Ed/Tech must-reads 121124

Last chance to register for the Third Space Symposium (Really, no extensions)

The Third Space Symposium/Slowposium is nigh - with the Slowposium kicking off on Friday 15th and featuring more than 50 contributions exploring and addressing all facets of working in the tertiary education third space. Join 300 of your colleagues in dropping in and out largely at your leisure (there are also some scheduled events). Registration for the in-person Symposium at the University of Melbourne (Sun Dec 1) must close this Friday for catering purposes. You wouldn’t miss it for quids.

Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice - Quarterly issue 4

The latest issue of JUTLP dropped the other day and features a solid selection of articles with a focus on the practical side of learning and teaching, covering educational technology (quizzes, deepfakes, adaptive learning), teaching practice (paragogy, professional emergence), curriculum and assessment design, educational leadership and management, educational psychology, and the student experience. This is an underrated journal

Dig a little bit from Lost and Desperate

This is a short post but in an age of apparent widespread information illiteracy it makes an important point about checking the source for every single claim. In this instance, that workers all want instructor led training, in person.

AI can carry out qualitative research at unprecedented scale from LSE blog

This article, while interesting, is a prime example of the former. Developers of an LLM uncritically celebrate its ability to carry out qualitative data collection and analysis at massive scale. Maybe it does ok - but qual research has an important vibe based aspect that I still very much doubt can be achieved by algorithm.

Leading with Trust: How University Leaders can Foster Innovation with Educational Technology through Organizational Trust from Innovative Higher Education

This methodical article from German researchers Laufer, Deacon, Mende and Schafer in many ways points out the blindingly obvious but clearly these things still need to be said. Leaders in higher education must built engagement and trust by breaking down decision making hierarchies around the use and implementation of educational technologies. This trust must be backed up with sufficient resourcing, guidance and support. This is probably of most use as a reference to make a case to do this.