Ed/Tech must-reads 080725

An Examination of How Technological Universities Develop Cultural Capital Through Active Learning from Irish Journal of Academic Practice

I must confess, that I’m not up on the intricacies of the Irish higher education system, so I’m not entirely clear about the meaningful difference between big U universities and Technological unis. They appear to have been upgraded from Institutes of Technology, so maybe they are similar to TAFE / Vocational institutions in Australia. There is a bit of discussion about giving access to non-traditional learners (tick) and providing accessible and industry relevant education (tick - though I thought this was something that all unis now made big claims about). Evidently the main distinguishing factor is an emphasis on applied and active learning - which, to be honest was also kind of de rigeur these days. (Though I possibly move in circles where this would be assumed.) Anyhoo, this paper builds a detailed and solid case outlining why this teaching philosophy is valuable and how it serves to imbue TU students with cultural capital that they previously couldn’t access, so that has to be a good thing.

You have a notification: the role of push notifications in shaping students’ engagement, self-regulation and academic procrastination from International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

I like the title of this paper because even as I skimmed my list of the latest in my Google Scholar emails, it caught my eye. Presumably dinging that Pavlovian bell that we all have now. It focuses on something which would seem as simple as using notifications in an institutional Moodle mobile app to see whether it is more effective in motivating students - but having tried and failed a few times to interest unis in make the mobile app available, it is a bigger achievement than one might think. Surprise surprise, they found that students were more likely to respond and act upon mobile notifications than emails or the LMS messaging system. Food for thought.

Have chatbots killed the student essay? from Times Higher Education

Increasingly there seems to be less and less to say about GenAI that hasn’t already been said but people still keep saying it, and writing about it (and I keep passing it along and adding my own comments). This set of three reflections from academics in the UK and US about where we are with student essays in the AI age (the AIge?) hit the standard points - blandness, safety of the herd, hallucinations, students having mixed feelings and reasons for using it and and general vibe that we need to return to the kinds of assessments (hand-written exams and vivas) that we have been moving away from for decades. Nonetheless, they are well written and paint a reasonably solid picture of where we are now. The final of the takes a slightly different bent, noting that writing has probably now changed forever and we probably need to find some flavour of the new paradigm that we can live with.

OER Under the Hood: Supporting Scenario-Based and Role Play Learning from Pressbooks (Webinar recording, 57:48)

In a slightly more cheering piece, this YouTube video showcases some nifty ways that educators linked to the Open Educational Resources community are using online tools like Pressbooks to support game based simulations and role play learning. It features two examples, a medical education game from the University of Newcastle (Australia) and Workplace Roleplay scenarios from (my new employer) Deakin University. While the effort involved in producing such activities/resources is somewhat more substantial than assigning an essay, maybe this aspect of teaching and learning is due for more attention.