Loose Ends: A Mixed-Initiative Creative Interface for Playful Storytelling from Max Kreminski.
It is probably fair to say that many of the “AI in education” stories that I have shared have sat in the raised eyebrows column of the ledger but, as with most tools that aren’t going away, there are equally promising new applications of the technology. This Twitter thread about Loose Ends, an AI based storytelling aid is one of those. It summarises an upcoming conference paper about a tool that writers can use to manage and inspire complex multi-threaded writing pieces.
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Submissions to THETA 2023 close soon from THETA
The biennial THETA (as in The Higher Education Technology Agenda) conference is one of the crown jewels in the Australasian education innovation calendar. Jointly held by CAUDIT, CAUL and ACODE, next year’s event in Brisbane will be the first since 2019. Conference sub-themes include Teaching to the attention economy, Cyber complacency, Online and Multi-modal learning for equity students and Testing times. Submissions are currently slated to close on October 1.
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We need to deal with data privacy in our classrooms from University Affairs
Bonnie Stewart (University of Windsor, Canada) writes a strong piece about the potential data privacy risks embodied in teaching in the digital age. She draws on a survey she posted in 2020 which had responses from 300 university educators in 26 countries and highlighted notable gaps in knowledge about how and where data from education technologies go. As someone at the coalface in this space, I do feel confident that this is something taken more seriously (sometimes painfully so) by institutions than the article might suggest but it is always important to keep these issues in mind.
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Optus Under $1 Million Extortion Threat in Data Breach from Bank Info Security.
This isn’t my normal content but given the scope and seriousness of the recent Optus data breach and its potential impact on educators and students, it is worth sharing. In a nutshell, private data including driver’s licence and passport numbers of Optus customers going back to 2017 have been exposed. This article provides the best explanation to date of how this seems to have happened and what happens next. In short, be particularly vigilant.
This post has some useful security suggestions
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Survey shows majority of university students want blended learning from JISC
The UK’s JISC digital experience insights survey of higher ed students is always worth exploring for the size of its sample – 33 726 respondents this time.
Some takeaways of note, nearly three quarters of students rated the quality of their on-line learning environment as above average, 45 per cent of students want a mix of on-site and online learning and only 13 per cent of students had participated in an on-line forum in the two weeks before responding.
Colin Simpson has worked in education technology, teaching, learning design and academic development in the tertiary sector since 2003 at CIT, ANU, Swinburne and Monash University. He is also one of the leaders of the ASCILITE TELedvisors Network. For more from Colin, follow him on Twitter @gamerlearner