Ed & Tech must-reads 160925

What if college teaching was designed with AI in mind? from Learning Curve

Kicking off this week with a guest post from my long-time colleague and friend in the TELedvisors Network community, Wendy Taleo (Flinders Uni). She was quite taken with this podcast which she pitched as ‘where Maha Bali calls b@#&^$s on the Matter and Space (Siemens, LeBlanc et al)’ - and who am I to resist a spicy meatball like that.

This Learning Curve podcast focuses on what it means to teach and learn in the age of generative AI. The latest episode blurb is: "A former university president is trying to reimagine college teaching with AI in mind, and this year he released an unusual video that provides a kind of artist’s sketch of what that could look like." Paul LeBlanc is that person and Butterflies is that video. What really is innovation? Have you heard of Matter and Space (LeBlanc, Siemens, Gamby)? Is this based on just another bot with a lot of surveillance? Maha Bali, Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at The American University in Cairo calls-it-how-she-sees-it in this podcast with Paul LeBlanc and hosted by Jeff Young, Learning Curve Podcast.

Edit: Apparently Matter and Space has now removed this post (What have you done Wendy?) but you can watch the Butterflies video here

Everyone Is Making Smart Glasses Now from Upload

I was fortunate enough to attend a webinar presented as part of Social Sciences Week here in Australia put on by The AI Governance for Education Network and Victoria Uni’s Smart Glasses lab titled Education with deepfakes, hallucinations and smart glasses.

It was a timely reminder of the ways that technology is radically reshaping learning and teaching in K-12 schools as well as the tertiary sector. After some scary tales about impacts on student behaviour and staff and student privacy, we explored the new generation of much better than Google Glass smartglasses. This article showcases the breadth of options on the market now (even if they all look remarkably similar). For those of attending virtually, they shared this video - Smart glasses in schools: Are we ready? - which is essentially a compilation of different short videos highlighting core features. Lots of interesting accessibility options that I hadn’t fully considered.

It really made for a refreshing change from the regular drip of GenAI stories

Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education 2026 Save the Date from VWBPE

My first contribution to research in the ed & tech space came with some work that we did around 2010 on using virtual worlds for health education at the Canberra Institute of Technology. I even managed to snag myself an award for a machinima video (film making inside video games) showcasing the project from the good people at VWBPE. It was nice to see that they are still chugging along and this free online virtual conference continues to be a going concern. Did you know that Second Life is now usable on your phone?