Category: futures Page 1 of 5

Edtech history, erasure, udacity, and blockchain

This thought in Audrey’s newsletter caught my attention, and encouraged me to share a related story.

 [Rose Eveleth] notes how hard it can be to tell a history when you try to trace a story to its primary sources and you simply cannot find the origin, the source. (I have been thinking a lot about this in light of last week’s Udacity news. So much of “the digital” has already been scrubbed from the web. The Wired story where Sebastian Thrun claimed that his startup would be one of ten universities left in the world? It’s gone. Many of the interviews he did where he said other ridiculous things about ed-tech – gone. What does this mean for those who will try to write future histories of ed-tech? Or, no doubt, of tech in general?) Erasure.

Remember how blockchain was going to revolutionize education? Ok, let’s get into the weeds of a related idea and how most everything that happened around it has also disappeared from the web.

One way through which blockchain was going to revolutionize education was through the development of education apps and software running on the blockchain. Around 2017, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were the means through which to raise money to build those apps. An ICO was the cryptocurrency equivalent of an initial public offering. A company would offer people a new cryptocurrency token in exchange for funds to launch the company. The token would then provide some utility for ICO holders relating to the app/software (e.g., you could exchange it for courses, or for study sessions, or hold on to it hoping that its value would increase and resell, etc). The basic idea idea here was crowdfunding, and a paper published in the Harvard International Law Journal estimates that contributions to ICO’s exceeded $50bn by 2019. The Wikipedia ICO page includes more background.

A number of these ICOs focused on education. Companies/individuals/friends* would create a website and produce a whitepaper describing their product. Whitepapers varied, but they typically described the problem to be solved, the blockchain-grounded edtech solution they offered, use cases, the team behind the project, a roadmap, and the token sale/model.

To give you a sense of the edtech claims included in one of those whitepapers:

“The vision is the groundbreaking disruption of the old education industry and all of its branches. The following points are initial use cases which [coin] can provide … Users pay with [coins] on every major e-learning platform for courses and other content they have passed or consumed… Institutions can get rid of their old and heavy documented certification process by having it all digitalized, organized, governed and issued by the [coin] technology.”

I was entertaining an ethnographic project at the time, and collected a few whitepapers. For a qualitative researcher, those whitepapers were a treasure trove of information. But, looking online, they’re largely scrubbed, gone, erased. In some cases, ICO’s founders’ LinkedIn profiles were scrubbed and online communities surrounding the projects disappeared, even as early as ICOs didn’t raise the millions they were hoping for.

Some of you following this space might remember Woolf, the “world’s first blockchain university” launched by Oxford academics. And you might also remember that, like other edtech projects, it “pivoted.” See Martin Weller’s writing and David Gerard’s writing on this. Like so many others, the whitepaper describing the vision, the impending disruption of higher ed through a particular form of edtech, is gone. David kept a copy of that whitepaper, and I have copies of a couple of whitepapers from other ventures. But, by and large, that evidence is gone. I get it. Scammers scam, honest companies pivot, the two aren’t the same, and reputation management is a thing. But, I hope that this short post serves as a small reminder to someone in the future that grandiose claims around educational technology aren’t new. And perhaps, just perhaps, at a time of grandiose claims around AI in education, there are some lessons here.

 

 

Ithaka S+R report on virtual meetings/conferences

A new report from Ithaka S+R explores the future of in-person vis-a-vis virtual annual meetings/events/conferences. Below is a summary, but it’s worth the time to read it in full!

For the past several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces. Now, it is a matter of choice. Overall, the virtual meetings of 2020-22 were much more successful than anticipated. If they mostly failed to provide the rich social and networking experiences that in-conference meetings provide, virtual and hybrid conferences were more accessible to a much wider, and more diverse, community of scholars. As the public health situation improves, societies will need to make difficult decisions about the future of one of their most important activities.

This week, Ithaka S+R and JSTOR labs released findings from a research project on the future of annual meetings, conducted in partnership with 17 scholarly societies and with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our report emphasizes the importance of aligning conference formats with a society’s goals and values. The complex logistics and finances of organizing annual meetings, the competing needs of members, and the weight of legacy formats make committing to reimagining annual meetings difficult for most societies. Even so, our findings suggest that new conference modalities provide substantial opportunities to increase the impact and accessibility of scholars, build and empower diverse research communities, and improve the sustainability of societies.

We hope our report, which provides recommendations for societies, scholars, and funders as well as an overview of innovative conference models, will help secure the future vitality of annual meetings and other academic conferences.

3 ways higher education can become more hopeful in the post-pandemic, post-AI era

Below is a republished version of an article that Shandell Houlden and I published in The Conversation last week, summarizing some of the themes that arose in our Speculative Learning Futures podcast.

3 ways higher education can become more hopeful in the post-pandemic, post-AI era

The future of education is about more than technology.
(Pexels/Emily Ranquist)

Shandell Houlden, Royal Roads University and George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University

We live at a time when universities and colleges are facing multiplying crises, pressures and changes.

From the COVID-19 pandemic and budgetary pressures to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and climate catastrophe, the future of higher education seems murky and fragmented — even gloomy.

Student mental health is in crisis. University faculty in our own research from the early days of the pandemic told us that they were “juggling with a blindfold on.” Since that time, we’ve also heard many echo the sentiment of feeling they’re “constantly drowning,” something recounted by researchers writing about a sense of precarity in universities in New Zealand, Australia and the western world.

In this context, one outcome of the pandemic has been a rise in discourses about specific, quite narrowly imagined futures of higher education. Technology companies, consultants and investors, for example, push visions of the future of education as being saved by new technologies. They suggest more technology is always a good thing and that technology will necessarily make teaching and learning faster, cheaper and better. That’s their utopian vision.

Some education scholars have been less optimistic, often highlighting the failures of utopian thinking. In many cases, their speculation about the future of education, especially where education technology is concerned, often looks bleak. In these examples, technology often reinforces prejudices and is used to control educators and learners alike.

A picture of a collage showing a Facebook-jammed image that says 'You've been Zucked'
Amid accelerating technology, what kind of future do we imagine for higher education?
Annie Spratt/Unsplash

In contrast to both utopian and grim futures, for a recent study funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, we sought to imagine more hopeful and desirable higher education futures. These are futures emerging out of justice, equity and even joy. In this spirit, we interviewed higher education experts for a podcast entitled Speculative Learning Futures.

When asked to imagine more hopeful futures, what do experts propose as alternatives? What themes emerge in their work? Here are three key ideas.

It’s about more than technology

First, these experts reiterated that the future of education is about more than technology. When we think about the future of education we can sometimes imagine it as being tied entirely to the internet, computers and other digital tools. Or we believe AI in education is inevitable — or that all learning will be done through screens, maybe with robot teachers!

But as Jen Ross, senior lecturer in digital education observes, technology doesn’t solve all our problems. When we think about education futures, technology alone does not automatically help us create better education or healthier societies. Social or community concerns like social inequities will continue to affect who can access education, our education systems’ values and how we are shaped by technologies.

As many researchers have argued, including us, the pandemic highlighted how differences in access to the internet and computers can reinforce inequities for students.

AI can also reinforce inequities. Depending on the nature of data AI is trained with, the use of AI can perpetuate harmful biases in classrooms.

Ross notes in her recent book that social or community concerns shape how our societies could imagine education.
Researchers involved with Indigenous-led AI are tackling questions around how Indigenous knowledge systems could push AI to be more inclusive.

Policymakers and educators should consider technology as one part of a toolkit of responses for making informed decisions about what technologies align with more equitable and just education futures.

Emphasizing connection and diversity

In line with thinking about more than technology, the second theme is a reminder that the future of education is about healthy social connection and social justice. Researchers emphasize fostering diversity and celebrating diverse expressions of strengths and needs.

Experts envision and call for education that is more sustainable for everyone, not just a privileged few. Kathrin Otrel-Cass, professor at University of Graz, and Mark Brown, Ireland’s first chair in digital learning and director of the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University, suggest this means teaching and learning should be at a slower pace for students and faculty alike.

In this vision, policymakers must support education systems that regard the whole learner as an individual with specific physical, mental, emotional and intellectual needs, and as a member of multiple communities.

Acknowledge the goodness of the present

There’s lots to be gained by noting and supporting all the great things related to education that are happening in the present, since possible futures emerge from what now exists.

As two podcast guests, Eamon Costello, professor at Dublin City University and collaborator Lily (Prajakta) Girme, noted, we need to acknowledge the good work of educators and learners in the small wins that happen every day.

In 2019, researchers Justin Reich and José Ruipérez-Valiente wrote: “new education technologies are rarely disruptive but instead are domesticated by existing cultures and systems. Dramatic expansion of educational opportunities to under-served populations will require political movements that change the focus, funding and purpose of higher education; they will not be achieved through new technologies alone.”

These are words worth repeating.

 

 

Shandell Houlden, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Education and Technology, Royal Roads University and George Veletsianos, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology, Royal Roads University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

So very tired of predictions about AI in education…

By people who aren’t AIEd experts, education technology experts, education experts, and the like.

Case in point: “AI likely to spell end of traditional school classroom, leading [computer science] expert says.”

I appreciate cross disciplinary engagement as much as I love guacamole (which is to say, a lot), but I’d also appreciate that we stop wasting our time on these same unfulfilled prophecies year after year, decade after decade.

Will AI impact education? In some ways it will, and in others it won’t. Will education shape the ways AI comes to be used in classrooms? In some ways it will, and in others it won’t.

Truth be told, this negotiated relationship isn’t as appealing as DISRUPTION, AVALANCHE, MIND-READING ROBO-TUTOR IN THE SKY, etc, which are words that readers of the history of edtech will recognize.

Issues that hybrid, online, and blended modes of teaching and learning introduce to collective agreements and bargaining

A few weeks ago, I was invited to offer input to a committee at a Canadian university examining issues that hybrid, online, and blended modes of teaching and learning introduce to collective agreements and bargaining. I appreciated that the committee identified experts to speak with in order to gain an evidence-informed understanding of the issues they were facing rather than allow their deliberations be guided by assumptions and beliefs (which, to be honest, many of the conversations around modality default to!).

I thought the questions I was asked were relevant to many, and so I am sharing them below. The gist of my responses follows each question.

  • What is your sense of the future of online, hybrid, and blended course delivery in Canadian universities?
    • Necessary, valuable, and growing. Ignore them at your own peril.
  • How do you see the work, the workload, the rights, and the responsibilities of faculty changing within this shifting terrain?
    • Rising workloads at first, but shifting over time (similar to how workload is higher when assigned a new course; opportunity to learn & explore relationship between online/hybrid and pedagogy, which may transfer to other settings). Responsibilities around quality similar, if not higher (which is unfortunate given that conversations around quality are different in relation to in-person courses). Rights: an opportunity for expanding the conversation to encompass in-person practices: reflect on ownership and where the real value of faculty lies – it’s not content.
  • What would you suggest are the biggest advantages to these delivery modes, and what would you flag as the biggest challenges that institutions face in moving towards these modes?
    • advantages: rethinking pedagogy, flexibility, supporting justice and EDI, reaching and supporting different kinds of learners; challenges: institutional infrastructure to support online/hybrid learning quality at the same level as supporting in-person.
  • What kinds of supports—technological, training, in-class, infrastructural, workload-based, or other – do you see as necessary for faculty to successfully deliver course through online modes?
    • This is the right question to ask. It’s not just about individual skills, competencies, and perceptions – it’s about how the institutions will support these learning modalities at the system level. In addition to the ones mentioned in the question, my answer highlighted that online/hybrid learning is a team sport and noted the need for instructional design support.  
  • As part of our own deliberations, we are concerned with the process through which mode of delivery for particular courses is determined. Do you have any advice on how this best happens? Are there any lessons from experiences at other universities about this?
    • This is a difficult one, especially at a time of many circulating viruses. I emphasized the need for flexibility and a decision-making process that is based on mutual trust and cooperation, and that is informed by student input. Ideally one where decisions aren’t top-down and aren’t solely guided by individual preferences. Also: the proportion of courses that are online need not be uniform across departments.

Faculty curiosities about AI tools and ChatGPT

I led an online workshop/conversation on AI for ~200 faculty at three colleges/universities who came together today to learn about the topic. It centered on the following questions. I am sharing them here for the benefit of others, but also to ask: Are there other curiosities that you are seeing locally? (Yes, I know that the most recent EDUCAUSE poll highlights cheating as a top concern, though I’m not certain it ought to be)

  • How can (should??) I use AI for the benefit of my students’ learning?
  • Is ChatGPT really the disruptor it seems to be?
  • ChatGPT (AI) and authentic assessment – can these co-exist?
  • Neither I nor my students are as tech-savvy as it is often assumed we are. How do we keep up with innovations like ChatGPT, whether they be ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and how do we learn when to embrace them or ignore them?
  • Is ChatGPT (or other AI) a blessing or a curse for higher education?

Comments: Exploring speculative approaches to digital education futures

Today, the good folks at the University of Edinburgh held a book launch for Dr. Jen Ross’ new book, ‘Digital Futures for Learning’ (Routledge, 2022), and led a discussion about “how speculative methods and pedagogies can allow digital education researchers, educators and students to engage creatively with the sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin policy, practice and innovation in our field.” I was asked to offer some comments, so I thought I would post them below (Dec 8, 2022 update: The recording for the event is now also available).

A beach at night time, with five big flowers standing up

Book cover: Digital Futures for Learning

Hi everyone,

I live on the traditional and unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən, Songhees, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples who have lived here for thousands of years. These territories are now known as Victoria, British Columbia. To acknowledge these lands is to acknowledge the need for conciliation, and the harms that colonization has had on Indigenous people both here and around the world.

I am grateful to be here with you today. And I am happy because we are celebrating my friend and colleague Dr. Jen Ross and her new book. I was told I didn’t have to talk about the book. But how can I not talk about it? Digital Futures for Learning is a prime example of scholarship that stands to carve new and exciting paths for field. It’s engaging, critical, and invites us to open our minds, and hearts, to the possibilities. What if education, digital or not, were otherwise? What could it look like? If you haven’t already, you should buy yourself a copy. Or ask your library to buy a couple of copies.

I’m also happy to be here because it’s such a pleasure to see many of you again here today. I’m grateful that technology allows us to gather and have this event. But as our education systems face economic, demographic, political, environmental, and social challenges, I can’t help but wonder what our gatherings may look like in, say, the year 2040.

Speculative approaches to research enable us to explore beyond the question of “what is happening.” They allow us to imagine, to explore what the world could be like, perhaps even what it should be like.

So, with that, I would like you to join me in a short and simple exercise. I would like you to close your eyes – no peeking – and just listen to the sound of my voice. Go ahead, I’m waiting. Thank you.

I want you to join me in a journey. It’s now time to suspend disbelief and step into my time machine. Let me open the door here, and one by one, all 80 of you, please step over the ledge, and enter this large, specially modified plane that will take us to the future. There’s room for all of us in here, and you all get business class seats. But fasten your seatbelts, just in case something unexpected happens. I’ll set the year to 2040, close the door, and in a moment or two we’ll arrive in 2040…. Ok, here we are. See, that didn’t take long! Now that we’re here, I want you to step outside the time machine. As you step outside the machine, notice that you are now observing a different meeting happening in 2040. At that meeting we’re celebrating the fifth edition of Professor Ross’s book.

Yes, sure, we’re all a bit older, but what else do you see?

  • Where are we?
  • Are we all in the same location? Or are we participating through different means?
  • And what does a book look like in 2040?
  • Who is speaking at the event?
  • What do you hear?
  • What do you feel?

Is this a future that gives you hope, one perhaps that you want to make changes in your immediate world so that we can eventually get there?

Or is it a future that fills you with dread, one that you should be resisting right now so that we don’t end up there?

In other words: What is the future that you are seeing telling you about the present moment?

What is it telling you about the places that we gather, about the technologies we are using, about the ways that we are organizing ourselves to share, to teach, to learn?

What is it telling you about activities that we ought to continue engaging in and activities that we ought to stop engaging in?

One of the most powerful lessons of speculative methods, to me, is how they inform the present. Speculative methods may give us a glimpse about the future, but they also shine a light on what is happening right now.

Now, before you open your eyes, I want to remind you to come back into the time machine for our journey back to 2022. We need you back in 2022 to create more hopeful, more just, and more equitable learning futures for ourselves and our students! We tell a lot of dystopian stories about the future of education, so as you are coming back I want to share with you one of our own papers that builds on Jen’s work and that invites us to tell more hopeful stories about the futures of education that you can read at a different time.

Thank you very much!

Page 1 of 5

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén