Ed/Tech must-reads 040325

Soaring standards in the age of AI assessment from The Mind File

Quality appears to be on people’s minds currently, with two articles approaching the question from different angles. Firstly, Miriam Reynoldson (UniMelb) reflects on comments from Deakin’s Phil Dawson that unsupervised GenAI use is leading us toward either grade inflation, standards creep or marking to a curve. She notes the need for evidence of such trends before we leap to conclusions and observes this this may indicate other existent problems. Her suggestion - more competency based assessment. I think there may be something to this.

How do you measure the quality of education? from The Educationalist

Alexandra Mihai (Maastricht) approaches this issue of quality - though not in terms of GenAI - from a different perspective. Rather than looking at student results, she considers what makes up a good educational ecosystem, identifying things like a coherent, meaningful student experience and empowered educators. In terms of measurables that help institutions to tick off all too important KPIs, these are a little difficult. But she does go on to consider structural factors and I note that the term competences pops up once more. It’s a thoughtful read.

EdTech Innovation Network: Community of Action Tue 25 March 9am - 11.30am AEDT Western Sydney Uni

The EduGrowth organisation, a loose collaboration of EdTech vendors and institutions has been kicking around for a little while now and leads some interesting discussions about Applied Education Technology (as opposed to Critical). This interactive workshop explores “the repurposing and redevelopment of learning objects using GenAI driven strategies”. It showcases work from WSU and also the OES OPM who have seemed a little quiet in recent years.

What if Wikipedia was a place you could visit? From Godot Engine

I’ve been waiting for this. Sorry, that was too easy. This procedurally generated virtual museum creates a space to wander around and view random Wikipedia articles on a wall, offering a new context for aimless educational browsing. It isn’t the first of such projects - the Occupy White Walls “game” has created opportunities for people design spaces to share art for some years now and even Second Life had similar things - but there is something nice about shifting the way we engage with content