Ed/Tech must-reads 210125

Hello must-readers, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas/New Year/etc break and are now ready to dive back in to the world of education and technology. (If for nothing other than the distraction)

The mega-consultancies are all pushing AI in education from Ben Williamson on Bluesky

In utterly unsurprising news, all of the worst people in corporate consulting are using GenAI to teach education institutions how to do education. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, McKinsey, Ernst & Young, and the Boston Consultancy Group are all hanging on to the hype train for dear life selling LMSs, digital badges, strategies, and “multidisciplinary approach allows us to harness the diverse capabilities of AI technologies to develop innovative solutions to help empower and transform AI strategy for higher education institutions” (Deloitte). It does feel laughable but remember that somehow too many of these companies are very good at getting the ear of senior leaders. Be forewarned.

Can UK universities avoid repeating past mistakes in online learning? from Neil Mosley

Well evidently I have stumbled upon a theme. Once we move past the/my jadedness though, there is much in this article that is worth thinking about. Mosley calls out a number of ongoing issues with major online learning projects - chiefly that universities fail to play the long game and support major initiatives until they are able to be embedded as business as usual practice. He draws on lessons (eventually) learned from the MOOC mania of the 2010s to drive home the point that big picture thinking is needed. (Please talk to (and listen to) your educational technologists, we love this stuff)

File not found from The Verge

I try to avoid being overly “get off my lawn” about the young people and their use of technology but this article from a couple of years ago (ok 4 years ago) resonated and offers some things to think about in our digital literacy expectations of our students. It broadly explores the idea that many students have become accustomed to searching for their files to the point where they are losing the ability to build and manage file structures. (Which are kind of essential in many parts of STEM). This is also one of my personal bugbears with platforms like Google drive - knowing exactly where I put things - so I get it but I also look at the beautifully cascading file structures that I have built on my PC - a place for everything and everything in its place - and I guess we need to work out what we do next with students who have only ever known search.

Knowledge Commons Works 

Wrapping up on a more positive note, I happened upon this open-access repository for research which is (currently?) maintained by Michigan State University with support from the US National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. It looks like a very straightforward and user-friendly way to share and search for resources and it also has some promising collaboration functionality .