Ed & Tech must-reads 120526

The Canvas hack story is being told wrong from Brian Peddle (LinkedIn)

Easily the biggest and arguably the only story about ed & tech in the last week has been the hack of the Canvas LMS undertaken by “Shinyhunters”. This started as a data breach and progressed to ransomware. Given the scale of Instructure Canvas’ presence in both K-12 and tertiary education, this had a massive impact and there is little that I can tell you which hasn’t already been covered widely. Across the sector institutions have scrambled to find temporary fixes, lots of crit ed tech people online have basked in an opportunity to criticise universities for not directly seeking them out for their opinion on which LMS they should have bought and students have enjoyed an array of assessment extensions. I realise that I’m probably being flippant and I have no doubt that this caused a great deal of unnecessary stress and undoubtedly the repercussions will echo for months to come BUT it did get a little weary-making reading the same old uninformed lines about how the people who choose educational technologies know nothing about teaching and it should be left entirely up to teachers. As someone who has been there, no. For one thing, institutional systems are incredibly complex and need to satisfy a wide array of needs which include but are in no way limited to teaching and learning. For another, the depth of consultation and evaluation which occurs (in the majority of cases at least) is ridiculously painstaking and involves many people with rich pedagogical knowledge.

One interesting take came from “Experienced Business Executive” Brian Peddle, who felt that in all the coverage, they missed the point that messages between students and teachers shouldn’t have been living on the LMS in the first place. While there is potential for identity theft in other data dragged from the system, these messages often contain some of the most sensitive information and, Peddle argues, should have been left in more secure email systems. From an IT security perspective, perhaps. But given the reluctance of ‘the young people’ to use email these days and the benefits of keep all of the online aspects of individual online units in a single source of truth, I can see why they were where they are. Stay tuned for repercussions I guess.

 Webinar: Assuring learning in the age of AI Thurs 28th May 12pm AEST from TELedvisors Network

This webinar is still taking shape but given the breadth of experiences of educators and third space practitioners in tertiary education in finding meaningful ways to assure learning, this should be a rich session with lots of opportunities for sharing and learning. We have confirmed Lenka Ucnik from Tertiary Education and Quality Standards Agency (Australia) to provide an overview of what the regulator expects.

Webinar: Online degrees in the age of gen AI: what credible assurance requires Thurs 4th June 2pm AEST from TEQSA

After we booked in our webinar, we came across this one a week later and it would seem churlish not to mention it. I would say the major differences are that this seems to focus more on online assessment and ours will feature more third space practitioners having a chance to share.

On AI glasses and wearable AI in assessment from Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

Maybe then, having solved the current challenges with assurance of learning, you might care to consider the next cab on the rank. Corbin, Sharpe & Dawson (all Deakin) make a compelling case for why we should never again trust students wearing glasses in an assessment setting. No, clearly they do not but they do raise some genuine issues with the rise of AI glasses and wearable AI and the impact that these will have, both positive and negative, on learning and teaching. (I have mentioned to several colleagues lately how nice it would be to travel back in time to when the most dramatic and exciting thing in ed & tech was the rise of the Second Life virtual world). The authors explore AI wearables comprehensively and the potential consequences of measures which might be taken to mitigate their impact on assessment. Well worth a read.

[I keep having to bump a delightful story about research undertaken in a zen little game that I play from time to time where I clean dirty things with a pressure washer - PowerWash Simulator. Maybe you should just read it]