Ed & Tech must-reads 020925

Assurance of learning in the age of GenAI: Webinar Tues 9th Sept 2pm AEST from Deakin CRADLE

During the pandemic, I wondered if we would ever stop talking about COVID19 and the sudden switch to online learning. Now I yearn for those seemingly innocent days (Ok, not quite) as our every waking moment in education seems to be consumed with AI in education instead. But, if this is where we are, I can think of few people that I would rather hear about it from than my Deakin colleagues Sue Sharpe, Jo Tai, Imali Dias and Maria Rae - as well as some students TBD. They will explore a less well-trodden path of how we can preserve inclusivity as we grapple with the looming assurance of learning questions. This is booking out fast, so register now.

Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions by De Freitas et al. (Harvard Business School)

This pre-print from De Freitas, Oğuz-Uğuralp, and Kaan-Uğuralp presents another side of our AI overlords - the extent to which much of the business models driving AI chat services are contingent on extended interactions. What, do they think they are social media or something? The paper explores a ‘dark pattern’ referred to as emotional manipulation - which is basically what it sounds like - the computer trying to make you feel bad about you trying to end your conversation by telling you that it doesn’t exist without your interactions. (Now we just need to work out how to harness this power to keep students learning - I kid)

Be curious about your teaching! from The Educationalist

More of the ed side of things, Alexandra Mihai offers some thoughtful and gentle encouragement to educators to consider engaging with SoTL, the scholarship of teaching and learning, to better understand how students learn, to explore the effectiveness of your teaching methods, to connect with fellow educators and more. It’s not as sexy as your disciplinary research necessary but, I mean, really, you’ve mastered your discipline - don’t you want to grow in new directions? She offers a few more reasons and some valuable tips for heading down the SoTL path.

The defense against slop and brainrot from Kimchi and Gabagool

As an aside, Kimchi and Gabagool is the fish-out-of-water buddy cop series that I would watch the heck out of - get onto that please Netflix. Ahem. Paul Jun reflects on something which has been front of mind for me recently - how do we avoid losing our skills if we keep offloading tasks to GenAI? He describes retyping classic literature to develop ‘muscle-memory’ of what a great sentence feels like - which is weirdly tempting. He goes on to build a compelling case for preserving our practices for skill and enjoyment. It verges on a mix of twee and holier than thou but there are some worthy ideas to ponder.

Finally, a song that I have been listening to a lot recently from my new favourite Australian super group - featuring Adalita (Magic Dirt), Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds), Mick Turner (Dirty Three) and Marty Brown (Sodastream)