Ed & Tech must-reads 090626

Sydney academic used AI to write SMH opinion piece urging students to avoid using tech to ‘cut corners’ from The Guardian

I gave this opinion piece some love last week in this newsletter - for those who came in late it was a rejoinder to an earlier piece throwing around wild claims that Australian universities are deliberately ignoring the impact of GenAI on teaching for fun and profit. I was happy to be able to champion something pushing back on this foolishness, particularly given that I had been unable to do it justice myself. I described Ellis’ work as “a text book exercise… in making an informed counter argument”. I did also note that some things went unsaid but at the time I thought that was the result of cooler heads prevailing. In the end, it turns out that the author had fed 40,000 words of her writing to CoPilot and asked it to respond to questions which shaped the opinion piece (after polishing).

I’ve been thinking about why we increasingly have such visceral reactions to GenAI based products. Particularly when they are undeclared. Using it in response to a piece about the problematic use of GenAI in education obviously wasn’t a great start. I think it boils down to two main factors. The first is the Uncanny Valley effect, where things which are not quite human feel off. The second is that it feels kind of offensive when we are handed something to spend our time reading that the author didn’t see the value in spending similar time to create. (I get that this is a fraught debate).

Higher education is in a tricky position, wrestling with the impact of a potentially world-changing technology which we need to equip students for while also seeing in real time the harm that it can do to their education and the questions that it raises about whether they have learned anything. I know Cath Ellis, a little, and have great respect for her contributions to education - and particularly how we are going to deal with GenAI. This probably needed some more thought.

Enacting distributed leadership for educational transformation: a seven-year study of academic development in higher education from International Journal for Academic Development

Full transparency, this paper relates to a learning technology/pedagogical approach that I am in the process of organising some research into through my CRADLE fellowship. Hopefully I will be able to continue it, given our exciting new organisational restructure. Tubino, Doherty and Cain describe seven years of work in an IT school to implement a dramatically new approach to the assessment of programming students. Kicking off in a single unit at the start of the period, the approach was embedded in teaching in 96 units by the end. They discuss the complex processes involved in collaborations between academic developers, school leaders and academics to ensure the sustainability of these innovations. Trying new things in learning and teaching in higher education is an incredibly complex enterprise the first time it is attempted and keeping it going is another level of challenge. Respectful and collaborative work and sensible governance, as documented in this article, make a big difference.

Mark Selkrig 'All a Bit Strange: Views of Academic Life and the Modern Work Paradox' from PG Gallery (Melbourne, Aus)

From time to time I like to pop out into the world for some culture. A friend recently recommended this show, which is on until Saturday 13th June at PG Gallery in Fitzroy (Australia) (Right at the tram stop). Mark Selkrig has produced a set of intricate woodblock prints covering a range of aspects of academic life, from the committee circus to the funding forage, alongside jargon jousting and the publication pinata. Capricious Loyalty (above) particularly caught my eye.