Ed/Tech must-reads 030924

Designing AI Learning Agents - August webinar recording from ASCILITE TELedvisors Network

Four educators and third space practitioners shared their work last week in this marvellous webinar organised by Antony Tibbs (ECU) for the TELedvisors Network. It included the use of USyd’s Cogniti platform to support occupational therapy students learning to work in schools, biochem students interacting with an AI twin and approaches to developing AI literacy. (1:03:45)

Generative AI chatbots in higher education: a review of an emerging research area from Higher Education (Open Access)

Scoping reviews of literature usually cover a period of time longer than a year but the pace of change in the GenAI jungle means that people feel the need to get something, anything out as quickly as possible to stay relevant and claim some space in the discourse. This review offers a decent summary of 23 studies released between December 2022 and 2023, highlighting that there has only one one randomised control trial and most of the work is exploratory. It is a useful way to get a taster of what people are up to though.

2024 Australasian Academic Integrity Network Forum - Friday 6th September

Even if you don’t work directly in the Academic Integrity field (the ‘other AI’), this free online event offers probably the best array of speakers on the topic in the sector.

Requiem for Academic Twitter from The National Teaching & Learning Forum

The slow death of Twitter has been one of the saddest things in the ed tech world for many of us who built large communities there over the last decade and a half. Lee Skallerup Bessette reflects on what we had in this thoughtful piece. The good news is that Bluesky does seem to be getting better by the day, and their recent introduction of Starter Packs, which let you curate a list of up to 150 users makes the building of communities much easier. If you haven’t already make the move, say hi to me, @gamerlearner.bsky.social . This starter pack for JISC has some cool folks and I’ll look at setting my own up soon. Handy how-to guide to Bluesky here too from Amanda Wyatt Visconti

Third Space Symposium submissions extended to Sept 25

While we are pleasantly surprised with the number and quality of submissions so far, the great thing about the Slowposium is that there is no real limit on how many presentations/sessions/discussions we can host, so submissions for this (and the in-person symposium Dec 1) have been extended for another few weeks. We will also soon start sharing details of accepted submissions. Stay tuned.