Ed & Tech must-reads 161225

Thank you kind readers for another great year in the must-reads space - I’ve enjoyed sharing works of interest and putting in my 2c on matters of the day. Off for a festive break now, I’ll see you in mid to late January - perhaps with a surprise or two. Best wishes of the season to all and be kind to yourselves and each other.

The impact of role clarity on sustainable careers for EdAdvisors in Australian higher education from the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management

Easily the must-read article of the year. I have not come across a more sensible piece of scholarship in the education and technology space in many years. What’s that? It’s gauche to shamelessly self-promote one’s own work? You’re probably right - though LinkedIn would beg to differ. But I am nonetheless pleased with it and it is what I would consider to be my first proper full journal article, so kindly indulge me this one time. (Technically I did also have an article earlier this year in the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education but that was more of an opinion piece) (If you can’t access this article, send me a message)

Microsoft Scales Back AI Goals Because Almost Nobody Is Using Copilot from Extremetech

I’m not sure that I’ve come across this site before and I couldn’t rule out the writing being AI generated but that kind of just makes this story funnier. Despite trying to insert CoPilot functionality everywhere imaginable, it seems that most people simply don’t want big techs new toys to replace the workforce.

Meta to cut up to 30% of metaverse budget, Bloomberg News reports from Reuters

Having dabbled in virtual worlds in education for more than 15 years, a tiny part of me was a little excited when Meta first announced that they were investing heavily in VR and their take on Second Life 2.0 where you could… attend… meetings… in a meeting room as an avatar with no legs. Then I saw it and knew that it was stupid. Honestly, I’m surprised that they have persisted as long as they have. What I don’t understand is that virtual worlds allow us to rethink how we exist as beings and in space and the default position is to make everyone gather in cartoony boardrooms. Maybe next time.

"Hello, World!"... revisited from The Educationalist

I will wrap up the year with this thoughtful read (as always) from our friend in the Netherlands, Alexandra Mihai. What I like about this piece is that she speaks directly to some of the concerns about GenAI in education that are less commonly raised both by GenAI boosters and skeptics. The impact these tools have on what she sees as the most crucial part of educational practice - our relationships as educators with learners. She talks through why she hasn’t focused on this in her writing until now, the seeming inevitability of the turning tide and her experiences of working with bots and academics as an educational developer in a centre for learning and teaching. She, like I, want to be able to get on board with the promise of the GenAI future - we are just getting tired of waiting for that future to be delivered.