Ed & Tech must-reads 260526

Guide for markers of open assessments from Teaching@Sydney

While most of us in teaching and learning are still waiting for some certainty when it comes to assessment in this new AIge, aspects of it seem to be firming up. One of these is the idea that, given that we can no longer assure all learning other than by using a very limited and not fantastic set of tasks, some assessment tasks now need to be taken more as assessment for learning than as assessment of learning. This is the approach sometimes described as two-lane or empowering-developing-assuring, where some assessments are locked down while other ‘open’ assessments are undertaken with the assumption that AI may be used. This post from the Teaching@Sydney team of Adam Bridgeman, Danny Liu and Eszter Kalman puts some meat on the bone (or tofu in the vegeburger) in terms of practical guidance for assessing the latter. They suggest looking for evidence of evaluative thinking and effective use of the tools and share some sample rubric criteria which might be used in a range of different assessment types.

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

Just a quick reminder that this webinar is happening this week and we have added Darci Taylor (Deakin) and Jacqueline Trebilco (Monash) to the program to discuss their experiences in this exciting and challenging new field, alongside Lenka Ucnik (TEQSA)

Webinar: A world without plagiarism detectors Thurs 11th June 12pm AEST from Deakin Inclusive Education

The first thing I did when I read about this was clarify that they mean ‘text-matching’ software (a la Turnitin) rather than AI detection (a la bad Turnitin). Then I was struck by the unexpected truth that these are largely not used in Canada. This webinar will feature Sarah Eaton (Uni of Calgary/Deakin) in conversation with Phill Dawson (Deakin CRADLE) about the impact that this difference between HE sectors in Canada and Australia has.

Google Search as you know it is over from TechCrunch

While it is unclear precisely how far down the AI rabbithole Google plans to take their shift from their standard quarter-century old search tool to a bot/agent based approach, by all accounts we will know this week. The general consensus is that they plan to remove the need to actually visit the sites feeding search results, in place of simply summarising them. Unsurprisingly the site owners relying on traffic to stay afloat are far from whelmed. This article provides a solid overview of the proposed changes. For me, its enough and I have been trialling the French search engine Qwant+. I’m pretty sure that it is AI driven but so far I have been impressed with the accuracy and relevance of the results.