professional development

Integrating AI into your teaching + numerous other items re: AI in our Learning Ecosystems

On 02/05/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, writing, by Daniel Christian

Augment teaching with AI – this teacher has it sussed… — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Emphasis (emphasis DSC):

You’re a teacher who wants to integrate AI into your teaching. What do you do? I often get asked how should I start with AI in my school or University. This, I think, is one answer.

Continuity with teaching
One school has got this exactly right in my opinion. Meredith Joy Morris has implemented ChatGPT into the teaching process. The teacher does their thing and the chatbot picks up where the teacher stops, augmenting and scaling the teaching and learning process, passing the baton to the learners who carry on. This gives the learner a more personalised experience, encouraging independent learning by using the undoubted engagement that 1:1 dialogue provides.

There’s no way any teacher can provide this carry on support with even a handful of students, never mind a class of 30 or a course with 100. Teaching here is ‘extended’ and ‘scaled’ by AI. The feedback from the students was extremely positive.

Reflections on Teaching in the AI Age — from by Jeffrey Watson

The transition which AI forces me to make is no longer to evaluate writings, but to evaluate writers. I am accustomed to grading essays impersonally with an objective rubric, treating the text as distinct from the author and commenting only on the features of the text. I need to transition to evaluating students a bit more holistically, as philosophers – to follow along with them in the early stages of the writing process, to ask them to present their ideas orally in conversation or in front of their peers, to push them to develop the intellectual virtues that they will need if they are not going to be mastered by the algorithms seeking to manipulate them. That’s the sort of development I’ve meant to encourage all along, not paragraph construction and citation formatting. If my grading practices incentivize outsourcing to a machine intelligence, I need to change my grading practices.

4 AI Imperatives for Higher Education in 2024 — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

[Bryan Alexander] There’s a crying need for faculty and staff professional development about generative AI. The topic is complicated and fast moving. Already the people I know who are seriously offering such support are massively overscheduled. Digital materials are popular. Books are lagging but will gradually surface. I hope we see more academics lead more professional development offerings.

For an academic institution to take emerging AI seriously it might have to set up a new body. Present organizational nodes are not necessarily a good fit.

A Technologist Spent Years Building an AI Chatbot Tutor. He Decided It Can’t Be Done. — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young
Is there a better metaphor than ‘tutor’ for what generative AI can do to help students and teachers?

When Satya Nitta worked at IBM, he and a team of colleagues took on a bold assignment: Use the latest in artificial intelligence to build a new kind of personal digital tutor.

This was before ChatGPT existed, and fewer people were talking about the wonders of AI. But Nitta was working with what was perhaps the highest-profile AI system at the time, IBM’s Watson. That AI tool had pulled off some big wins, including beating humans on the Jeopardy quiz show in 2011.

Nitta says he was optimistic that Watson could power a generalized tutor, but he knew the task would be extremely difficult. “I remember telling IBM top brass that this is going to be a 25-year journey,” he recently told EdSurge.

Teachers stan AI in education–but need more support — from eschoolnews.com by Laura Ascione

What are the advantages of AI in education?
Canva’s study found 78 percent of teachers are interested in using AI education tools, but their experience with the technology remains limited, with 93 percent indicating they know “a little” or “nothing” about it – though this lack of experience hasn’t stopped teachers quickly discovering and considering its benefits:

60 percent of teachers agree it has given them ideas to boost student productivity
59 percent of teachers agree it has cultivated more ways for their students to be creative
56 percent of teachers agree it has made their lives easier

…

When looking at the ways teachers are already using generative artificial intelligence, the most common uses were:

Creating teaching materials (43 percent)
Collaborative creativity/co-creation (39 percent)
Translating text (36 percent)
Brainstorming and generating ideas (35 percent)

The next grand challenge for AI — from ted.com by Jim Fan

The State of Washington Embraces AI for Public Schools — from synthedia.substack.com by Bret Kinsella; via Tom Barrett
Educational institutions may be warming up to generative AI

Washington state issued new guidelines for K-12 public schools last week based on the principle of “embracing a human-centered approach to AI,” which also embraces the use of AI in the education process. The state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, commented in a letter accompanying the new guidelines:

New education features to help teachers save time and support students — from by Shantanu Sinha

Giving educators time back to invest in themselves and their students
Boost productivity and creativity with Duet AI: Educators can get fresh ideas and save time using generative AI across Workspace apps. With Duet AI, they can get help drafting lesson plans in Docs, creating images in Slides, building project plans in Sheets and more — all with control over their data.

Advice to schools — from theneurondaily.com
PLUS: 7 GPTs you need start using!

Now, here are some of the best resources we’ve found for incorporating AI into classrooms:

TeachAI’s “AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit”.
AutomatED—excellent newsletter on how to teach better with AI.
Ethan Mollick: Wharton Prof offering key insights into AI in education; take his mini-course here.
How to update your assignments to align with the realities of the AI age.

Your own AI-powered coaching; learn exactly what you need to know for your next job; + AI’s role in skill development

On 01/04/2024, in 21st century, adult learning, Alternatives, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Microsoft, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, professional development, reinvent, skills, streams of content, training / L&D, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learners’ Edition: AI-powered Coaching, Professional Certifications + Inspiring conversations about mastering your learning & speaking skills — from linkedin.com by Tomer Cohen

Excerpts:

1. Your own AI-powered coaching
Learners can go into LinkedIn Learning and ask a question or explain a challenge they are currently facing at work (we’re focusing on areas within Leadership and Management to start). AI-powered coaching will pull from the collective knowledge of our expansive LinkedIn Learning library and, instantaneously, offer advice, examples, or feedback that is personalized to the learner’s skills, job, and career goals.

What makes us so excited about this launch is we can now take everything we as LinkedIn know about people’s careers and how they navigate them and help accelerate them with AI.

…

3. Learn exactly what you need to know for your next job
When looking for a new job, it’s often the time we think about refreshing our LinkedIn profiles. It’s also a time we can refresh our skills. And with skill sets for jobs having changed by 25% since 2015 – with the number expected to increase by 65% by 2030– keeping our skills a step ahead is one of the most important things we can do to stand out.

There are a couple of ways we’re making it easier to learn exactly what you need to know for your next job:

When you set a job alert, in addition to being notified about open jobs, we’ll recommend learning courses and Professional Certificate offerings to help you build the skills needed for that role.

When you view a job, we recommend specific courses to help you build the required skills. If you have LinkedIn Learning access through your company or as part of a Premium subscription, you can follow the skills for the job, that way we can let you know when we launch new courses for those skills and recommend you content on LinkedIn that better aligns to your career goals.

2024 Edtech Predictions from Edtech Insiders — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, and Sarah Morin
Omni-modal AI, edtech funding prospects, higher ed wake up calls, focus on career training, and more!

Alex: I talked to the 360 Learning folks at one point and they had this really interesting epiphany, which is basically that it’s been almost impossible for every individual company in the past to create a hierarchy of skills and a hierarchy of positions and actually organize what it looks like for people to move around and upskill within the company and get to new paths.

Until now. AI actually can do this very well. It can take not only job description data, but it can take actual performance data. It can actually look at what people do on a daily basis and back fit that to training, create automatic training based on it.

From DSC:
I appreciated how they addressed K-12, higher ed, and the workforce all in one posting. Nice work. We don’t need siloes. We need more overall design thinking re: our learning ecosystems — as well as more collaborations. We need more on-ramps and pathways in a person’s learning/career journey.

ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How. [McMurtrie & Supiano] + other items re: AI in our Learning Ecosystems

On 12/20/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, more voice more choice more control, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, writing, by Daniel Christian

K12 District-Level Perspectives on AI — from aiforeducation.io by Amanda Bickerstaff, Dr. Patrick Gittisriboongul, Samantha Armstrong, & Brett Roer

Want to know how K12 schools are navigating the adoption of AI and what district-level leaders really think about GenAI EdTech tools?

Join us for this free webinar where we discussed AI technology, literacy, training, and the responsible adoption of GenAI tools in K12. Our panel explored what is working well – and not so well – across their districts from a school leader and practitioner’s perspective.

ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How. — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie and Beckie Supiano

Those vastly different approaches to college writing pretty much sum up the responses to generative AI: They’re all over the map.

One year after its release, ChatGPT has pushed higher education into a liminal place. Colleges are still hammering out large-scale plans and policies governing how generative AI will be dealt with in operations, research, and academic programming. But professors have been forced more immediately to adapt their classrooms to its presence. Those adaptations vary significantly, depending on whether they see the technology as a tool that can aid learning or as a threat that inhibits it.
…
Nearly 100 faculty members shared their stories. While not a representative sample, they teach at a wide range of institutions: 15 community colleges, 32 public and 24 private four-year colleges or universities, seven international institutions, and one for-profit college. They teach a variety of subjects, including animal science, statistics, computer science, history, accounting, and composition. Many spent hours learning about AI: enrolling in workshops and webinars, experimenting with the tools, and reading articles, so that they could enter the fall semester informed and prepared.

The Disruption of AI in CTE Is Real — from techlearning.com by Annie Galvin Teich
An ACTE expert panel urges CTE educators to jump on the AI train as it’s already left the station

10 Best Practices for AI and CTE

Embrace AI and use it first for simple tasks to create efficiencies. Then use it to individualize instruction and for formative assessment tools aligned to standards.
Be creative and conscious of internal bias and ethics. Focus on DEI and access.
Encourage students to use apps and tools to start moving toward an integrated curriculum using AI.
Prepare students for jobs of the future by partnering with industry to solve real problems.
…and others

How are universities responding to generative AI? — from medium.com by Nic Newman
What’s next for higher education as we enter a new wave of edtech innovation: AI-powered learning

Where will AI make a big difference?
At Emerge, we have identified eight high-level trends — what we’re calling “engines of opportunity”. These eight “engines of opportunity” capture our ideas about how AI is being used to drive better practice and outcomes in HE, now and into the future.

They fall into two main categories:

Making learning more engaging: solutions that scale high quality pedagogy at low cost.
Making teaching more efficient: solutions that save educators and organisations time and money.

Notebook LM (experiment): Collaborate with a virtual research assistant

On 12/13/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, online media, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Google NotebookLM (experiment)

From DSC:
Google hopes that this personalized AI/app will help people with their note-taking, thinking, brainstorming, learning, and creating.

It reminds me of what Derek Bruff was just saying in regards to Top Hat’s Ace product being able to work with a much narrower set of information — i.e., a course — and to be almost like a personal learning assistant for the course you are taking. (As Derek mentions, this depends upon how extensively one uses the CMS/LMS in the first place.)

Announcing a new podcast: Online Education Across the Atlantic [Hill & Morgan]

On 12/06/2023, in education technology, global / globalization, online learning, podcasting, professional development, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

New Podcast and An Update on TPS — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Phil Hill (and Glenda Morgan)
Announcing a new podcast: Online Education Across the Atlantic

Morgan and I are working to ensure that our coverage of EdTech and online education is more global in nature, avoiding the pitfall of looking only in the US bubble. Yesterday’s post on the OEB conference is one example of this scope.

We’re happy to announce that we are working with UK-based Neil Mosley, who is one of our favorite writers on EdTech, on a new podcast. Online Education Across the Atlantic intentionally takes a broader view of education trends, and it is available with Apple, Spotify, Google, or any of your favorite podcast players. The links below go to Apple, but you can use your favorite with the links above.

9 Tips for Using AI for Learning (and Fun!) — from edutopia.org by Daniel Leonard; via Donna Norton on X/Twitter
These innovative, AI-driven activities will help you engage students across grade levels and subject areas.

Here are nine AI-based lesson ideas to try across different grade levels and subject areas.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

AI-generated Animated Drawing of artwork

Courtesy of Meta AI Research
A child’s drawing (left) and animations created with Animated Drawings.

.

1. Bring Student Drawings to Life: Young kids love to sketch, and AI can animate their sketches—and introduce them to the power of the technology in the process.

HIGH SCHOOL

8. Speak With AI in a Foreign Language: When learning a new language, students might feel self-conscious about making mistakes and avoid practicing as much as they should.

Though not necessarily about education, also see:

How I Use AI for Productivity — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
In this Wonder Tools audio post I share a dozen of my favorite AI tools

From DSC:
I like Jeremy’s mentioning the various tools that he used in making this audio post:

Squadcast for recording the interview. (I also like Riverside.fm for recording)
- Shure MV7 microphone
- Adobe podcast for recording and removing background noise from the opening supplemental audio clip, and Adobe Mic check to gauge microphone positioning
- Audacity for merging audio clips
- Descript for light audio editing
Hypernatural for generating the audiograms
Claude for identifying potentially interesting moments in the transcript
Substack for newsletter and audio delivery

Where a developing, new kind of learning ecosystem is likely headed [Christian]

On 11/17/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, marketplaces, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, skills, social learning / networks, society, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, training / L&D, trends, TVs, ubiquitous learning, United States, universities, using teams, vendors, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As I’ve long stated on the Learning from the Living [Class]Room vision, we are heading toward a new AI-empowered learning platform — where humans play a critically important role in making this new learning ecosystem work.

Along these lines, I ran into this site out on X/Twitter. We’ll see how this unfolds, but it will be an interesting space to watch.

From DSC:
This future learning platform will also focus on developing skills and competencies. Along those lines, see:

Scale for Skills-First — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
An ed-tech giant’s ambitious moves into digital credentialing and learner records.

A Digital Canvas for Skills
Instructure was a player in the skills and credentials space before its recent acquisition of Parchment, a digital transcript company. But that $800M move made many observers wonder if Instructure can develop digital records of skills that learners, colleges, and employers might actually use broadly.
…

Ultimately, he says, the CLR approach will allow students to bring these various learning types into a coherent format for employers.

Instructure seeks a leadership role in working with other organizations to establish common standards for credentials and learner records, to help create consistency. The company collaborates closely with 1EdTech. And last month it helped launch the 1EdTech TrustEd Microcredential Coalition, which aims to increase quality and trust in digital credentials.

Paul also links to 1EDTECH’s page regarding the Comprehensive Learning Record

A simple mindset shift to help empower student ownership of learning: https://t.co/Hz30Tjiepu

— edutopia (@edutopia) November 5, 2023

When schools and families go to court over special education, everyone loses — from wfyi.org by Lee Gaines

While federal law mandates public schools provide an appropriate education to students with disabilities, it’s often up to parents to enforce it.

Schwarten did what few people have the resources to do: she hired a lawyer and requested a due process hearing. It’s like a court case. And it’s intended to resolve disputes between families and schools over special education services.

It’s also a traumatic and adversarial process for families and schools that can rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and destroy relationships between parents and district employees. And even when families win, children don’t always get the public education they deserve.

Future of Learning: Native American students have the least access to computer science — from The Hechinger Report by Javeria Salman

But computer science lessons like the ones at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School are relatively rare. Despite calls from major employers and education leaders to expand K-12 computer science instruction in response to the workforce’s increasing reliance on digital technology, access to the subject remains low — particularly for Native American students.

Only 67 percent of Native American students attend a school that offers a computer science course, the lowest percentage of any demographic group, according to a new study from the nonprofit Code.org. A recent report from the Kapor Foundation and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, or AISES, takes a deep look at why Native students’ access to computer and technology courses in K-12 is so low, and examines the consequences.

The Case for Andragogy in Educator Development — from Dialogic #341 by Tom Barrett

Understanding the Disconnect
We often find ourselves in professional development sessions that starkly contrast with the interactive and student-centred learning environments we create. We sit as passive recipients rather than active participants, receiving generic content that seldom addresses our unique experiences or teaching challenges.

This common scenario highlights a significant gap in professional development: the failure to apply the principles of adult learning, or andragogy, which acknowledges that educators, like their students, benefit from a learning process that is personalised, engaging, and relevant.

The irony is palpable — while we foster environments of inquiry and engagement in our classrooms, our learning experiences often lack these elements.

The disconnect prompts a vital question: If we are to cultivate a culture of lifelong learning among our students, shouldn’t we also embody this within our professional growth? It’s time for the professional development of educators to reflect the principles we hold dear in our teaching practices.

“Shocking AI Statistics in 2023” [Makadia] + other items re: AI

On 11/01/2023, in 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, computer science, corporate / business world, data related items, emerging technologies, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, psychology, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Shocking AI Statistics in 2023 — from techthatmatters.beehiiv.com by Harsh Makadia

Chat GPT reached 100 million users faster than any other app. By February 2023, the chat.openai.com website saw an average of 25 million daily visitors. How can this rise in AI usage benefit your business’s function?
45% of executives say the popularity of ChatGPT has led them to increase investment in AI. If executives are investing in AI personally, then how will their beliefs affect corporate investment in AI to drive automation further? Also, how will this affect the amount of workers hired to manage AI systems within companies?
eMarketer predicts that in 2024 at least 20% of Americans will use ChatGPT monthly and that a fifth of them are 25-34 year olds in the workforce. Does this mean that there are more young workers using AI?
…plus 10 more stats

People are speaking with ChatGPT for hours, bringing 2013’s Her closer to reality — from arstechnica.com by Benj Edwards
Long mobile conversations with the AI assistant using AirPods echo the sci-fi film.

It turns out that Willison’s experience is far from unique. Others have been spending hours talking to ChatGPT using its voice recognition and voice synthesis features, sometimes through car connections. The realistic nature of the voice interaction feels largely effortless, but it’s not flawless. Sometimes, it has trouble in noisy environments, and there can be a pause between statements. But the way the ChatGPT voices simulate vocal ticks and noises feels very human. “I’ve been using the voice function since yesterday and noticed that it makes breathing sounds when it speaks,” said one Reddit user. “It takes a deep breath before starting a sentence. And today, actually a minute ago, it coughed between words while answering my questions.”

From DSC:
Hmmmmmmm….I’m not liking the sound of this on my initial take of it. But perhaps there are some real positives to this. I need to keep an open mind.

Working with AI: Two paths to prompting — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
Don’t overcomplicate things

Conversational Prompting [From DSC: i.e., keep it simple]
Structured Prompting

For most people, [Conversational Prompting] is good enough to get started, and it is the technique I use most of the time when working with AI. Don’t overcomplicate things, just interact with the system and see what happens. After you have some experience, however, you may decide that you want to create prompts you can share with others, prompts that incorporate your expertise. We call this approach Structured Prompting, and, while improving AIs may make it irrelevant soon, it is currently a useful tool for helping others by encoding your knowledge into a prompt that anyone can use.

These fake images reveal how AI amplifies our worst stereotypes — from washingtonpost.com by Nitasha Tiku, Kevin Schaul, and Szu Yu Chen (behind paywall)
AI image generators like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E amplify bias in gender and race, despite efforts to detoxify the data fueling these results.

Artificial intelligence image tools have a tendency to spin up disturbing clichés: Asian women are hypersexual. Africans are primitive. Europeans are worldly. Leaders are men. Prisoners are Black.

These stereotypes don’t reflect the real world; they stem from the data that trains the technology. Grabbed from the internet, these troves can be toxic — rife with pornography, misogyny, violence and bigotry.

Abeba Birhane, senior advisor for AI accountability at the Mozilla Foundation, contends that the tools can be improved if companies work hard to improve the data — an outcome she considers unlikely. In the meantime, the impact of these stereotypes will fall most heavily on the same communities harmed during the social media era, she said, adding: “People at the margins of society are continually excluded.”

ChatGPT app revenue shows no signs of slowing, but some other AI apps top it — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez; Via AI Valley – Barsee

ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI, far outpaces all other AI chatbot apps on mobile devices in terms of downloads and is a market leader by revenue, as well. However, it’s surprisingly not the top AI app by revenue — several photo AI apps and even other AI chatbots are actually making more money than ChatGPT, despite the latter having become a household name for an AI chat experience.

ChatGPT can now analyze files you upload to it without a plugin — from bgr.com by Joshua Hawkins; via Superhuman

According to new reports, OpenAI has begun rolling out a more streamlined approach to how people use ChatGPT. The new system will allow the AI to choose a model automatically, letting you run Python code, open a web browser, or generate images with DALL-E without extra interaction. Additionally, ChatGPT will now let you upload and analyze files.

Everyday Media Literacy: An Analog Guide for Your Digital Life — from routledge.com by Sue Ellen Christian

In this second edition, award-winning educator Sue Ellen Christian offers students an accessible and informed guide to how they can consume and create media intentionally and critically.

The textbook applies media literacy principles and critical thinking to the key issues facing young adults today, from analyzing and creating media messages to verifying information and understanding online privacy. Through discussion prompts, writing exercises, key terms, and links, readers are provided with a framework from which to critically consume and create media in their everyday lives. This new edition includes updates covering privacy aspects of AI, VR and the metaverse, and a new chapter on digital audiences, gaming, and the creative and often unpaid labor of social media and influencers. Chapters examine news literacy, online activism, digital inequality, social media and identity, and global media corporations, giving readers a nuanced understanding of the key concepts at the core of media literacy. Concise, creative, and curated, this book highlights the cultural, political, and economic dynamics of media in contemporary society, and how consumers can mindfully navigate their daily media use.

This textbook is perfect for students and educators of media literacy, journalism, and education looking to build their understanding in an engaging way.

How new AI chatbots could help teachers with their toughest problems [Toppo] + other AI in education related items

On 09/19/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital audio, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

How new AI chatbots could help teachers with their toughest problems — from fastcompany.com by Greg Toppo
At least two groups are working on bots that would make peer-reviewed research, buried in expensive academic journals, accessible for everyday use.

But this fall, a few educators are quietly charting a different course they believe could change everything: At least two groups are pushing to create new AI chatbots that would offer teachers unlimited access to sometimes confusing and often paywalled peer-reviewed research on the topics that most bedevil them.

Their aspiration is to offer new tools that are more focused and helpful than wide-ranging ones like ChatGPT, which tends to stumble over research questions with competing findings. Like many juveniles faced with questions they can’t answer, it has a frustrating tendency to make things up.

Using ChatGPT Custom Instructions for Fun and Profit — from every.to by Dan Shipper
How to 10x ChatGPT with personalized answers

Then, I turned Custom Instructions on and gave it the same starting prompt. Here are a few of the responses (emphases are mine):

“Purpose: What’s the primary goal of the course? Is it to augment your existing offerings at Every, serve as a standalone product, or something else?”

“Content Depth: Given your love for detailed, intellectual writing, how in-depth will you go on each topic?”

“Guest Contributions: Do you plan to involve guest experts, perhaps even some of your writing heroes or team members like Kate Lee and Evan Armstrong?”

“Time Investment: Given that you’re already grappling with being too opportunistic and dutiful, how will you allocate time for this without sidelining your creative work or burdening yourself?”

AI for comics — from aiandacademia.substack.com by Bryan Alexander
Exploring an entertaining new Hugging Face application

As generative AI grows, more uses appear. Beyond text and images, other domains for creation pop up as companies, groups, and individuals try out new functions.

Today’s case in point is AI Comic Factory from Hugging Face.* This service will generate a couple of comic book pages based on your text input. It gives you choices of comic style and page layout as well.

Items from Tom Barrett’ Promptcraft: AI for a better learning ecosystem

This new AI video tool clones your voice in 7 languages — and it’s blowing up — from sg.news.yahoo.com by Christoph Schwaiger

How many languages do you speak? Thanks to AI, that number could be as many as seven. Los Angeles-based AI video platform HeyGen has launched a new tool that clones your voice from a video and translates what you’re saying into seven different languages. If that wasn’t enough, it also syncs your lips to your new voice so the final clip looks (and sounds) as realistic as possible.

Microsoft and Project Gutenberg release over 5,000 free audiobooks — from the-decoder.com by Matthias Bastian

Microsoft and Project Gutenberg have used AI technologies to create more than 5,000 free audiobooks with high-quality synthetic voices.

For the project, the researchers combined advances in machine learning, automatic text selection (which texts are read aloud, which are not), and natural-sounding speech synthesis systems.

Ask the Chair: Are Great Chairs Born or Made? [Dettmar]

On 09/13/2023, in business side of he, career development, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, leadership, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, quality, skills, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Ask the Chair: Are Great Chairs Born or Made? — from chronicle.com by Kevin Dettmar (behind a paywall)
Higher education is finally getting serious about training new department heads.

Great chairs aren’t born, but made; “trial and error” isn’t actually a professional-development strategy. The provost and deans should recognize that a confident and competent chair makes their job easier, creates a well-functioning department, and buoys faculty, student, and staff morale.

As someone vitally engaged with the chair’s role, I do think we are experiencing a sea-change when it comes to how institutions are preparing chairs. For too long, colleges have treated the position as simply a minor cog in the chain of command. But more and more institutions are now investing in their chairs.

Solid idea from Brandon Busteed: “Create externship programs for faculty.”

On 09/12/2023, in adjunct faculty, business, career development, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, professional development, training / L&D, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

An excerpt from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ posting from Brandon Busteed on LinkedIn:

6. Create externship programs for faculty. Many college and university faculty have never worked outside of academia. Given a chance to be exposed to modern workplaces and work challenges, faculty will find innovative and creative ways to weave more work-integrated learning into their curriculum.

From DSC:
This is a great idea — thanks Brandon!

I might add another couple of thoughts here as well:

And/or treat your Adjunct Faculty Members much better as well!
And/or work with more L&D Departments at local companies (i.e., to develop closer, more beneficial/WIN-WIN collaborations).

AI Can Teach Students a Powerful Lesson About the Truth — from edweek.org by Rachna Nath
How I’m harnessing ChatGPT in the classroom

What we teachers desperately need, though, is an ocean of examples and training. We need to see and share examples of generative AI—any type of artificial intelligence that can be used to create new text, images, video, audio, code, or data—being used across the curriculum. We need catalogs of new lesson plans and new curriculum.

And we need training on theoretical and practical levels: training to understand what artificial intelligence actually is and where it stands in the development timeline and training about how to integrate it into our classes.

So, my advice to teachers is to use any and all the generative AI you can get your hands on. Then experience—for yourself—verification of the information. Track it back to the source because in doing so, you’ll land on the adjustments you need to make in your classes next year.

From DSC:
Interesting.

Learners can now seamlessly transition between AI-powered assistance (AI Tutor) and Live Expert support to get access to instant support, whether through AI-guided learning or real-time interactions with a human expert.

From Brainly Enrolls New AI-Powered Tools for More
Personalized and Accessible Learning (businesswire.com)

ASSIGNMENT MAKEOVERS IN THE AI AGE WITH DEREK BRUFF — from teachinginhighered.com by Bonni Stachowiak
Derek Bruff shares about assignment makeovers in the AI age on episode 481 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast

Comment on this per Derek Bruff:

Why not ask ChatGPT to write what King or X would say about a current debate and then have the students critique the ChatGPT output? That would meet the same learning goals while also teaching AI literacy.

(Be sure to read Asim’s contribution for a useful take.)

Generative AI in Schools: A Closer Look and Future Predictions — from thejournal.com by Ted Mo Chen (emphasis DSC)

Here’s a closer look at the concurrent AI landscape in schools — and a prediction of what the future holds.

So far, high-profile ventures in the instruction realm, such as Kyron Learning, have fused teacher-produced, recorded content with LLM-powered conversational UX. The micro-learning tool Nolej references internet material when generating tasks and tests, but always holds the language model closely to the ground truth provided by teachers. Both are intriguing takes on re-imagining how to deliver core instruction and avoid hallucinations (generated content that is nonsensical).

Also see this posting on LinkedIn about that article, where Ted Mo Chen mentions the following companies:

Companies to watch:

New report: Trends in Learning 2023 — from open.ac.uk by Professor Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

So, what six trends have we chosen for this year’s report? They are: advances in AI, the metaverse and learning, challenge-based learning, entrepreneurial learning, seeing yourself in the curriculum and multimodal learning. In the report, we discuss each of the trends in turn, why we think they are important and the impact they are already having or will have on workplace learning. We have also interviewed six people, experts in their field, to find out their opinions and experiences of the trends, sharing their insights in the report.

Unity executive shares her thoughts on the future of education and technology with the rise in popularity of A.I. and real-time 3D content — from fortune.com by Preston Fore

As a result, real-time 3D jobs are among the most in demand within the tech industry. According to Unity’s vice president of Education and Social Impact, Jessica Lindl, demand is 50% higher than traditional IT jobs—adding that salaries for real-time 3D jobs are 60% greater.

“We want to provide really simple on ramps and pathways that will lead you into entry level jobs so that at any point in your career, you can decide to transfer into the industry,” Lindl says.

How universities worldwide are responding to generative AI — from linkedin.com by University World News

University World News continues its exploration of generative AI in our new special report on ‘AI and Higher Education’. In commentaries and features, academics and our journalists around the world investigate issues and developments around AI that are impacting on universities. Generative AI tools are challenging and changing higher education systems and institutions — how they are run as well as ways of teaching and learning and conducting research.

We’ve collated the lead articles below for you to read and the full report is available here.

What’s the future of generative AI? An early view in 15 charts — from mckinsey.com
Generative AI has hit the ground running—so fast that it can feel hard to keep up. Here’s a quick take pulled from our top articles and reports on the subject.

Teaching in the Age of AI — from cft.vanderbilt.edu by Michael Coley, Stacey M. Johnson, Paige Snay, Joe Bandy, John Bradley, and Ole Molvig

This guide will explore:

What is generative AI, and where can it be found?
How can I harness generative AI tools in my teaching to improve student learning?
How can I craft assignments that deter unauthorized use of generative AI?
How does academic integrity relate to generative AI tools?
What resources are there for instructors who want to engage with generative AI tools?

15 Inspirational Voices in the Space Between AI and Education — from jeppestricker.substack.com by Jeppe Klitgaard Stricker
Get Inspired for AI and The Future of Education.

My advice for you today is this: fill your LinkedIn-feed and/or inbox with ideas, inspirational writing and commentary on AI.

This will get you up to speed quickly and is a great way to stay informed on the newest movements you need to be aware of.

My personal recommendation for you is to check out these bright people who are all very active on LinkedIn and/or have a newsletter worth paying attention to.

I have kept the list fairly short – only 15 people – in order to make it as easy as possible for you to begin exploring.

It is crucial to recognize that the intrinsic value of higher education isn’t purely in its ability to adapt to market fluctuations or technological innovations. Its core strength lies in promoting critical thinking, nurturing creativity, and instilling a sense of purpose and belonging. As AI progresses, these traits will likely become even more crucial. The question then becomes if higher education institutions as we know them today are the ony ones, or indeed the best ones, equipped to convey those core strengths to students.

Higher education clearly finds itself caught in a whirlwind of transformation, both in its essence and execution. The juxtaposition of legacy structures and the evolving technological landscape paints a complex picture.

For institutional leaders, the dual challenge lies in proactively seeking and initiating change (not merely adapting to it) without losing sight of their foundational principles. Simultaneously, they must equip students with skills and perspectives that AI cannot replicate.

— from Is Higher Education Nearing the Tipping Point?
by Jeppe Klitgaard Stricker

EdTech Companies Are Racing to Build a Github Copilot for Teachers. This Will Not Be Easy. — from danmeyer.substack.com by Dan Meyer; via Matthew Tower
Generative AI has produced an extremely useful tool for software developers. Can it do the same for teachers?

Also, Matthew Tower, pulled this quote from The big problem with grades. / via Washington Post

“They begged, bargained with, and berated their instructor in pursuit of better grades — not “because they like points,” but rather, “because the education system has told them that these points are the currency with which they can buy a successful future.””

Learning Ecosystems

Announcing a new podcast: Online Education Across the Atlantic [Hill & Morgan]

Ask the Chair: Are Great Chairs Born or Made? [Dettmar]

Solid idea from Brandon Busteed: “Create externship programs for faculty.”

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