Categories
academic publishing AI assessment CMM Domain name ed tech edtech higher education Webinar

Ed tech must reads: column #81

First published in Campus Morning Mail 16th May, 2023

Deskilling on the job from Danah Boyd | Apophenia

The question of how Generative AI technologies will change the future is frequently asked and even more frequently (and badly) answered but rarely as thoughtfully as in this post from Danah Boyd, a researcher at Microsoft. She approaches it through the simple frame of whether work will be automated or augmented and raises the vital issue of how we prevent core skills from atrophying if we outsource our tasks to the machines.

The impact of ChatGPT on higher education: what have we learnt? Webinar from TEQSA/CRADLE, Monday June 5th 2-4pm (AEST)

For a more immediate perspective, it is coming up to six months since ChatGPT was released and we have now had a teaching period or two to see how this is reshaping learning and teaching in Higher Education. This joint webinar from TEQSA and Deakin’s CRADLE brings together Rowena Harper (ECU), Simon Buckingham Shum (UTS), Phillip Dawson and Margaret Bearman (Deakin) and Helen Gniel (TEQSA) for an academic perspective on where we are currently.

49th edition of Professional Development Opportunities in Educational Technology and Education from Clayton R Wright

This thesis length document is probably the most comprehensive listing you will find of conferences, webinars and other events in the education technology and education space. US based events are heavily represented but there are also a host of events from around the world. If you are of a mind to plan your travel/PD through to September 2026, this is the list for you.

Google Announces 8 New Top Level Domains Including One For Lawyers from Search Engine Journal

There are two reasons that this story matters. The mild one is that you can now register a web domain ending in either .phd, .prof or (if you feel fancy) .esq. The more eyebrow-raising one is that this list also includes .zip and .mov. Given that these are both common file extensions – .mov representing Apple video files – the potential for confusion and malfeasance in web links is alarming. Be wary.

Elsevier is losing editors from Dr Glaucomflecken

The recent mass exodus of editors from Elsevier’s NeuroImage journal is discussed beautifully in this biting video from ophthalmologist and academic TikTok comedian Dr Glaucomflecken.

Categories
AI assessment CMM ed tech edtech higher education

Ed tech must reads: column #80

First published in Campus Morning Mail 9th May, 2023

How does assessment drive learning? A focus on students’ development of evaluative judgement from Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

Assessment is clearly an integral part of learning and determining whether learning has occurred, but less thought is often given to how it shapes what students are learning and how. This insightful article from Fischer, Bearman, Boud and Tai at Deakin’s CRADLE (of course) takes an ethnographical approach to exploring how physics students navigate a number of summative assessment tasks. It notes that they make independent evaluative judgements about they way they study as much as their work itself and highlights the value of authentic assessments at a program level and partnering with students on curriculum design.

How to customize LLMs like ChatGPT with your own data and documents from TechTalks

Given the towering stack of (virtual) articles in my own reading list, there is a certain appeal in the idea of feeding it to a robot and simply asking my questions. This article outlines the practicalities of this somewhat involved process, but it should be noted that the ‘token’ (words or word fragments) limits on Large Language Models such as GPT4 range from between 2000 to 32000, so it is likely able to ingest more a mound than a mountain of papers. But one day.

How to cite ChatGPT from APA Style

I am highly aware that some people feel that citing ChatGPT is akin to citing Clippy or Grammarly but this is the world we now live in and as GenAI tools become part of our work processes they need to integrate with other practices. The APA explains here why the use of GenAI differs from ‘personal communications’ and offers a format for in-text and reference citations. It also notes the importance of adding an appendix detailing the prompts and processes used with these tools.

The Five Pathologies of EdTech Discourse About Generative AI from OnEdTech Blog

Now that everyone with an opinion seems to have self-identified as a GenAI expert, which at least gives the epidemiologists in the room a breather, a lot of the discussion in this space seems to have settled into a number of repeated talking points. This post from Glenda Morgan examines five key themes that emerge whenever a new Ed Tech appears (MOOCs, Learning Analytics, Mixed/Augmented Reality) and considers their validity in this new context. This includes a preoccupation with trendiness, exaggerated results, technology solutionism, overemphasis on application to learning and moral panics.

Categories
AI Bluesky CMM ed tech edtech feedback higher education learning analytics

Ed tech must reads: column #79

First published in Campus Morning Mail 2nd May, 2023

Prompt engineering for educators – making generative AI work for you from Teaching@Sydney

This post from Danny Liu (USyd) offers some simple but effective prompting suggestions to support retrieval practices, learning through analogies, lesson planning, simulations and more.

Quick Start Guide to ChatGPT and AI in Higher Education from UNESCO

The entire UNESCO guide here is concise and timely but I particularly like Mike Sharples’ table of the range of roles that GenAI tools can play in learning and teaching, with tangible exemplars. It ranges from alternative ways to express an idea to personal tutoring all the way to creating games to help engage learners.

You’ve Got Mail: A Technology-Mediated Feedback Strategy to Support Self-Regulated Learning in First-Year University Students from Student Success

The transition from High School to Higher Ed can be a challenge for many students, with the assumption that as adult learners they will take greater responsibility for their own learning. Early interventions have long been considered vital in supporting new students to engage and develop self-regulated learning practices. This study from Sauchelli, Heath, Richardson, Lewis (UniSA) and Lim (UTS) indicates that while technology mediated emails to students – generated based on learning analytic data – appear to increase motivation, they do not necessarily affect student learning strategies and more support for these may be needed.

Valuing teaching: exploring how a university’s strategic documents reflect institutional teaching culture from International Journal of Academic Development

While all universities have learning and teaching strategies and commitments to educational excellence, in practice the extent to which learning and teaching is valued (compared to research say) can have a marked affect on quality. This Canadian paper from Shaw et al. analyses institutional strategic documents based on a six point Teaching Culture Framework. They, unsurprisingly, found that the loftiness of the language often conflicted with useful, actionable specificity about what exactly the institution believes good learning and teaching should look like in practice.

Bluesky does not “own everything you post” from Dr Casey Fiesler (Twitter)

Bluesky is the long awaited or hoped for Twitter replacement from Twitter creator Jack Dorsey. Invitations to the beta-release are already selling for hundreds of dollars. In “news” that crops up from time to time, someone read the Terms of Service and noticed that the platform asks for a non-exclusive licence to publish your posts. Casey Fiesler explains why this is boiler plate language needed by all social platforms and not a grand IP theft conspiracy.

Categories
AI assessment CMM ed tech edtech education design Education Technologist Entangled Pedagogy feedback H5P higher education

Ed tech must reads: column #78

First published in Campus Morning Mail 26th April, 2023

I have a cunning plan from Guerilla Warfare blog

Kane Murdoch (Macquarie) has worked in the academic integrity investigation space for many years and has seen a lot. With this AI being discussed almost as much as the other one, he shares a bold vision for re-shaping assessment in Higher Ed by doing away with grading for first year assessments and focussing more on feedback to foster a love of learning rather than grade grubbing in students. It has generated no small amount of discussion on Twitter.

Sounds good to me: A qualitative study to explore the use of audio to potentiate the student feedback experience from Journal of Professional Nursing

The importance of feedback in student learning is (rightly) getting far more attention than it once did. This study from Anne Kirwan, Sara Raftery and Clare Gormley at Dublin City University describes their analysis of responses from 199 nursing students to written and audio feedback, indicating that students benefited significantly from the latter.

Sensemaking Lectures from GRAILE

Coming back to the other AI, George Siemen’s (and co.) Global Research Alliance for AI in Learning and Education (GRAILE) organisation has launched a 12 month speaker series covering the deeper issues that we need to face in the new age of Artificial Intelligence. The program kicks off on May 10th with noted futurist Bryan Alexander considering the next 10 years.

Entangled pedagogy: why does it matter to educational design from ASCILITE TELall Blog

In discussions about the role and prominence of technology in 21st century learning and teaching we often hear the belief that pedagogy should always come first. Tim Fawns (Monash) continues his line of thinking that pedagogy and technology are now so utterly intertwined that this is neither practical nor helpful. Instead, he posits that we need to aspire to a state where purpose, context and values are emphasised other either.

The H5P Report from EdTech Designer

H5P is an incredibly powerful and accessible open source tool for creating a range of interactive learning resources. Benjamin Waller, a Canberra Institute of Technology education designer has launched a polished and informative (8 min) vodcast keeping people up to date with the latest news and features in the H5P world.  

Categories
AI assessment AutoGPT ChatGPT CMM ed tech GPT4 higher education

Ed tech must reads: column #77

First published in Campus Morning Mail 18th April, 2023

What is Auto-GPT? Everything to know about the next power AI tool from Zdnet

Another day, another mind bending development in AI land. One of the new exciting new toys is AutoGPT, a Python app published to GitHub on the 30th of March. It can access the Internet and uses GPT4 to iterative set itself a series of tasks to perform to achieve whatever goal you initially set for it. Essentially you can tell it to do X, it will identify that it needs to do A, B and C to achieve this and then also that it needs to do D, E and F to get A done. Then it goes off and does it, checking in with you from time to time that it is on track. One example cited mentions that AutoGPT had been asked to create an app and recognised that the user didn’t have Node software. So, it worked out how to install that, did that and continued. Wild times. I’m not entirely sure what the educational applications are but it might have saved Aneesha Bakharia (UQ) some time.

Introducing my latest AI creation, EduWeaver from Aneesha Bakharia

Aneesha Bakharia was one of the expert panellists in the TELedvisors/CCCL AI webinar earlier this year and continues to impress with her new AI based online module creation tool, Eduweaver. It allows users to nominate a topic and the tool outputs a set of simple text content and MCQ pages. She offers examples covering Meteorology, Learning Analytics, Javascript and more.

Auto-GPT Unmasked: The Hype and Hard Truths of Its Production Pitfalls from Jina

As with most new tools, AutoGPT has its challenges to work through. This in dept post from Han Xiao, founder of Jina AI offers a fairly comprehensive breakdown of some of the practical challenges that users might face with this just-over-two-week-old technology. It gets techy but the jist isn’t too hard to pick up.

Empowering learners for the age of AI from Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence (Open Access)

For a slightly more scholarly take on the current mess/age of wonder, this recent issue of Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence features articles from George Siemens, Dragan Gašević, Lina Markauskaite, Kirsty Kitto, Simon Buckingham Shum, and a host of other luminaries on many facets of what we can and should do next with AI in education.

We need to change the way universities assess students, starting with these 3 things from The Conversation

And now for something (almost) completely different, this article from Joanna Tai, Margaret Bearman, Mollie Dollinger and Rola Ajjawi proposes some simple yet essential changes in the way that universities handle assessment, including more student choice, more feedback and greater inclusivity.

Categories
Uncategorized

Test

The appearance of computers in the workplaces at the turn of the 21st century has added ‘algorithmic thinking’ and ‘computing literacy’ to the repertoire of thinking skills and literacies that have been seen as essential for successful functioning and employment in society (surname, 2012). The proliferation of personal computers and other digital devices in people’s everyday lives raised the need for different kinds of skills and literacies, such as ‘ICT skills’, ‘media literacy’ and ‘digital literacy’ (Markauskaite, 2005, 2006). The recent emergence of big data, machine learning, robotics and Al gave the birth to ‘data literacy’, ‘computational thinking’, ‘AI literacy’ and other new skills (Bull, Garofalo, & Hguyen, 2020; Long & Magerko, 2020; Mandinach & Gummer, 2013). Simultaneously, the increasing interconnectivity, complexity, and fast changes in knowledge and skills needed for everyday life and jobs have shifted the attention from technology-centred skills and literacies to a broader set of generic competencies, such as creativity, analytical thinking, active self-driven learning, and global citizenship (World Economic Forum, 2018, 2020).

Categories
AI assessment ChatGPT CMM ed tech game based learning game design GPT4 higher education OPM

Ed tech must reads: column #76

First published in Campus Morning Mail 11th April, 2023

We tested a new ChatGPT-detector for teachers. It flagged an innocent student. From The Washington Post

Now that institutions (that didn’t opt out) have access to the new Generative AI reporting functionality in Turnitin, initial reports from testing aren’t exactly aligning with the vendor’s claims of accuracy. This (admittedly small) test against 16 real and fake samples generated by high school students by a WaPo journalist correctly identified 6, got 3 wrong and got mixed results on the remaining 7. This is certainly a space many people in education will be watching closely.

6 Tenets of Postplagiarism: Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence from Learning, Teaching and Leadership

I must admit, I had been surprised by the urgency with which the ed tech sector has moved into the new space of AI detection. I mean, clearly there is money to be made but given the looming arms race, having a product with a compelling level of accuracy seems essential. This post from Sarah Eaton (and conversations with colleagues during the week) highlights the idea that the ability to cheat with computers does have the potential to greatly reduce ‘traditional’ types of plagiarism. Eaton describes the prospective new landscape in an eye-opening way.  

2U Lawsuit Claims Looming Education Dept. Guidance Breaks the Law from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

I shared a story a bit over a month ago about the US Dept of Education announcing plans for stronger oversight over Online Program Managers (OPMs), third party partners that work with institutions to deliver online courses. One of the big players, 2U, has decided that they don’t care for this and are going to the courts. Clearly this doesn’t directly affect providers in Australia but I am sure that TEQSA and similar bodies are paying attention.

We Settled for Catan from The Atlantic (Paywall – free trial)

Ian Bogost is an academic, video game designer and provocateur, so I always have time for his hot takes. This article celebrates the work of recently departed German boardgame designer Klaus Teuber, creator of the renowned Settlers of Catan. Bogost’s angle is notable for pointing out that Catan isn’t a Great game but it’s ordinariness and simplicity makes it accessible and enjoyable to a far wider audience than most boardgames. He argues that this is in some ways more important than being the smartest game on the shelf and I think there are possibly lessons in that which can be applied to learning and teaching.

Categories
AI assessment ChatGPT CMM ed tech GPT4 higher education Lecture UX

Ed tech must reads: column #75

First published in Campus Morning Mail 4th April, 2023

Turnitin’s AI writing detector launches today – or does it?

Turnitin’s AI writing detection report is scheduled to launch today (April 4th). This will appear in the form of a single extra number in the standard similarity report interface representing the percentage of the document that Turnitin is 98% certain may have been created with Generative AI tools like ChatGPT. They claim a 1% false positive rate. This functionality is based on GPT 3 and GPT 3.5, not GPT 4. The simultaneous global release of this report has sparked wide discussion in the TEL community, captured in Twitter threads by Sian Bayne, Tim Fawns and Anna Mills, on a range of topics from the detectability of AI,  whether 1% false positives is acceptable and the need for alternative approaches to assessment.

While there was initially no option for institutions to opt out of the functionality – and there is no way for admins to disable it – a number of universities in the UK and some in Australia (Deakin, Sydney, Monash) have decided not to use the functionality just quite yet.  

Designs for our times: adapting assessment in an AI context – Webinar Wed 5th April 5pm AEST from ASCILITE Transforming Assessment, TELedvisors Network and Learning Design SIGs.

All of which makes this upcoming webinar about assessment and AI incredibly timely. Featuring a host of prominent academics including Thom Cochrane (UniMelb), Ruth Dimes (Auckland), Mitra Jayazeri (La Trobe) and Richard Hall (La Trobe), this session will look at practical approaches to assessment in this new AI age. (Or is that AIge?)

A Free, Open Source Course on Communicating with Artificial Intelligence from Learn Prompting

However things shake out, there is probably some value in learning to speak the language of our new digital overlords. This online course appears to be a good place to start, offering a tiered approach to developing skills in writing effective prompts for Gen AI tools.

The worst volume control interfaces in the world from Twitter

On a lighter note, I’m a sucker for deliberately bad user interface design. This thread of 22 competition entries from 2017 would offer the most annoying experiences imaginable for listening to audio.

Categories
AI ChatGPT CMM ed tech GPT4 higher education Learning design Lecture

Ed tech must reads: column #74

First published in Campus Morning Mail 28th March, 2023

AI is having an iPhone moment from Twitter

Last week I presented a small webinar about the latest in GenAI tools at work, which went well but would have been significantly easier if there hadn’t been major announcements in the field every day for the weeks leading up to it. ChatGPT, Google, Microsoft, Midjourney, Nvidia, Baidu, Adobe, Canva, and even Opera all having their little “oh and one more thing” moment. This thread from Lennart Nacke summarises the most recent updates nicely.

Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? Universities Aren’t Ready for the Answer from The Walrus

This article published on Friday has popped up in my feed numerous times and is clearly resonating with people in this space. Irina Dumitrescu puts forward some thoughtful ideas about the nature and value of writing and what we stand to lose as we adapt to the GenAI behemoth by moving away from the idea of first drafts. She suggests that it is this (human) generative work that is some of the most powerful in terms of learning, even when academic writing assessments tend to be highly formulaic by their nature.

Chaos and calm in the lecture theatre: Transforming the lecture by creating and sustaining interactivity at scale part 3 from USyd Business Education Research Group

Meanwhile, in the physical world, educators continue to grapple with declining attendances in lectures and the need to consider what is next. This article from Peter Bryant is the third in a series considering the value of the lecture and it offers some concrete suggestions for transitioning to interactive experiences centred around active learning. (As a GenXer, it does my jaded heart proud to see a model drawing on the soft-loud-soft stylings of the Pixies and Nirvana)

A framework for quality standards in digital design from the UTS LX Lab

The Learner Experience (LX) Lab at UTS has been quietly chugging away for some years now doing great work in the digital learning design space (alongside its sister teams). This post from Anthony Burke, Matissa Strong and Rory Green describing their new framework makes the case that students deserve as good an online experience as they get in person and offers practical guidance on how to ensure this. The underlying principles are that learning is Authentic, Aligned, Active and Social.

Categories
AI ChatGPT CMM ed tech GPT4 higher education Lecture Metaverse Second life video

Ed tech must reads: column #73

First published in Campus Morning Mail 21st March, 2023

Can prompts improve self-explaining an online video lecture? Yes, but do not disturb! From International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

While institutional leaders push for a move away from the lecture and the cool kids are all talking about ChatGPT, lecture videos still form a significant proportion of online content in Higher Ed. Commonly criticised as a passive and transmissive form of learning, researchers have been looking for pedagogical approaches that get the most out of the viewing experience. This article describes work around using prompts to signpost key concepts in these resources, with those that encourage students to explain concepts in their own language among the most effective.

The first open source text-to-video AI generation tool has been released from Huggingface

While it is still fairly primitive, the onward march of GenAI tools to increasingly complex content continues unabated. The HuggingFace Modelscope Text to Video tool works in a similar way to AI image generation tools but creates short (2 seconds) clips of animated images. The examples in the linked Twitter thread make me wonder what we might be seeing later in the year.

Can GPT-4 replace Reviewer 2 from Twitter

Ethan Mollick (@emollick) on Twitter has been one of the more interesting explorers (AIstronauts?) of the GenAI space in recent times and this tweet thread showcases what happened when he shared a previous academic article that he had written with GPT4 and asked for “harsh but fair review from an economic sociologist”. He notes that it raised many of the same things that he received in his human feedback.

20 years later, Second Life is launching on mobile from Ars Technica

As the Metaverse hype seems to recede into the distance with the latest shiny toy, the question that I never felt that was satisfactorily answered was “How is this better than/different to Second Life?” So it was interesting to see this story pop up recently that SL is still chugging along and they are soon to launch a mobile version. I have many fond memories of building weird things in this space and I wish them well.

Coming soon! Academics talk about Severance from Thesiswhisperer Pod

Some of you may remember the 2021 Netflix series “The Chair” and the equally delightful companion podcast “Academics talk about The Chair” from Inger (Thesis Whisper) Mewburn, Narelle Lemon, Anitra Nottingham and co. that dissected it and what it said about life in the academy. They have announced their next podcast season, exploring last year’s stylish and thinky corporate dystopia series Severance.