WK 3

Xavier Ochoa

Specialization: Learning Analytics

Xavier is my advisor at the LTXD program so I decided it would be best to begin with him. I had just finished taking his Learning Analytics course the semester prior, and his passion for the topic as well as his deep knowledge about it converted me from taking a passive interest in the subject to realizing how important (and critical) it is to the learning field going forward.

Below are the takeaways:

Data Literacy is going to be a critically important skill to have/know

• One of the worrying trends in Xavier's eyes is how little people understand the way data works...from how it is gathered to how it is used. The reason this mattered to him was because he could foresee a world that would be divided between those who "did" data and those who had data "done to them."

Consider how to incorporate or leverage AI for education

• Xavier believes (as do many) that AI, particularly Generative AI, is currently and will continue to be a game-changer.
• Yes, students are going to find ways to use GenAI to cheat or cut corners, but don't look to developing punitive counter-measures. Instead, think about how to design around that.
• Also think about how to design for inclusion and to deal with bias.

Think about how to use AI to promote soft skills like creativity

• Xavier's recommendation to me was to design something that could help students develop their skills with the aid of AI.
• An example of his was an AI-assisted painting tool, where the student might start the painting with the first stroke, and the AI will add the next stroke, and so on.

Consider learning more about AI by taking courses on it

• Xavier recommended taking a course on large language models potentially at Tandon or whichever department offers them.
• In addition to LLMs, he recommended getting into the weeds with deep neural networks.

Interesting aside:

"AI can now create on-demand dashboards and data visualizations!"

• Xavier's passion is dashboards and data visualizations, and he's spent a lot of time building both, so I assumed he might be upset at how GenAI can make both in a fraction of the time it takes him. On the contrary, he was very excited about this development. I think he both recognizes and appreciates the time-saving potential of it, and is therefore incredibly excited to be able to use them on an on-demand basis in the near future.

Maaike Bouwmeester

Specialization: Evidence-Based Learning

Maaike is my current thesis advisor and has been at ECT for a long enough time to have seen and mentored hundreds, if not thousands, of thesis projects by now.

How might we bridge the gap between classroom learning and industry-demanded skills?

• Maaike was concerned with how accreditations (like college degrees) don't do enough to help students (and employers) assess their skills
• How might we grant digital documentation (credentialing) of skills like public speaking, for example?
• And how might recruiters find these students then?
• Maaike is currently working on this problem with Xavier as well as students Stephanie and Elaine

Meaningful learning is the key

• How can we create a meaningful learning experience that is experiential and project-based?
• How can we most closely mirror authentic practice, in other words?
• And finally, how can we scale this? (Maaike has already tried using portfolio design competitions as one possible way.)

AI is going to be a game-changer, particularly GenAI, but we need to be careful for now

• There is still a lot we don't know about it.
• Maaike talked about an interesting experiment with Chat-GPT where the AI generated 5 fake references, highlighting the dangers of immediately trusting everything AI generates.
• Maaike's son plays Dungeons & Dragons and the Dungeon Master Seth is worried about AI taking over his hobby.

Talk to industry professionals and read from more industry resources.

• What I appreciate about Maaike most is how she's quite evenly grounded in both the academic world and industry. She's aware of the biases that affect both.
• She recommended I talk to Jonathan Harber, who is not only an adjunct professor I took a course with last year, but a former EdTech entrepreneur with a lot of industry experience.
• She also recommended I follow along with the latest articles from EdSurge and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Interesting aside:

"We asked the AI for references, and it generated 5 fake ones."

• It was funny to me that GenAI would fake references instead of admitting it didn't know. That's about the most human thing I could think of somebody (or something) doing :)

Jan Plass

Specialization: Games for Learning

Jan Plass was my Games & Simulations professor last year and an expert on things like playful learning, embedding learning into games, as well as the latest technologies like AR/VR/XR. With that being said, I still asked him the same questions I had posed to both Maaike and Xavier the week before rather than anything specifically game-related. Below are the takeaways:

Select a topic that can reasonably be accomplished within 8 months.

• The talk with Jan put into perspective how little time we actually had for this. With each semester being only 4 months long, we had less than a full year to create something.
• You can't make the huge changes you want to until you are in a position where you can leverage the resources to do so. Until then, focus on what you CAN make an impact on.

Choose the pain point first, the modality after.

• Avoid being solutionist by determining now if the end product will be AR or VR or AI based.
• When the problem space is clearly defined, the solution space becomes that much clearer.

Emphasize design, not the prototype, modality, or the technology.

• What both industry employers as well as academics are really interested to see is how you designed the solution, not whether it's flashy or sexy.
• Weigh your energies more strongly towards thinking through your design. Prototypes can be built very quickly once the design is established.

Focus on existing pain points.

• Jan had a really cool suggestion in that he pulled up the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) list to show the 17 areas that the UN is attempting to solve problems in.
• His recommendation? If you don't know where to start, perhaps consider going through this list because these are all real, current, and very painful pain points that need attention.

Interesting aside:

"You know the global problem of climate change, right? Well, my son is always telling me about how much he cares about it, but I still can't get him to simply turn off the lights when he leaves a room!"

• This personal anecdote was very interesting to me in that it highlighted what he meant by focusing on what you CAN make an impact on. We may not be able to solve climate change right now, but what about focusing on a solution that could gamify or incentivize teenagers to conserve energy in their houses?
• Yes, this might seem very small-scale next to what you truly want to do, but the real challenge is in coming up with an innovative solution that will actually work, even on this small scale.

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- Iron