Ed/Tech must-reads 230724

Generative AI Can Harm Learning from Higher Education from SSRN

I exaggerate only slightly when I say that my social feeds in the last week have either been discussing whether Joe Biden is old or this pre-print article. Bastani et al. conducted a randomised controlled trial across 1000 US high school maths students exploring the impact of GenAI support/tutoring as they solved some practice problems before taking a closed book exam. Those with the GenAI tutor (which was told to only guide them through the activities, not give answers) did no better or worse than those without but those who had access to GenAI as a tool largely used it to get answers and performed badly in the exam. Perhaps not all that surprising but the lack of impact of the tutor is noteworthy, given that this is where Big GenAI seems to be pitching their wares.

Learning with videos: Do task instructions and the availability of a pause button matter? from Journal of Computer Assisted Learning

People who oppose video in education often seem to focus on the fact that it reduces in-class attendance but ignore unique functional aspects of video. Merkt and Bodemer tested whether the option to pause the video (and presumably rewind) improved learning outcomes. Interestingly they found it did for older learners but not younger.

D2L Acquires Global SaaS Learning Solution H5P Group from Cision

I haven’t used D2L’s Brightspace LMS - to my knowledge it is only found in a couple of universities in Australia - but I get a good vibe from them and the people I know that have used it seem to like it. It was interesting to see that they have bought out the popular open(ish) learning resource creation platform H5P. H5P has been a native feature of Moodle for some time now, so it will be interesting to see how nicely D2L plays with others. Moodlers seem to be preparing for the worst.

Third Space survey from the National Tertiary Education Union (Australia)

Quick reminder of this important survey because it will hopefully fill some gaps of knowledge about third space workers in Australian tertiary education and help to kickstart union activity to support these kinds of employees. If your work has elements which cross academic/professional boundaries (or include both), they are keen to hear from you. This includes roles such as learning/educational designers, academic developers, educational technologists, learning developers/study skills workers, para-academics, research/technicians, work integrated learning folks and many more. It should take 15-20 mins.

TELedvisors Network webinar – Getting into Research - Thurs 27th July 12pm AEST

If you are a third space practitioner in Higher Education, you are probably aware of how important engaging in research can be for developing understand of curly questions in our space and also (pragmatically) developing credibility. For those of us in professional staff roles, institutional barriers can make this a challenge. Rebecca Ng (UoW), Kate Mitchell (Melbourne Uni), Stephen Abblitt (Keypath), Suman Laudari (ANU), Kashmira Dave (UNE) and Swapnell Thite (UNSW) are here to share their stories about how as TELedvisors they got into research, the types of research they engage in, their tips for how you too can get into research, the pitfalls to avoid, and how research more efficiently.