Tag Archives: distance learning conference

USDLA 2024 National Conference (Day 3)

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Day 3

Florian Hummel

Florian Hummel

Pioneering an AI learning buddy

Florian Hummel (IU International University of Applied Sciences) gave a fascination presentation on the development and integration of an AI-tutor into all online programs taught at his university.

Same drill as yesterday with AI-assisted notetaking (Voice Memos, Whisper, ChatGPT 4-o to summarize):

The speaker discussed the development and implementation of an AI study assistant, named Syntea, within their university. The university began integrating online courses around 13 years ago and currently offers over 200 degrees, with about 75 delivered in English for an international audience. The institution has seen significant growth in online students, with around 155,000 to 160,000 total students, and recruits approximately 1,000 online students from outside Europe each month.

The AI study assistant started as a simple question-answering chatbot and has evolved to engage in more interactive learning using a Socratic method, asking students questions, providing feedback, and helping them prepare for exams. The system is designed to be used asynchronously, which helps reduce costs and provides flexible learning options for students in various regions, often at different price points.

The AI system was trained using data from the university’s course materials and aims to assist students in their studies by offering immediate responses and support. It has been integrated into the university’s existing systems and is promoted to students through various channels. While initially there was some resistance, student adoption has increased as the system proved useful, especially for online learners who might need assistance outside typical classroom hours.

The speaker highlighted the importance of continuous training for both faculty and students to maximize the benefits of the AI system. The AI assistant’s implementation aims to enhance student engagement, support asynchronous learning, and potentially improve student progression rates. The system remains under constant development, with feedback loops and quality control measures to ensure its effectiveness and relevance.

Rapid Prototyping Online Programs: A Cross-Functional Approach

Sara Baber (University of North Texas Dallas) did an interesting thing – she scrapped the presentation that she had created and crafted a bot on POE (OnlineProgramBot) that essentially could do the work of her presentation. Her inspiration for this was Robbie Melton’s AI workshop from the previous day. I enjoyed seeing this rapid prototype of a rapid protype presentation… Google Doc from the session is here.

Same drill with AI-assisted notetaking (Voice Memos, Whisper, ChatGPT 4-o to summarize):

The speaker, Sarah Baber, addresses an audience, explaining that while various items like swag and hand sanitizer are available, the books she has are for reference only. She encourages attendees to note down ISBNs if interested. Sarah introduces herself, mentioning her extensive experience in higher education, and expresses the importance of change management and innovation in today’s world.

She interacts with the audience, asking about their roles to tailor her talk accordingly, and shares anecdotes about faculty resistance to online teaching. Sarah emphasizes the necessity of embracing change, especially after the pandemic, and how she transitioned from an AV tech to an expert in instructional design and technology. Her career spans various institutions, and she highlights her role in developing online programs, particularly at the University of North Texas Health Science Center and Texas A&M.

Sarah discusses her current position at the University of North Texas at Dallas, where she is launching an online master’s degree in criminal justice with a focus on justice and mental health policy. She stresses the importance of market research and aligning online programs with current trends and needs, citing sources like EAB, Gartner, and the Horizon report.

She delves into AI’s impact on education, sharing her recent creation of an “Online Program Bot” using Poe, a tool she built during a workshop. This bot can provide insights and resources for developing online programs. She demonstrates how it functions, highlighting its ability to access various reputable sources.

Sarah also talks about the challenges of implementing online programs, including faculty buy-in, administrative support, and maintaining a cohesive student experience. She underscores the importance of community and student engagement, suggesting practical steps like sending welcome packages and leveraging AI tools for interactive learning.

Throughout the presentation, Sarah balances her insights with practical advice and anecdotes, emphasizing a collaborative and innovative approach to online education. She encourages the audience to use modern tools to enhance their teaching methods and improve student outcomes.

Gamification Triforce

Gamification Triforce

Gamification Triforce: Understanding Users, Metrics, and Game Mechanics for a Successful Gamification Implementation

Bret Wardle (Neumont College) gave a comprehensive overview of elements of Gamification. The Google Slides are worth downloading.

Same drill with AI-assisted notetaking (Voice Memos, Whisper, ChatGPT 4-o to summarize):

In this talk, Brett Wardle, a TEDx speaker and co-author of a book on gamification, explains the concept and its applications, particularly in education. Wardle emphasizes the importance of using game mechanics to enhance user engagement and retention. He provides an overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as monetary, engagement, growth, retention, and conversion, illustrating their relevance with examples from well-known games and products. Wardle also introduces the Hexad player types (Achiever, Philanthropist, Free Spirit, Player, Socializer, Disruptor) and how understanding these can help tailor gamification strategies to different user motivations.

He stresses the significance of player personas and their motivations, suggesting that educators and product designers consider these factors when implementing gamification. Wardle then categorizes various game mechanics into reward systems, progress tracking, narrative and storytelling, social engagement, and game psychology, providing numerous examples and linking them to specific KPIs and player types. He concludes by encouraging the audience to use QR codes to access slides and additional resources, underscoring the practicality and extensive research behind gamification techniques.

Leveling Up Learning: The Revolutionary Fusion of Gamification and Generative AI

Michael Hyzy and Shanti Greene (Daugherty Business Solutions) demonstrated an interesting application of Generative AI to improve workplace relations. Don’t know for certain, but assuming HeyGen was used for the demonstration.

Same drill with AI-assisted notetaking (Voice Memos, Whisper, ChatGPT 4-o to summarize):

The presentation was conducted by Mike Hyzy and Shanti Gray, who discussed the intersections of AI and gamification, detailing their journey from writing a paper for Built-In to presenting their ideas nationally. Mike introduced the session by sharing his background in product development and his work integrating gamification into fitness equipment and health insurance systems. Shanti, with a deep history in AI, talked about his experiences building AI models and teaching data science.

The presentation covered motivational design, emphasizing gamification as a subset, exploring its benefits, and future possibilities. They highlighted the influence of behavioral economics, psychology, and game mechanics in motivational design. Examples like Duolingo, LinkedIn, Nike Run Club, and Uber illustrated successful gamification implementations, showing its impact on engagement, loyalty, and productivity.

They acknowledged challenges such as complexity, ethical concerns, and resource intensity in implementing gamification. The presentation transitioned to discussing the integration of AI and gamification, suggesting that AI can make gamification more efficient and personalized. They demonstrated how AI could be used to enhance human interactions through an example of training individuals to de-escalate conflicts using AI-generated feedback and simulations.

The future of gamification, according to them, involves leveraging AI for more dynamic and personalized experiences, promoting sustainability, and improving well-being. They concluded by encouraging questions and offering to connect for further discussions on implementing such technologies in specific fields like nursing education.

USDLA 2024 National Conference (Days 1 and 2)

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St. Louis Sunset

St. Louis Sunset

I attended my first USDLA conference in St. Louis this week. The conference has yet to finish but posting my day 1 and 2 notes.

Day 1

I presented a short workshop on “Educators Guide to Artificial Intelligence (AI).” Enjoyed the questions and suggestions from the group.

Day 2

Morning

Early start at 7, but there was an even earlier option to join “Morning Stretch – Yoga in the Gym” at 6…

Robbie Melton (Acting Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs, Tennessee State University) provided a fun and dynamic featured session to kick-off the day (with some cool use of AI-enhanced tools, including Sendsteps.ai. There was an incredible vibe between Robbie Melton and John Chen (Engaging Virtual Meeting), who was running the audio and livestream. He used foley effects and music to create a cool interplay during the session. Never seen anything like this at a conference before. Made for a great start to the day. Will have to check out their SMART Innovative Technologies Division website later.

Generative AI and Students Learning Experience: An Empirical Review

I had decided to try and use AI to make myself more productive at the conference. I recorded the audio of each session with Voice Memos on my iPhone, transcribed with Whisper, and then used ChatGPT 4-o to summarize. Here is what I got from the first session:

Dr. Samia Tweneboah-Koduah, a professor in higher education at Gannon University, initiates a discussion on the impact of AI on higher education over the next 5, 10, and 15 years. He expresses concerns about the future of his job and the broader implications of AI for higher education. The presentation includes research conducted with two students and aims to explore ideas and gather feedback on this critical topic.

Dr. Tweneboah-Koduah provides a historical overview of technological innovation, highlighting AI as the latest in a series of transformative technologies. He references a Pearson Research study to illustrate how innovation evolves in waves, with AI currently being a major focus. He compares AI to earlier technologies like calculators, which faced initial resistance but eventually became accepted.

The presentation delves into the definition of generative AI, a subset of AI that generates new content from training data, such as text, images, and audio. Dr. Tweneboah-Koduah explains the technical aspects of generative AI, including the importance of input data, latent space representation, and prompting.

He discusses various use cases of AI, including synthetic data generation, large language models, and natural language processing tools like illicit, which aid in literature review and research. He also mentions applications in biomedical research, storytelling, music composition, video game design, product prototyping, and more.

The presentation addresses the ethical dilemmas and challenges associated with AI in education, such as plagiarism, data biases, and the potential for AI to replace human educators. Dr. Tweneboah-Koduah emphasizes the importance of responsible AI use and the need for clear guidelines and policies.

He highlights the benefits of AI in education, including personalized learning, simulation environments, support for independent learning, adaptive testing, predictive analytics, and intelligent tutoring systems. He shares practical examples of how AI can enhance teaching and administrative tasks, such as lesson planning, syllabus design, and student engagement.

Dr. Tweneboah-Koduah stresses the need for institutions to develop AI governance policies and address legal and ethical concerns. He concludes with a call to action for educators to rethink assessment methods, embrace problem-based learning, and stay informed about AI developments.

The presentation ends with an invitation for feedback and questions, emphasizing the collaborative nature of this ongoing research and the importance of collective engagement in addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in higher education.

AI Unleashed in the Classroom: Building the Foundations for Relevant and Engaging Learning Adventures

Same setup (Voice Memos, Whisper, ChatGPT 4-o). Here is what the AI summarized:

Emmalyn Green, a PhD candidate at Florida Atlantic University and Director of Learning Design at Junior Achievement (J.A.) Worldwide, introduces herself and shares her excitement and nerves about presenting live for the first time as a PhD candidate. She humorously recounts her first day as a middle school teacher, emphasizing the importance of human connection and vulnerability.

The presentation is structured into several 25-minute segments over a 75-minute session, focusing on the integration of AI in education. Emmalyn plans to cover what AI is, its importance in the classroom, how educators can use it, and how to teach students to use AI responsibly. She also includes real-world examples and group discussions.

Emmalyn outlines the evolution of AI, from its beginnings in the 1950s and 60s as a subfield of computer science aimed at creating machines that learn and make decisions, to today’s generative AI, which can process vast amounts of data and interact in natural language. She discusses the rapid advancements in AI and its applications in education, noting the potential for AI to augment human cognitive work rather than replace it.

Key points include the importance of maintaining uniquely human skills such as creative and innovative thinking, emotional intelligence, and ethical judgment. Emmalyn highlights how AI can free up educators’ time from mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on these human-centric skills.

She encourages participants to think about aspects of their job they love and those they would delegate to an AI assistant. Emmalyn shares examples of how AI can support various educational tasks, such as using Perplexity.ai for quick research summaries and Descript for audio and video editing.

The session emphasizes the need for AI literacy, which involves understanding, evaluating, and using AI responsibly. Emmalyn advocates for integrating AI education into existing curricula and using real-world examples to make AI relevant to students’ future careers.

She also addresses ethical considerations, such as the importance of using closed systems to protect student data and intellectual property. Emmalyn suggests ways to incorporate AI into classroom activities, using frameworks like the red, yellow, green light system to guide students’ AI usage.

In conclusion, Emmalyn provides resources like AI for Education and Teach AI for further learning and policy development. She encourages participants to explore AI tools and think about how they can integrate AI into their teaching practices. The session ends with a Q&A, where Emmalyn offers to share her slides and stay connected with attendees.

Keynote

I skipped, as was preparing for my afternoon session…

Presented a session on “Flexing HyFlex- A holistic guide for successfully implementing HyFlex.” Finished on time. Great questions from the audience.

Distance Teaching & Learning Conference 2020

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Distance Teaching & Learning Conference

For the first time ever, the Distance Teaching and Learning conference went fully online. This is my online diary, and placeholder for things I need to return to in the future.

I must admit that I missed being in Madison this time of the year but found the online conference to be considerably more efficient. This efficiency did have a downside – I admit to being in a state of continuous partial attention as I fielded work calls and requests simultaneously.

Surprising, Slack became a vibrant and well used part of the conference. Participation in Twitter significantly declined, with far fewer #UWdtl posts, live tweeting, and side conversations this year. Slack was the place to be. Messy, information overload, and chaotic. But also humanizing, filling a gap for those started of physical interaction.

Interaction in the sessions via services like Poll Everywhere, Google Docs, and Google Slides was variable, but paid huge dividends when it worked. My advice to presenters in the future is:

  • Use an easy-to-type shortened URL (bitly) and have this on all sides during the interactive parts of the presentation.
  • Make sure to activate your tool of choice before the presentation starts.
  • Consider placing a link in the Guidebook App.

I got to moderate some of the sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, which gave me a glance behind the curtain. The majority of presentations used Zoom as the backend, with moderators and presenters in a Zoom breakout room. Video footage (speaker video and shared screen) was passed to Mediasite for participants to watch. Participants could type questions via Mediasite’s Q&A speech bubble, to be relayed to the humble moderator and then read out to the presenter. The tech team behind all this were exemplary – fielding issues and questions with quiet grace and authority. The more interactive sessions used Blackboard Collaborate, and here all could talk and chat simultaneously.

The majority of sessions were recorded, and these recording made available a few weeks after the conference finished. Making these recordings available is something I particularly appreciate, but it does not look as if many have taken advantage of this – the views for many sessions are in single figures at present (one session that I missed, but want to watch is “Measuring Engaged Learning in Online and Blended Courses”).

There were a few themes that seemed to bubble-up during the conference:

  • Understanding how to show caring for online students
  • HyFlex
  • Accessibility
  • Online engagement

Tuesday

eposter

My colleague Margaret Workman presented a great eposter (Can we meet all of the learning outcomes in an online laboratory class) in the morning. The eposters were the perfect format – three 15-minute sessions were repeated over 45 minutes. This meant that you could jump from eposter to eposter like a series of speed sessions. In the virtual environment, this worked very well indeed. I followed Margaret’s session with Steve VandenAvond’s eposter (Creating Your Own Reality: The development of In-House Interactive VR).

Newton Miller gave a barnstorming keynote that really kicked things up and set a tone that continued throughout the conference. Historically, the conference has been very white. Black and brown faces are not as representative at the conference, and this is not a good thing, particularly this year. Newton’s keynote and Q&A posed a series of considerations that are both timely and important.

Thomas Royce Wilson was well-prepared for his “Cranky Colleagues v. Killer Robots: Helping Others Embrace Technology” which provided a useful framework for effectively collaborating with colleagues who might be technology-averse.

Each day ended with a “live wrap up.” This helped to reinforce the sense of community and a cohesive set of programming. The wrap up was also used to share pictures from the daily hashtag competitions.

Wednesday

HyFlex was a significant theme at the conference. Brandon Taylor, Janyce Agruss, and Amy Haeger shared their experience of teaching in the HyFlex modality (360-Degree View: Shared Experiences of a HyFlex Course Design Pilot) – a modality that now seems to be featuring heavily in the pans of most colleges and universities.

Mary Ellen Dello Stritto presented on “Using Course-level Data for Research” and shared Oregon State University’s “Online Learning Efficacy Research Database.” The database is a “searchable resource of academic studies on the learning outcomes of online and/or hybrid education in comparison to face-to-face environments.” I will definitely be taking a look at this later.

Maria Widmer and Claire Barrett presented on “Strategies for Connection and Belonging in Online First-Year Seminars,” in which I was reminded of the usefulness of “jigsaw discussions.”

Jean Mandernach’s presentation on “Teach More Students Without Increasing Your Instructional Time” was particularly interesting, and something I plan to dig deeper into. She also recommended a book that looks like it could add some value (Attention Management: How to Create Success and Gain Productivity – Every Day).

Thursday

Constance Wanstreet presented on “Learning Analytics and Gateway Courses: Keys to Student Success.” I think there is a gap here that the conference could fill by offering a beginner’s guide to learning analytics, with separate audiences for educators and administrators.

Trey Martindale’s “Online Learning and the Next Few Years in Higher Education: Follow the Money” was the highlight of the day. Not the happiest of analysis but argued well and definitely of value.

Tanya Joosten presented on “Empirical Approach to Identifying Digital Learning Innovation Trends.” Those trends are helpfully contained here, with more Information on the DETA site.

Blackboard Collaborate

Oliver Dreon ran an engaging discussion (in Blackboard Collaborate) on “Researching online students’ perceptions.” I don’t know if this is a trend, but some institutions are moving away from using the QM rubric (which has a cost) to the (free) OSCQR (SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric). One thing I plan to investigate later came is this discussion

The instrument we adapted for surveying our online instructors is Bolliger, D. U., Inan, F. A., & Wasilik, O. (2014). Development and Validation of the Online Instructor Satisfaction Measure (OISM).Educational Technology & Society, 17 (2), 183–195.

Overview

The conference was surprisingly emotional – the feedback that I saw shared highlighted the sense of connectedness this year. Many attendees found the virtual format to be more efficient and productive. I don’t know how much of this structure will be used in future conferences, but I see the future as being more blended.