Ed tech must reads: column #67

First published in Campus Morning Mail 7th Feb, 2023

Hello colleagues – I must assure you that I am aware that there is a wider technology enhanced learning universe beyond AI/ChatGPT but at the moment it is hard to find anything else.

Lurkers versus posters: Perceptions of learning in informal social media-based communities from British Journal of Educational Technology.

There is a concept in Internet research referred to as participation inequality or the 90/9/1 rule. This essentially states that 90% of people involved in an online community don’t participate much, preferring to ‘lurk’. 9% contribute from time to time and 1% does the majority of the talking. This paper from Zhu and Dawson explores the differences in informal learning outcomes between members of these groups in popular education communities on Reddit. While ‘lurkers’ and posters report that they learn from the community at roughly equal levels, the authors note that posters apply and analyse what they have learned more frequently.  

Introducing: ChatGPT Edu-Mega-Prompts from The Learning Science Newsletter.

As the discussion about the practical use of generative AI tools moves forward, the importance of designing good prompts to get the most from the technology becomes increasingly apparent. This in depth post from Philippa Hardman describes her process for designing a rich prompt to generate a learning activity centred around the educational strategy of “Undoing”. She explains seven key elements of her prompts and offers practical suggestions.

Learnt.ai – How it works from Learnt.ai.

I haven’t used this service and in no way endorse it – I simply present it as an interesting example of the ways that ed tech companies are starting to monetise this space. I guess it is Prompts As A Service. From what I can make out, it is essential a set of prompt templates tied to specific learning and teaching needs. It ranges from generating a title for your new course to generating a presentation task to assess learning.

The AI (ChatGPT) future: What do we do now? And Workshopping AI and Writing with Anna Mills and Maha Bali webinar recordings now available

Sometimes when there is a world of content out there about a new topic, the easiest thing to do is to listen to some experts – as much as anyone can be an expert currently – talk through the issues. The first of these is one that I organised last week and the second features our panellist Anna Mills and the great Maha Bali.