Serendipity35

In my years developing online courses starting at the turn of the century, we discovered quickly that students had no interest in recorded 90-minute lectures on tapes, CDs, DVDs, and eventually online. They hit the fast-forward button frequently.

I had learned in my secondary teaching years before my higher ed years that chunking material was essential.  Chunking is the process of breaking down instructional materials into smaller, "bite-sized" pieces and then arranging them in a sequence that makes it easier for your learners to learn the material. Think of how we write phone numbers: 800-289-9246 rather than 8002899246. We do it for dates, we make categories, chapters, heading, subheadings, menus.

The more current term for this seems to be "microlearning" which is used in education and professional development. These short, focused bursts of learning, are often delivered in the form of videos. Proponents will say that this is also effective for time-poor and attention-deficient learners, though that is arguable. 

We know that video accounts for the vast majority of Internet traffic. Of course, it's not all learning. In fact, much of it is entertainment, but educators can learn from how entertainment uses video and media. All those short clips from late-night talk shows or Saturday Night Live get far more views than would a full version of the show.

The effectiveness of microlearning depends on a range of factors: the quality of the materials being delivered, the context in which they are being consumed, and the learning objectives of the individual.

Microlearning in education, especially online, can include:
Text (in phrases, short paragraphs)
Images (photos, illustrations)
Videos (of the short variety)
Audio (also short)
Tests and Quizzes (yes, shorter is better)
Games (such as simple single-screen challenges)

MORE
https://www.umass.edu/ctl/resources/how-do-i/how-do-i-chunk-content-increase-learning

https://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/chunking/chunking-as-a-learning-strategy/

https://elearningindustry.com/what-is-microlearning-benefits-best-practices

Google recently introduced a new feature to their Workplace suite that they call "Help Me Write." This generative AI will first appear in Gmail and Google Docs. At the moment, it's available to a select audience of invited testers.

Like other generative AI, you will be able to enter a prompt and have a first draft created. for you.,An example Google shared is not having it write a paper for your English class, though it will probably be able to do that. They show the example of having it create a job description for a regional sales representative/

It's another AI tool that might frighten teachers because it seems to help students unfairly but I think this may be a misperception. As with other AI tools, such as the much-discussed chat GPT, I think the best thing educators can do is to introduce this to students and guide them in the ways that it can be best used and best used legitimately.

The evolution of digital literacy in classrooms will never end. Yes, these kinds of AI- assisted-writing tools present boyj opportunities and challenges for educators. But ignoring them or trying to ban them from student use is certainly not the solution. This tool and others like it are an opportunity to improve student writing skills and critical thinking. 

Google Announcements
https://blog.google/technology/ai/ai-developers-google-cloud-workspace/
https://workspace.google.com/blog/product-announcements/generative-ai

Image via Flickr svklimkin Public Domain
 

I was reading a post on Medium by Bryan Alexander in which he used the term "queen sacrifice" in reference to some changes occurring at universities. I know the term from chess but wasn't sure of his usage. It turns out he has been using that term for the past year to describe something happening in higher ed.

Another post by him on two more campuses (one in my home state of New Jersey) got me more interested in this trend. I worked briefly with Bryan on a MOOC about MOOCs back in 2012 and found him to always be thought-provoking and innovative.

In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move that sacrifices a queen in return for some compensation, such as a tactical or positional advantage. These university "queen sacrifices" are sacrifices of faculty and programs are usually brought on by dropping enrollments and reduced government funding for public institutions.

At NJCU, they released this interestingly worded press release (emphasis on language is mine).

The Division of Academic Affairs announced on December 15, 2022 that it has responded to the ongoing university-wide rightsizing efforts by reducing its academic portfolio by 37%. The University is sunsetting 48 undergraduate programs, 24 minors, 28 graduate programs, 10 certificate programs, and one doctoral program.

 

Robots, yes - but cobots? The term 'cobot' is a portmanteau of  "collaborative robot", a robot designed for human interaction. Traditional industrial robots would typically be isolated from humans for safety reasons. Cobots operate alongside people within the same space.

Collaborative robots are promoted as being cost-effective, safe, and flexible to deploy. Cobots designed to share a workspace with humans make automation easier in a variety of applications, according to Universal Robots.

Robots that will be able to exist next to people in our homes, factories, and offices and navigate safely around us is seen as possible in the next 5-10 years.

Similar to industrial robots, cobots can automate manual processes but can also do jobs that humans don't want to do. What kind of jobs does that include? Tasks that are repetitive, tedious, dirty, or dangerous. So, injury reduction is one of the benefits of working with cobots. Strenuous lifting and repetitive movement are common workplace injuries.

Not to insult the humans reading this, but robots and cobots offer far higher levels of consistency than humans. That is a key benefit in tasks that require a high degree of precision.

The cobots we are using emerge tend to be more compact and lightweight than conventional robots. They are also more user-friendly and require fewer or no engineers or programmers to set up ad monitor operations.

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