From DSC:
One of my sisters shared this piece with me. She is very concerned about our society’s use of technology — whether it relates to our youth’s use of social media or the relentless pressure to be first in all things AI. As she was a teacher (at the middle school level) for 37 years, I greatly appreciate her viewpoints. She keeps me grounded in some of the negatives of technology. It’s important for us to listen to each other.
On 10/27/2025,
in colleges, community colleges, curriculum, faculty/staff, funding / grants, future of higher education, higher education, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, research, society, United States, universities, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
The Public Religion Research Institute poll comes as the Trump administration is pressuring colleges to change their policies.
Dive Brief:
- Most polled Americans, 70%, disagreed that the federal government should control “admissions, faculty hiring, and curriculum at U.S. colleges and universities to ensure they do not teach inappropriate material,” according to a survey released Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute.
- The majority of Americans across political parties — 84% of Democrats, 75% of independents and 58% of Republicans — disagreed with federal control over these elements of college operations.
- The poll’s results come as the Trump administration seeks to exert control over college workings, including in its recent offer of priority for federal research funding in exchange for making sweeping policy changes aligned with the government’s priorities.
Also see:
- ‘Nothing less than government control’: Higher ed responds to Trump’s compact — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
Federal officials offered preferential funding treatment to nine initial colleges in exchange for sweeping changes. Here’s how they replied.
On 09/29/2025,
in funding / grants, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Supreme Court Allows Trump to Slash Foreign Aid — from nytimes.com by Ann E. Marimow
The court’s conservative majority allowed the president to cut the funding in part because it said his flexibility to engage in foreign affairs outweighed “the potential harm” faced by aid recipients.
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Trump administration to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress, in a preliminary test of President Trump’s efforts to wrest the power of the purse from lawmakers.
…
“The stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the executive and Congress” over how government funds are spent, wrote Justice Elena Kagan, who was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“This result further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order,” Nicolas Sansone, a lawyer with the Public Citizen Litigation Group who represents the coalition, said in a statement. “It will also have a grave humanitarian impact on vulnerable communities throughout the world.”
From DSC:
Do your friggin’ job Supreme Court justices! Your job is to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America! As you fully well know, it is the Legislative Branch (Congress) that allocates funding — not the Executive Branch.
And there will be horrible humanitarian impacts that are going to be felt in many places because this funding is being withheld.
Making America Great Again…NOT!!!
On 09/23/2025,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, emerging technologies, experimentation, heutagogy, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, policy, simulations, student-related, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, United States, using teams, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Agentic AI and the New Era of Corporate Learning for 2026 — from hrmorning.com by Carol Warner
That gap creates compliance risk and wasted investment. It leaves HR leaders with a critical question: How do you measure and validate real learning when AI is doing the work for employees?
Designing Training That AI Can’t Fake
Employees often find static slide decks and multiple-choice quizzes tedious, while AI can breeze through them. If employees would rather let AI take training for them, it’s a red flag about the content itself.
One of the biggest risks with agentic AI is disengagement. When AI can complete a task for employees, their incentive to engage disappears unless they understand why the skill matters, Rashid explains. Personalization and context are critical. Training should clearly connect to what employees value most – career mobility, advancement, and staying relevant in a fast-changing market.
Nearly half of executives believe today’s skills will expire within two years, making continuous learning essential for job security and growth. To make training engaging, Rashid recommends:
- Delivering content in formats employees already consume – short videos, mobile-first modules, interactive simulations, or micro-podcasts that fit naturally into workflows. For frontline workers, this might mean replacing traditional desktop training with mobile content that integrates into their workday.
- Aligning learning with tangible outcomes, like career opportunities or new responsibilities.
- Layering in recognition, such as digital badges, leaderboards, or team shout-outs, to reinforce motivation and progress
Microsoft 365 Copilot AI agents reach a new milestone — is teamwork about to change? — from windowscentral.comby Adam Hales
Microsoft expands Copilot with collaborative agents in Teams, SharePoint and more to boost productivity and reshape teamwork.
Microsoft is pitching a recent shift of AI agents in Microsoft Teams as more than just smarter assistance. Instead, these agents are built to behave like human teammates inside familiar apps such as Teams, SharePoint, and Viva Engage. They can set up meeting agendas, keep files in order, and even step in to guide community discussions when things drift off track.
…
Unlike tools such as ChatGPT or Claude, which mostly wait for prompts, Microsoft’s agents are designed to take initiative. They can chase up unfinished work, highlight items that still need decisions, and keep projects moving forward. By drawing on Microsoft Graph, they also bring in the right files, past decisions, and context to make their suggestions more useful.
Chris Dede’s comments on LinkedIn re: Aibrary
As an advisor to Aibrary, I am impressed with their educational philosophy, which is based both on theory and on empirical research findings. Aibrary is an innovative approach to self-directed learning that complements academic resources. Expanding our historic conceptions of books, libraries, and lifelong learning to new models enabled by emerging technologies is central to empowering all of us to shape our future.
.
Also see:
Why AI literacy must come before policy — from timeshighereducation.com by Kathryn MacCallum and David Parsons
When developing rules and guidelines around the uses of artificial intelligence, the first question to ask is whether the university policymakers and staff responsible for implementing them truly understand how learners can meet the expectations they set
Literacy first, guidelines second, policy third
For students to respond appropriately to policies, they need to be given supportive guidelines that enact these policies. Further, to apply these guidelines, they need a level of AI literacy that gives them the knowledge, skills and understanding required to support responsible use of AI. Therefore, if we want AI to enhance education rather than undermine it, we must build literacy first, then create supportive guidelines. Good policy can then follow.
AI training becomes mandatory at more US law schools — from reuters.com by Karen Sloan and Sara Merken
Sept 22 (Reuters) – At orientation last month, 375 new Fordham Law students were handed two summaries of rapper Drake’s defamation lawsuit against his rival Kendrick Lamar’s record label — one written by a law professor, the other by ChatGPT.
The students guessed which was which, then dissected the artificial intelligence chatbot’s version for accuracy and nuance, finding that it included some irrelevant facts.
The exercise was part of the first-ever AI session for incoming students at the Manhattan law school, one of at least eight law schools now incorporating AI training for first-year students in orientation, legal research and writing courses, or through mandatory standalone classes.
On 08/28/2025,
in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, credentialing, culture, digital learning, education technology, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, IT in HE, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, policy, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
The 2025 Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) 10 Report — from qualitymatters.org; emphasis below from DSC
Notable findings from the 73-page report include:
- Online Interest Surges Across Student Populations: …
- Institutional Preparedness Falters Amid Rising Demand: Despite accelerating demand, institutional readiness has stagnated—or regressed—in key areas. …
- The Online Education Marketplace Is Increasingly Competitive: …
- Alternative Credentials Take Center Stage: …
- AI Integration Lacks Strategic Coordination: …
Just 28% of faculty are considered fully prepared for online course design, and 45% for teaching. Alarmingly, only 28% of institutions report having fully developed academic continuity plans for future emergency pivots to online.
Also relevant, see:
Great Expectations, Fragile Foundations — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Glenda Morgan
Lessons about growth from the CHLOE & BOnES reports
Cultural resistance remains strong. Many [Chief Online Learning Officers] COLOs say faculty and deans still believe in-person learning is “just better,” creating headwinds even for modest online growth. As one respondent at a four-year institution with a large online presence put it:
Supportive departments [that] see the value in online may have very different levels of responsiveness compared to academic departments [that] are begrudgingly online. There is definitely a growing belief that students “should” be on-ground and are only choosing online because it’s easy/ convenient. Never mind the very real and growing population of nontraditional learners who can only take online classes, and the very real and growing population of traditional-aged learners who prefer online classes; many faculty/deans take a paternalistic, “we know what’s best” approach.
…
Ultimately, what we need is not just more ambition but better ambition. Ambition rooted in a realistic understanding of institutional capacity, a shared strategic vision, investments in policy and infrastructure, and a culture that supports online learning as a core part of the academic mission, not an auxiliary one. It’s time we talked about what it really takes to grow online learning , and where ambition needs to be matched by structure.
From DSC:
Yup. Culture is at the breakfast table again…boy, those strategies taste good.
I’d like to take some of this report — like the graphic below — and share it with former faculty members and members of a couple of my past job families’ leadership. They strongly didn’t agree with us when we tried to advocate for the development of online-based learning/programs at our organizations…but we were right. We were right all along. And we were LEADING all along. No doubt about it — even if the leadership at the time said that we weren’t leading.
The cultures of those organizations hurt us at the time. But our cultivating work eventually led to the development of online programs — unfortunately, after our groups were disbanded, they had to outsource those programs to OPMs.
Arizona State University — with its dramatic growth in online-based enrollments.
On 08/28/2025,
in corporate / business world, credentialing, education, education technology, higher education, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, policy,
by Daniel Christian
How to build trust in digital credentials? We offer some insights — from eddesignlab.org
Three key insights emerge:
Trust requires simplicity. Users need clear visual indicators (like the lock icon for secure websites) that their credentials meet technical standards without understanding the complexity behind them.
Standards matter for real people. Technical compliance with open standards directly impacts whether someone can access their own achievements and share them where needed.
Human experience drives adoption. Even the most sophisticated technical infrastructure fails if people can’t easily understand and use it.
Our insights and recommendations provide a roadmap for building credential systems that serve real human needs while meeting rigorous technical requirements.
On 07/30/2025,
in business, economics, future, ideas, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen: The Fed Must Be Independent — an opinion from nytimes.com by Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen; this is a gifted article
As former chairs of the Federal Reserve, we know from our experiences and our reading of history that the ability of the central bank to act independently is essential for its effective stewardship of the economy. Recent attempts to compromise that independence, including the president’s demands for a radical reduction in interest rates and his threats to fire its chair, Jerome Powell, if the Fed does not comply, risk lasting and serious economic harm. They undermine not only Mr. Powell but also all future chairs and, indeed, the credibility of the central bank itself.
Independence for the Federal Reserve to set interest rates does not imply a lack of democratic accountability. Congress has set in law the goals that the Fed must aim to achieve — maximum employment and stable prices — and Fed leaders report regularly to congressional committees on their progress toward those goals. Rather, independence means that monetary policymakers are permitted to use fact-based analysis and their best professional judgment in determining how best to reach their mandated goals, without regard to short-term political pressures.
Of course, Fed policymakers, being human, make mistakes. But an overwhelming amount of evidence, drawn from the experiences of both the United States and other countries, has shown that keeping politics out of monetary policy decisions leads to better economic outcomes.
On 07/27/2025,
in accessibility / UDL, business, communities of practice, Europe, legislatures / government / legal, mobile learning, mobile technologies, online learning, online media, policy, United States, web design and production,
by Daniel Christian
Digital Accessibility in 2025: A Screen Reader User’s Honest Take — from blog.usablenet.com by Michael Taylor
In this post, part of the UsableNet 25th anniversary series, I’m taking a look at where things stand in 2025. I’ll discuss the areas that have improved—such as online shopping, banking, and social media—and the ones that still make it challenging to perform basic tasks, including travel, healthcare, and mobile apps. I hope that by sharing what works and what doesn’t, I can help paint a clearer picture of the digital world as it stands today.
Why EAA Compliance and Legal Trends Are Shaping Accessibility in 2025 — from blog.usablenet.com by Jason Taylor
On June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) officially became enforceable across the European Union. This law requires digital products and services—including websites, mobile apps, e-commerce platforms, and software to meet the defined accessibility standards outlined in EN 301 549, which aligns with the WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Companies that serve EU consumers must be able to demonstrate that accessibility is built into the design, development, testing, and maintenance of their digital products and services.
This milestone also arrives as UsableNet celebrates 25 years of accessibility leadership—a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come and what digital teams must do next.
On 07/21/2025,
in Access to Justice (A2J), change, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against him — from washingtonpost.com by Justin Jouvenal
A comprehensive analysis of hundreds of lawsuits against Trump policies shows dozens of examples of defiance, delay and dishonesty, which experts say pose an unprecedented threat to the U.S. legal system.
President Donald Trump and his appointees have been accused of flouting courts in a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling, a Washington Post analysis has found, suggesting widespread noncompliance with America’s legal system.
Plaintiffs say Justice Department lawyers and the agencies they represent are snubbing rulings, providing false information, failing to turn over evidence, quietly working around court orders and inventing pretexts to carry out actions that have been blocked.
.
The Post examined 337 lawsuits filed against the administration since Trump returned to the White House and began a rapid-fire effort to reshape government programs and policy. As of mid-July, courts had ruled against the administration in 165 of the lawsuits. The Post found that the administration is accused of defying or frustrating court oversight in 57 of those cases — almost 35 percent.