for learning, based on Gemini.
On YouTube, a conversational AI tool makes it possible to figuratively “raise your hand” while watching academic videos to ask clarifying questions, get helpful explanations or take a quiz on what you’ve been learning. This even works with longer educational videos like lectures or seminars thanks to the Gemini model’s long-context capabilities. These features are already rolling out to select Android users in the U.S.
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Learn About is a new Labs experience that explores how information can turn into understanding by bringing together high-quality content, learning science and chat experiences. Ask a question and it helps guide you through any topic at your own pace — through pictures, videos, webpages and activities — and you can upload files or notes and ask clarifying questions along the way.
Google I/O 2024: An I/O for a new generation — from blog.google
The Gemini era
A year ago on the I/O stage we first shared our plans for Gemini: a frontier model built to be natively multimodal from the beginning, that could reason across text, images, video, code, and more. It marks a big step in turning any input into any output — an “I/O” for a new generation.
- Gemini Era
- Multimodality and long context
- AI agents
- Breaking new ground
- Search
- More intelligent Gemini experiences
- Responsible AI
- Creating the future
Google just announced huge Gemini updates, a Sora competitor, AI agents, and more.
The 12 most impressive announcements at Google I/O:
1. Project Astra: An AI agent that can see AND hear what you do live in real-time.pic.twitter.com/sA2YT80O5G
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) May 15, 2024
Daily Digest: Google I/O 2024 – AI search is here. — from bensbites.beehiiv.com
PLUS: It’s got Agents, Video and more. And, Ilya leaves OpenAI
- Google is integrating AI into all of its ecosystem: Search, Workspace, Android, etc. In true Google fashion, many features are “coming later this year”. If they ship and perform like the demos, Google will get a serious upper hand over OpenAI/Microsoft.
- All of the AI features across Google products will be powered by Gemini 1.5 Pro. It’s Google’s best model and one of the top models. A new Gemini 1.5 Flash model is also launched, which is faster and much cheaper.
- Google has ambitious projects in the pipeline. Those include a real-time voice assistant called Astra, a long-form video generator called Veo, plans for end-to-end agents, virtual AI teammates and more.
Google just casually announced Veo, a new rival to OpenAI’s Sora.
It can generate insanely good 1080p video up to 60 seconds.
9 wild examples:
— Proper ? (@ProperPrompter) May 14, 2024
New ways to engage with Gemini for Workspace — from workspace.google.com
Today at Google I/O we’re announcing new, powerful ways to get more done in your personal and professional life with Gemini for Google Workspace. Gemini in the side panel of your favorite Workspace apps is rolling out more broadly and will use the 1.5 Pro model for answering a wider array of questions and providing more insightful responses. We’re also bringing more Gemini capabilities to your Gmail app on mobile, helping you accomplish more on the go. Lastly, we’re showcasing how Gemini will become the connective tissue across multiple applications with AI-powered workflows. And all of this comes fresh on the heels of the innovations and enhancements we announced last month at Google Cloud Next.
Google’s Gemini updates: How Project Astra is powering some of I/O’s big reveals — from techcrunch.com by Kyle Wiggers
Google is improving its AI-powered chatbot Gemini so that it can better understand the world around it — and the people conversing with it.
At the Google I/O 2024 developer conference on Tuesday, the company previewed a new experience in Gemini called Gemini Live, which lets users have “in-depth” voice chats with Gemini on their smartphones. Users can interrupt Gemini while the chatbot’s speaking to ask clarifying questions, and it’ll adapt to their speech patterns in real time. And Gemini can see and respond to users’ surroundings, either via photos or video captured by their smartphones’ cameras.
Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you — from blog.google
With expanded AI Overviews, more planning and research capabilities, and AI-organized search results, our custom Gemini model can take the legwork out of searching.
The Good, the Bad, & the Unknown of AI — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton
A recent talk at University of Massachusetts, Boston
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…the text, slides, and prompt-guide can be found in this resource.
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2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report® Teaching and Learning Edition
Trends
As a first activity, we asked the Horizon panelists to provide input on the macro trends they believe are going to shape the future of postsecondary teaching and learning and to provide observable evidence for those trends. To ensure an expansive view of the larger trends serving as context for institutions of higher education, panelists provided input across five trend categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political. Given the widespread impacts of emerging AI technologies on higher education, we are also including in this year’s report a list of “honorary trends” focused on AI. After several rounds of voting, the panelists selected the following trends as the most important:
Information Age vs Generation Age Technologies for Learning — from opencontent.org by David Wiley
Remember (emphasis DSC)
- the internet eliminated time and place as barriers to education, and
- generative AI eliminates access to expertise as a barrier to education.
Just as instructional designs had to be updated to account for all the changes in affordances of online learning, they will need to be dramatically updated again to account for the new affordances of generative AI.
The Curious Educator’s Guide to AI | Strategies and Exercises for Meaningful Use in Higher Ed — from ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub by Kyle Mackie and Erin Aspenlieder; via Stephen Downes
This guide is designed to help educators and researchers better understand the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education. This openly-licensed resource contains strategies and exercises to help foster an understanding of AI’s potential benefits and challenges. We start with a foundational approach, providing you with prompts on aligning AI with your curiosities and goals.
The middle section of this guide encourages you to explore AI tools and offers some insights into potential applications in teaching and research. Along with exposure to the tools, we’ll discuss when and how to effectively build AI into your practice.
The final section of this guide includes strategies for evaluating and reflecting on your use of AI. Throughout, we aim to promote use that is effective, responsible, and aligned with your educational objectives. We hope this resource will be a helpful guide in making informed and strategic decisions about using AI-powered tools to enhance teaching and learning and research.
Annual Provosts’ Survey Shows Need for AI Policies, Worries Over Campus Speech — from insidehighered.com by Ryan Quinn
Many institutions are not yet prepared to help their faculty members and students navigate artificial intelligence. That’s just one of multiple findings from Inside Higher Ed’s annual survey of chief academic officers.
Only about one in seven provosts said their colleges or universities had reviewed the curriculum to ensure it will prepare students for AI in their careers. Thuswaldner said that number needs to rise. “AI is here to stay, and we cannot put our heads in the sand,” he said. “Our world will be completely dominated by AI and, at this point, we ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Is GenAI in education more of a Blackberry or iPhone? — from futureofbeinghuman.com by Andrew Maynard
There’s been a rush to incorporate generative AI into every aspect of education, from K-12 to university courses. But is the technology mature enough to support the tools that rely on it?
In other words, it’s going to mean investing in concepts, not products.
This, to me, is at the heart of an “iPhone mindset” as opposed to a “Blackberry mindset” when it comes to AI in education — an approach that avoids hard wiring in constantly changing technologies, and that builds experimentation and innovation into the very DNA of learning.
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For all my concerns here though, maybe there is something to being inspired by the Blackberry/iPhone analogy — not as a playbook for developing and using AI in education, but as a mindset that embraces innovation while avoiding becoming locked in to apps that are detrimentally unreliable and that ultimately lead to dead ends.
Do teachers spot AI? Evaluating the detectability of AI-generated texts among student essays — from sciencedirect.com by Johanna Fleckenstein, Jennifer Meyer, Thorben Jansen, Stefan D. Keller, Olaf Köller, and Jens Möller
Highlights
- Randomized-controlled experiments investigating novice and experienced teachers’ ability to identify AI-generated texts.
- Generative AI can simulate student essay writing in a way that is undetectable for teachers.
- Teachers are overconfident in their source identification.
- AI-generated essays tend to be assessed more positively than student-written texts.
Can Using a Grammar Checker Set Off AI-Detection Software? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young
A college student says she was falsely accused of cheating, and her story has gone viral. Where is the line between acceptable help and cheating with AI?
Use artificial intelligence to get your students thinking critically — from timeshighereducation.com by Urbi Ghosh
When crafting online courses, teaching critical thinking skills is crucial. Urbi Ghosh shows how generative AI can shape how educators can approach this
ChatGPT shaming is a thing – and it shouldn’t be — from futureofbeinghuman.com by Andrew Maynard
There’s a growing tension between early and creative adopters of text based generative AI and those who equate its use with cheating. And when this leads to shaming, it’s a problem.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
This will sound familiar to anyone who’s incorporating generative AI into their professional workflows. But there are still many people who haven’t used apps like ChatGPT, are largely unaware of what they do, and are suspicious of them. And yet they’ve nevertheless developed strong opinions around how they should and should not be used.
From DSC:
Yes…that sounds like how many faculty members viewed online learning, even though they had never taught online before.
ChatGPT remembers who you are — from thebrainyacts.beehiiv.com |Brainyacts #191
OpenAI rolls out Memory feature for ChatGPT
OpenAI has introduced a cool update for ChatGPT (rolling out to paid and free users – but not in the EU or Korea), enabling the AI to remember user-specific details across sessions. This memory feature enhances personalization and efficiency, making your interactions with ChatGPT more relevant and engaging.
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Key Features
- Automatic Memory Tracking
- ChatGPT now automatically records information from your interactions such as preferences, interests, and plans. This allows the AI to refine its responses over time, making each conversation increasingly tailored to you.
- Enhanced Personalization
- The more you interact with ChatGPT, the better it understands your needs and adapts its responses accordingly. This personalization improves the relevance and efficiency of your interactions, whether you’re asking for daily tasks or discussing complex topics.
- Memory Management Options
- You have full control over this feature. You can view what information is stored, toggle the memory on or off, and delete specific data or all memory entries, ensuring your privacy and preferences are respected.
Memory is now available to all ChatGPT Plus users. Using Memory is easy: just start a new chat and tell ChatGPT anything you’d like it to remember.
Memory can be turned on or off in settings and is not currently available in Europe or Korea. Team, Enterprise, and GPTs to come. pic.twitter.com/mlt9vyYeMK
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) April 29, 2024
From DSC:
The ability of AI-based applications to remember things about us will have major and positive ramifications for us when we think about learning-related applications of AI.
Shares of two big online education stocks tank more than 10% as students use ChatGPT — from cnbc.com by Michelle Fox; via Robert Gibson on LinkedIn
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence appears to be taking a toll on the shares of online education companies Chegg and Coursera.
Both stocks sank by more than 10% on Tuesday after issuing disappointing guidance in part because of students using AI tools such as ChatGPT from OpenAI.
“Combining AI Literacy with Core Humanities Learning Goals: Practical, Critical, and Playful Approaches”
It was amazing to get to do an in-person keynote at @csunorthridge‘s AI Pedagogy Showcase.
Sharing slides: https://t.co/LDIGAZ3ORO 1/2— Anna Mills, annamillsoer.bsky.social, she/her (@AnnaRMills) May 3, 2024
Synthetic Video & AI Professors — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Are we witnessing the emergence of a new, post-AI model of async online learning?
TLDR: by effectively tailoring the learning experience to the learner’s comprehension levels and preferred learning modes, AI can enhance the overall learning experience, leading to increased “stickiness” and higher rates of performance in assessments.
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TLDR: AI enables us to scale responsive, personalised “always on” feedback and support in a way that might help to solve one of the most wicked problems of online async learning – isolation and, as a result, disengagement.
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In the last year we have also seen the rise of an unprecedented number of “always on” AI tutors, built to provide coaching and feedback how and when learners need it.
Perhaps the most well-known example is Khan Academy’s Khanmigo and its GPT sidekick Tutor Me. We’re also seeing similar tools emerge in K12 and Higher Ed where AI is being used to extend the support and feedback provided for students beyond the physical classroom.
Our Guidance on School AI Guidance document has been updated — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard
We’ve updated the free 72-page document we wrote to help schools design their own AI guidance policies.
There are a few key updates.
- Inclusion of Oklahoma and significant updates from North Carolina and Washington.
- More specifics on implementation — thanks NC and WA!
- A bit more on instructional redesign. Thanks to NC for getting this party started!
Creating a Culture Around AI: Thoughts and Decision-Making — from er.educause.edu by Courtney Plotts and Lorna Gonzalez
Given the potential ramifications of artificial intelligence (AI) diffusion on matters of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, now is the time for higher education institutions to adopt culturally aware, analytical decision-making processes, policies, and practices around AI tools selection and use.
The Verge | What’s Next With AI | February 2024 | Consumer Survey
DC: Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
It brings to mind #AI and #robotics and the #military — hmmmm…. https://t.co/1J4XKiHRUl
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) April 25, 2024
Microsoft AI creates talking deepfakes from single photo — from inavateonthenet.net
The Great Hall – where now with AI? It is not ‘Human Connection V Innovative Technology’ but ‘Human Connection + Innovative Technology’ — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark
The theme of the day was Human Connection V Innovative Technology. I see this a lot at conferences, setting up the human connection (social) against the machine (AI). I think this is ALL wrong. It is, and has always been a dialectic, human connection (social) PLUS the machine. Everyone had a smartphone, most use it for work, comms and social media. The binary between human and tech has long disappeared.
Techno-Social Engineering: Why the Future May Not Be Human, TikTok’s Powerful ForYou Algorithm, & More — from by Misha Da Vinci
Things to consider as you dive into this edition:
- As we increasingly depend on technology, how is it changing us?
- In the interaction between humans and technology, who is adapting to whom?
- Is the technology being built for humans, or are we being changed to fit into tech systems?
- As time passes, will we become more like robots or the AI models we use?
- Over the next 30 years, as we increasingly interact with technology, who or what will we become?
It’s been an insane week for AI (part 2)
Here are 14 most impressive reveals from this week:
1/ China just released OpenAI’s Sora rival “Vidu” which can create realistic clips in seconds.pic.twitter.com/MnTv9Wxpef
— Barsee ? (@heyBarsee) April 27, 2024
Instructors as Innovators: a Future-focused Approach to New AI Learning Opportunities, With Prompts –from papers.ssrn.com by Ethan R. Mollick and Lilach Mollick
Abstract
This paper explores how instructors can leverage generative AI to create personalized learning experiences for students that transform teaching and learning. We present a range of AI-based exercises that enable novel forms of practice and application including simulations, mentoring, coaching, and co-creation. For each type of exercise, we provide prompts that instructors can customize, along with guidance on classroom implementation, assessment, and risks to consider. We also provide blueprints, prompts that help instructors create their own original prompts. Instructors can leverage their content and pedagogical expertise to design these experiences, putting them in the role of builders and innovators. We argue that this instructor-driven approach has the potential to democratize the development of educational technology by enabling individual instructors to create AI exercises and tools tailored to their students’ needs. While the exercises in this paper are a starting point, not a definitive solutions, they demonstrate AI’s potential to expand what is possible in teaching and learning.
