ELearningWatchMay2025

G’day

After the wild weather we are now having a nice spell of settled weather. Time to give the hedges a quick clip and get the garden ready for winter.. Ella , our 10 month old Golden Retriever would really like to help, unfortunately her digging skills are confined to large holes, not to mention the muddy feet… I’ve been Trumpeting some Tarrific ways of stopping her digging the holes, so far -100% success….could change my mind any minute.

I seem to be bombarde these days with anything and everything to do with AI (Artificial Intelligence), and the incremental rise of AGI(Artificial General Intelligence). It would seem that there is some maturity evolving with AI in education with quite a number of institutions providing guidance on its use by both tutors and students., some developing their own App and /or a comprehensive guide to its use by students and tutors.

Tony Bates has produced some really good overviews, comments and analysis of the Contact North’s AI initiatives. I think the series is very valuable.. Tony provides a very clear objective approach to his analysis of the functionality and pros and con’s of the AI system/tools at Contact North; very useful for anyone contemplating the use of AI in the teaching and learning.Tony’s analysis of the Syllabus builder is particularly useful. There should be a lot more of this available.

A must read and follow. Not many comments so far on his website, although Alan Levine is on the ball, contributing some perceptive and interesting comments.

Ethan Rollick is another individual providing some clear analysis and comment on AI , its development , uses ,drawbacks and potential.

In this position there are links to resources and comment on the use of AI, AGI and a responsible use paper, JISC Digital transformation series, Research paper led by Ethan Rollick and the odd one out

1. Tony Bates and Contact North’s AI tools

The Contact North tools can be found at:
https://www.aiteachingassistantpro.ca

Tony’s analysis on his website

The syllabus AI tool

An evaluation of Contact North’s AI tools for teachers/instructors: syllabus builder

Access other analysis from the right hand sidebar

2. One useful thing. The comprehensive resources on AI related matters from Ethan Rollick

https://www.oneusefulthing.org

AND

AI Agents and Education: Simulated Practice at Scale:

Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach and Bach, Natalie and Ciccarelli, LJ and Przystanski, Ben and Ravipinto, Daniel, AI Agents and Education: Simulated Practice at Scale (June 17, 2024). The Wharton School Research Paper,

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4871171

3. JISC :Taking digital transformation forward in your organisation
This series contuse to expand and improve and is very useful as a guide to the ever increasing use of digital tools and education. Always good to refer to and return to from time to time

https://www.jisc.ac.uk/taking-digital-transformation-forward-in-your-organisation

4.Taking a responsible path to AGI: Deepmind Google. A timely and useful overview of the pro’s ands cons of AGI
https://tinyurl.com/e2cfs6yc

5. A complete guide to support students in using AI. One of many guides that explain in simple terms how to use Ai, especially where students are concerned.

https://feedbackfruits.com/blog/a-complete-guide-to-support-students-in-using-ai

AND

From Stanford University: Artificial Intelligence Teaching Guide

https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-guides/artificial-intelligence-teaching-guide

1. The Odd one out

Lots of fun and surprises: Take me to another useless website
https://theuselessweb.com

That’s it. Keep pushing the frontiers of learning

Cheers

Richard

Richard Elliott
The Eternal Academic
Auckland
New Zealand