Ed & Tech must-reads 071025

Significant changes at Anthology [Blackboard] – what you need to know from JISC

Those of us who have been around the education and technology space for a minute most likely have some experience with the Blackboard LMS. From inescapable behemoth to something which wasn’t as good as its competitors but which institutions stuck with regardless while users moaned, to platform which seemed to be on the improve (but probably too late) - Blackboard has been a big part of educational technology over the last couple of decades. Last week’s news that parent company Anthology has filed for bankruptcy (which is not as dire as it sounds - more a financial shuffling of the deckchairs than a company collapse). Unsurprisingly, this has been a hot topic in the last week as changes to the company will undoubtedly lead to some consideration of whether the remaining users (~10 in Australia) will look for more stable partners. This overview from JISC offers some sensible advice, and posts from Ben Williamson , Phil Hill, and Trevor Wood provide extra food for thought.

Webinar - #TELresearchers & #HEresearchers with Prof. Emily Nordmann Thur 16 Oct 11am BST (9pm AEDT)

While people don’t really talk about the practice so much any more, Emily Nordmann made an invaluable contribution to discourse around lecture recording in HE in recent years and has also had interesting things to say about teaching in psych and neuroscience. One not to miss

ADCET StUDLio from Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training

ADCET brings a lot to the table in raising understanding of and practice in universal design for learning. They are offering free drop-in consultations to all staff and students in the tertiary education sector in October and November on Wednesdays at 3pm AEDT. This is a marvellous initiative.

Navigating generative AI in higher education – six near future scenarios from Learning, Media and Technology

I like a bit of speculative fiction and this article by Lindell & Stöhr (Chalmers Uni, Sweden) provides 6 visions of a GenAI future in engineering education. These were developed in conjunction with a range of educators at different points in their careers by identifying existing tensions and strategies for addressing them and extrapolating outwards. They variously predict a growing divide between educators and students over the value of learning goals, rising student independence, inability to respond to perpetual change, new ways of collaborating, and institutional failures to support educators. Nothing about GenAI companies falling in a big heap and becoming the MOOCs of the 2020s but we shall see.