Campus Technology Insider Podcast
The Campus Technology Insider podcast explores current trends and issues impacting technology leaders in higher education. Listen in as Executive Editor Rhea Kelly chats with ed tech experts and practitioners about their work, ideas and experiences.
Listen below or find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify or Stitcher.
Recently Educause released its inaugural AI Landscape Study, which polled the higher education community about AI strategic planning and readiness, policies and procedures, impact on the workforce, and the future of AI in higher education. We spoke with report author and Educause Senior Researcher Jenay Robert for a deep dive into some of the thinking behind the study, what the survey findings tell us about institutions' AI journeys, and how "I don't know" might be the theme of the day when it comes to AI.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 29 minutes
Transcript
David Wiley is well known as the co-founder and chief academic officer of Lumen Learning and a long-time advocate of open educational resources and access to educational opportunity. But if you follow him on LinkedIn or on his Improving Learning blog, it's clear that he also does a lot of thinking and speaking and writing about generative AI. For this episode of the podcast, we spoke about why generative AI is the logical successor to OER, AI's impact on instructional design, exciting AI developments on the horizon, and why it's too early for universities to write policies for generative AI usage.
Resource links:
Music: Mixkit
Duration: 35 minutes
Transcript
Last November, Campus Technology Editor in Chief Rhea Kelly moderated a panel on the state of AI in education at Tech Tactics in Education 2023, a new conference for education IT leaders produced by Campus Technology and its sister publication THE Journal. The conversation ranged from basic definitions, to concerns, limitations, and opportunities, as well as leadership and culture change. In this episode of the podcast, we're sharing a recording of the discussion — it's full of insights for anyone grappling with the impact of AI and generative AI on campus.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 40 minutes
Transcript
Since 2016, the Changing Landscape of Online Education Project, also known as CHLOE, has been surveying chief online officers at colleges and universities across the country about the current state of online learning in higher ed as well as institutions' strategic vision for the future. A joint effort between Quality Matters and Encoura Eduventures research, the project recently released its eight survey report. Among the core themes: Growing student demand for online and hybrid learning is moving higher education toward a multi-modal future. We spoke with Dr. Bethany Simunich, co-director of the CHLOE Project and one of the principal authors of the CHLOE 8 report, about key takeaways from the survey and why institutions that aren't examining their online strategy may be putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
Resource links:
Music: Mixkit
Duration: 35 minutes
Transcript
What skills will students need for the workforce of the future in an age dominated by artificial intelligence? In addition to basic computer science, data competencies, and the mathematics and statistics behind AI and machine learning, there are a range of social impacts to consider: AI risk, ethics, privacy, questions of bias, etc. All of the above are part of the curriculum at Dakota State University, a STEM-oriented institution with a focus on computer science, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. We spoke with DSU President José-Marie Griffiths about how her institution is preparing students for careers in AI. In addition to her experience in research, teaching, and higher education administration, Griffiths was a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, part of the 2019 John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act. She has also served in presidential appointments to the National Science Board, the U.S. President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, and the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 27 minutes
Transcript
At National University, the role of the data officer has shifted from the capture and analysis of data to a broader focus on digital transformation. As the institution's chief digital officer, Alex Chimon leads both the digital and the data realms, with the strategic goal of improving student outcomes and the student experience. Chimon comes from a diverse background, driving digital strategy in industries such as healthcare, marketing, and food service before joining NU last year. We talked about NU's key digital transformation goals, how the worrisome capabilities of artificial intelligence will impact Dx efforts, overcoming fear of change, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 30 minutes
Transcript
Growth in the cybersecurity industry is quickly outpacing the number of skilled workers available to fill the need, with estimates putting the global cybersecurity workforce gap at more than 3 million people. That shortage of IT talent is particularly acute in higher education, where salaries and benefits often can't compete with the corporate sector. In light of those issues, the University of South Carolina Aiken recently found a creative way to staff a new security operations center — and give students hands-on cybersecurity training at the same time. We spoke with Ernest Pringle, vice chancellor for Information Technology and CIO at USC Aiken, about creating a student-led SOC, helping students put cybersecurity theory into practice, forging regional cybersecurity partnerships, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 29 minutes
Transcript
Imagine a learning environment that, much like a Star Trek Holodeck, changes based on a user's individual requirements. It understands the learner's strengths and weaknesses, anticipates next steps, recommends the best learning content, moves at the learner's pace, and removes unnecessary friction within the mechanics of learning. With today's advancements in generative AI, that vision of personalized learning may not be far off from reality. We spoke with Dr. Kim Round, associate dean of the Western Governors University School of Education, about the potential of technologies like ChatGPT for learning, the need for AI literacy skills, why learning experience designers have a leg up on AI prompt engineering, and more. And get ready for more Star Trek references, because the parallels between AI and Sci Fi are futile to resist.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 31 minutes
Transcript
Much has been made of plagiarism concerns around the use of ChatGPT in education, and there's no doubt that generative AI technology will impact the role of writing both in higher education and in society in general. But as our guest Mark Warschauer points out, the use of AI for writing and communication presents an inherent contradiction: Those who can best write with AI will be those who can best write without it, because they'll need to be able to write good prompts, evaluate the AI output, and edit the resulting text into a usable final product. Warschauer is a professor of education and informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and founder of UCI's Digital Learning Lab. We talked about the potential of AI for teaching and learning, overcoming faculty skepticism about AI tools, research questions that should be asked about AI in education, and more.
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Music: Mixkit
Duration: 26 minutes
Transcript
ChatGPT is groundbreaking, but it's also merely the first in what will likely be a series of innovations built on foundational developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing that are going to change the world. Higher education is already feeling the impact of generative AI technology in terms of plagiarism and instructional design concerns, but these challenges also come with immense opportunities to personalize learning and streamline time-consuming tasks. We spoke with Mark Schneider, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, about how AI is transforming education and the evolving role of humans in an AI-powered future.
Resource links:
Music: Mixkit
Duration: 26 minutes
Transcript
