A weekly collection of education-related news from around the web.

Topic: tech/AI

A.I. Updates

    • Open Praxis
    • 11/29/24
    “At this point in history, it is difficult to argue whether GenAI will ultimately be a disruptive or sustaining technology, a catalyst or blocker, or something else that we cannot foresee. However, its public emergence at the end of 2022 undeniably sparked substantial speculation, hype, and even hope. In such uncertain and speculative times, it […]
    • AI for Education
    • 11/26/24
    “At the elementary level, GenAI tools should be used primarily by teachers for lesson planning, preparation, and selective modeling… Until there is compelling evidence of positive impacts on learning through direct student interaction with GenAI tools at the elementary level, as well as adequate safeguards in place to completely eliminate the risk of exposure to […]
    • Understanding AI
    • 11/21/24
    “2. Humans Are Flexible And Self-Repairing”
    • Dr. Philippa Hardman
    • 11/21/24
    “What’s particularly exciting for us instructional designers is that when GPTs are custom-trained for specific instructional design tasks (like writing learning objectives), they show significant improvements in reliability and accuracy…”
    • OpenAI
    • 11/15/24
    “Used thoughtfully, ChatGPT can be a powerful tool to help students develop skills of rigorous thinking and clear writing, assisting them in thinking through ideas, mastering complex concepts, and getting feedback on drafts. There are also ways to use ChatGPT that are counterproductive to learning—like generating an essay instead of writing it oneself, which deprives […]
    • Dr Philippa Hartman
    • 11/08/24
    “Spoiler: my findings underscore that until we have specialised, fine-tuned AI copilots for instructional design, we should be cautious about relying on general-purpose models and ensure expert oversight in all ID tasks.”

ADMISSIONS

ADOLESCENCE

    • New York Times
    • 10/23/24
    “One day, Sewell wrote in his journal: “I like staying in my room so much because I start to detach from this ‘reality,’ and I also feel more at peace, more connected with Dany and much more in love with her, and just happier.””
    • Center for Democracy & Technology
    • 09/26/24
    “Since 2020, CDT has conducted annual or semi-annual surveys with students, teachers, and/or parents. The surveys measure and track changes in perceptions, experiences, training, engagement, and concerns about student data privacy, student activity monitoring, content filtering and blocking software, generative AI, NCII, and deepfakes in schools.”
    • Axios
    • 09/18/24
    • 74 Million
    • 08/07/24
    “Snapchat last year said that after just two months of offering its chatbot My AI, about one-fifth of its 750 million users had sent it queries, totaling more than 10 billion messages. The Pew Research Center has noted that 59% of Americans ages 13 to 17 use Snapchat.”
    • Marc Watkins
    • 08/02/24
    “It is increasingly looking like generative AI won’t become intelligent to achieve true AGI, but human beings will still put their trust into these black box systems and may one day be willing to cede autonomy and critical decision-making to an algorithm. To those who scoff at this, and I imagine there are many, know […]
    • Medium
    • 06/28/24
    “I’ve created a resource to proactively envision how young people might relate to and utilize chatbots, with different impacts on human connection. The framework below maps four different possible futures, each representing the most common chatbot experience for young people.”

AI

ARTS

ASSESSMENT

ATHENA

CREATIVITY

CURRICULUM

DIVERSITY/INCLUSION

HUMANITIES

    • EdWeek
    • 04/28/24
    • Stanford
    • 12/15/23
    “Values centered on individual experience, such as personal agency, enjoyment, and stimulation, are undeniably important and central requirements for any social media platform. It shouldn’t be surprising that reward hacking only on individual values will lead to challenging societal-level outcomes, because the algorithm has no way to reason about societies. But then, what would it […]
    • TechCrunch
    • 12/15/23
    ““With Open Empathic, our goal is to create an AI that goes beyond understanding just words,” Schuhmann added. “We aim for it to grasp the nuances in expressions and tone shifts, making human-AI interactions more authentic and empathetic.””
    • Ars Technica
    • 12/15/23
    “Starhaven recently wrote, “My new morning driving routine involves chatting with ChatGPT through my car speaker/Airplay, as if I were hanging on the phone with my mum.” He talked about working through ideas vocally. “Sometimes you just wanna share your unhinged thoughts with a friend—though, maybe not at 7 in the morning,” he wrote. “So […]
    • Rest of World
    • 09/20/23
    • Economist
    • 04/28/23
    “Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of ai tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new cults… The catch is that it is utterly pointless for us to spend time trying to change the declared […]

LANGUAGE

LEADERSHIP

LEARNING SCIENCE

    • Noema
    • 09/03/24
    “Hybridization of life with technology is scary when you can’t quite lose the unspoken belief that current humans are somehow an ideal, crafted, chosen form (including their lower back pain, susceptibility to infections and degenerative brain disease, astigmatism, limited life span and IQ, etc.).”

PD

PEDAGOGY

READING/WRITING

STEM

SUSTAINABILITY

TECH

TECH/AI

TECH/AI: EDUCATION

TECH/AI: ETHICS AND RISK

TECH/AI: GOVERNMENT AND LAW

TECH/AI: INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT

TECH/AI: USES AND APPLICATIONS