Ed/Tech must-reads

‘What would I say to the face of a student?’ Why some teachers are giving feedback via video from The Conversation

It has been heartening to see discussion of feedback as a vital part of learning and teaching in educational discourse in recent years. Ameena Payne (Deakin) steps us through the many benefits of a video feedback in this thoughtful article in The Conversation. These range from providing a more human presence in increasingly impersonal online courses to encouraging greater empathy and more specific guidance on next actions.

Inclusion or infringement? A systematic research review of students' perspectives on student privacy in technology-enhanced, hybrid and online courses From British Journal of Educational Technology

With the wealth of online tools available to us as educators, and the rich opportunities they provide for communication and collaboration, it can be easy to forget the maxim that if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product. While institutions tend to pay close attention to what happens with student data in enterprise systems, stepping outside this space raises privacy questions that deserve our consideration. This systematic review from Stephanie Blackmon (William & Mary University) and Claire Major (Uni of Alabama) examines 46 articles relating to student perceptions of the impact of education technologies on their privacy. It finds a mixture of privacy comforts (untroubled by releasing their data), privacy concerns (troubled) and privacy compromises (uncomfortable but accepting the larger educational benefit). This is an important read in a time when our data is a billion dollar business.

Instructure (Canvas), Khan Academy Announce Major Partnership On AI Tutoring, Teaching from Forbes

With big business coming for the jobs of writers and actors in Hollywood through the use of AI, was it inevitable that the same might happen in education? This recent announcement from Instructure, owners of the widely used Canvas LMS, raises some questions that business-focused Forbes magazine completely ignores in favour of replicating vendor platitudes about personalised learning. And in fairness, there may well be opportunities for offloading student questions and feedback to well trained bots but I would nonetheless be paying close attention to developments if I worked in a Canvas using institution.

Technology enhanced learning and the Virtual University from Springer

I’ve only had a chance to peruse the introduction and chapter list but this new book edited by Michael Sankey (Charles Darwin Uni), Henk Huisjer (QUT) and Rachel Fitzgerald (UQ) looks like an invaluable addition to anyone with an organisational interest in what Higher Education institutions are and should be doing in the online learning space. Ranging across Social Equity, Pedagogic Transformation, the use of AI, Innovation, Social media, and Peer and Collaborative Assessment, the book features contributions by leading academics in the space in Australia.