All right, we are live on DS 106 radio
I'm Meredith Huffman, and I'm joined here with
nada
dabig from George Mason University to talk through
her session on
This this hour of the reclaim radio. I'm also joined with Taylor Jaden as well to introduce as we get started
Great. Thanks Meredith. So I'm nada
Daba I know my last name is a little difficult to pronounce but
That's fine. I
am a professor at George Mason University as
Meredith mentioned I've been at George Mason for a long time too long almost 28 years now, but
I'm also the director of the division of learning technology
So my specialty areas are of course looking at the affordances of learning technologies and instructional design
And how can we?
design
effective and meaningful
learning experiences using
technology and so I
Was interested in this DS
106 radio because I do have an account on
Reclaim hosting and I was interested in this summer camp
Thing because I've never done something on radio before and so, you know, I'm
You know sort of old-fashioned. So when you guys said radio, I'm like sure, you know
why not get my voice out on a
Radio which you know in my mind thought about it more like a podcast kind of thing
But you know, yeah the word radio sort of, you know rings, you know old
media to me so I was I was intrigued by that and
You know, they asked okay pick a theme so I picked a theme
You know about storytelling and I know the gym is very much into storytelling and so
I kind of wanted to look back at the last academic year and sort of share
my highs and and lows and so
I
decided to
title my session
You know looking back so sort of coming back for full circle
so, you know, I'm at a point in my career where I'm looking at our field and it's just really difficult to
to
Define our field if you will, so I'm gonna I'm gonna share on my screen now and
Just show this one slide, you know when I graduated from Penn State
in
1996 my degree said
Instructional systems design so at the time
If you see, you know
Down here at the bottom of this slide. I'm going to highlight it
instructional systems design or ISD was really the
Kind of the name that my field went went by right because we were looking at systems
We looked at designing instruction
Using learning systems. We borrowed from computer science and engineering. So all about systems theory and
You know, how can we design an instructional system? But if you look at the slide again, you'll see that you know
the associations that I
belong to for instructional design like a CT and you know
you learn and
ACE and others they call our field so many different things like here at the top. It's called
Instructional technology, which is a much broader term and it's defined as the discipline in which learning theories become concrete
through the use of tangible
resources such as you know
Technology. It's also called instructional design and it's also called
Right now it's called, you know instructional design and technology
But right now we even are calling it learning design and and technology. So
I'm gonna stop sharing now. So we even are calling it now user experience design
So learning experience design, so there's you know, there is so many different
Notations for our field that it's it's confusing and
I'm trying to you know, look coming back full circle
I'm just trying to figure out how did our field evolved and what what is the cause of this?
Constant, you know evolution and I came to terms
Thinking that you know
We are always piloting change in our field
Why because technology is just he's changing and we have so many different affordances
Look at what we're doing right now
I mean we're meeting on a on a platform that you know
Every one of us is in a different location and we are you know, seeing each other and we are in our homes and we
are
Recording so
I think that our field or my field has always been sort of I wrote down like in in this
Pilot mode or in this beta mode kind of like software, right when Microsoft comes up with a software update
It's you know, why do we have so many updates, you know, why do we have so many like, you know
we can't we keep we keep doing updates because
Technology is always in beta mode
I mean it has to keep evolving and it has to keep
We have you know version one and version two and now we are Microsoft
11.1 and who knows we keep going until version
20 point something in every software that we use and then finally the whole software either dies or something else comes aboard and then
Now we have to learn how to use something else or a different operating system or a cloud platform or whatever. So
One of the reasons why I think our field is in constant beta mode is because you know
instructional design and technology uses technology to support
workforce education and training in all kinds of different contexts and
multimedia and all that so I think that
Yeah, that is one of the reasons why we keep we keep evolving and the name of our field keeps evolving and now we're even
Calling it learning engineering that kind of comes back in circle like yeah, and I see Taylor here
You know nodding and so you've heard the term. Yeah, I
It's probably unfair
Because I always kind of a little bit laugh at learning engineering because to me it always feels and again
I I don't know a lot about where the term comes from but from the outside looking in at it
it sounds like someone felt like
Technologist or instructional designer wasn't legitimate sounding enough. So they were like, well, what if we put math in here?
Let's call it engineering and I'm like, I'm not sure how much math is in that role on an average day
But whatever, you know
I'm being a little bit hypercritical. It's probably an unfair take of that term, but I know it kind of makes me smile, you know
Yeah, thanks for for for weighing in so I'm gonna
share my
screen again because
Yeah, I'm trying to grapple with this term as well
Because
The the definition and as you could see now on this slide
It's really you know, what characterizes engineers and I think it's like design is the glue, you know
Engineers are designers, you know, they invent this from Wikipedia. They design they analyze they build they test
We do the same as instructional designers and learning designers. I mean we are
We're designing
learning interactions, we're designing learning experiences and so
We have to you know, look at our audience look at the context and design and do a needs assessment and all that
So it's I guess the scientific method which is sort of you know, we hypothesis testing
I don't think we do much of that
But we do definitely have to problem solve because we go into an organization and we're like, okay
Your performance is down and you think you need
to get your employees to learn something new or to upskill or to reskill or to retool and
Therefore, you know you need us instructional designers to create some, you know learning interactions for your employees
And so that is a problem-solving approach, right? Like
That is where we yeah, we need to go into that organization and figure out you know
What is what what skills do they need to improve their performance?
And and you know, what type of audience do we have here? Are they adult learners? Are they you know?
K-12 learners are they students? So yeah, so going back to learning engineering, I think
The definition in Educause 2018 is the application of engineering
methodologies to develop learning technologies and infrastructures to better support learners and learning
So well, that is the official I guess definition. So it kind of makes sense
but again, you know our field keeps evolving and now for example at
What is this the Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon
I only know of two universities that have adopted a learning engineering curriculum. So Carnegie Mellon has a
metals program
That you know Masters of Engineering in technology
and
I forget the actual what the acronym stands for but these are the
you know the outcomes if you were to get that master's degree and then I'll also
up in
Boston College
They also have a new learning engineering curriculum and you know, I guess there again
they're trying to integrate more the
the hypothesis testing the
the the infrastructure the systems thinking and
You know
making connections between technology and developers
Because you know, this is what really bothers me is the software developers. I'm sorry
I'm not trying to offend anyone but the software developers
you know, they're very smart people and they they just like develop all the software that we use but without
Taking our input they don't come to me as a faculty member at George Mason University and say, okay, how do you teach?
What's your pedagogical approach? You know, do you use experiential learning with your students?
Are you a learning by doing person or do you just lecture and then give your students midterms and finals?
so
software developers who are developing platforms for learning or for educators need to speak with educators and
really understand what educators do and how do we teach or how do we do research and
you know, for example, you know, they've come up with all these learning management systems blackboard and canvas and
You know who knows so many of them, but they're just built in my opinion those software developers
They did a great job. I mean the university does need a centralized
System, I guess because we're still mired into that credit our system FTE and the courses
what they do is they just like
You know
Have a bunch of courses connected and it's all the same format and it's all based on the faculty
uploading their content to that platform and then you know
Stereotyping their lectures and uploading their lectures and they think that that's it. No, it's not it
That's not how I teach. I don't want my students to be just you know, listening to my lectures and just then
Taking a test test test and then just you know, I don't want them to memorize the content
I have learning outcomes and that's where instructional design comes in
I mean and I try to align the learning outcomes in a course that I'm teaching to the learning activities
To the assessment. So that's the backwards design model in instructional design is when you really have this
pedagogical alignment right where you're really trying to
Be you know align
the the the learning outcomes with the learning activities that you give your students or employees at an organization to
Work through or the learning interactions or the learning experiences, you know to to the assessment. And so
Yeah, so that's why that learning engineering term, you know, I'm trying to again figure out why
There's so much push to move our field again. So instead of calling it instructional design and technology now
We have to call it learning design, but now we have to call it learning engineering. I don't know but
Going back to my coming back full circle one thing I can tell you that I felt really
cool about and I was so like so that that kind of maybe stayed the same and made me think you know, no, there is some
grounding here because
Lately and as I as I reading back that submission that I did for this for this radio summer camp
It said, you know looking back at this past academic year
You know, I engaged in two grant writing experiences that took me back full circle to my dissertation study
My dissertation study was back in 1996 and it was about personalizing
Instruction to students most preferred and personally relevant interests
So that was personalization at the time and what I did at the time is
You know
Students at Penn State just didn't like statistics. Nobody liked to take a course in statistics
They all had to take a course in statistics and the way it was taught was very
conventional like, you know, they wanted to teach them how to compute means and medians and averages and
Like that scales and they did it through
because it was a gen ed course that everyone had to take and so they did it using lectures and
I was like, why do students they don't like the way this course is designed. So let me try to figure out
How to design it in a way that is more relevant relevant to their
Experiences at Penn State as a student. So actually what I did was is I had them
Collect data like I would ask them how many beers do you drink a week or you know?
And I will have them create data sets based on their life
experience like how many how many parties did you go to this week or
How many you know?
Dances, did you go to or how many girlfriends have you had?
since you started your freshman year or so I was trying to relate the
The learning of statistics to their personal
Relevant interests and I thought at the time that you know
If I connected numbers to what they're doing in their daily lives as students
Maybe then so then they would build data sets as groups
And so we would have all these data sets of the number of beers
That they drink at a certain party the number of this or that and then I would ask them
Okay. Now, let's let's compute the average of
the number of beers that you drink let's compute the the mean or the median of
The the number of parties that you went to or something like that
So then they can get a sense of how this data, you know is transformed through statistics
To to give us some, you know results that they can work with or evidence-based
Results or empirical results so they can understand the value of statistics. So anyway, I'll stop in a minute
But this was this was my dissertation and now I find myself
After 28 years. I just published a book
called a personalized learning experiences with one of my doc students and it's called designing personalized learning experiences a
framework for
Higher education and workforce training so circling back, you know
28 years since my dissertation
I'm back to personalized learning. So that was really cool for me because I was like, whoa
It's it's a hot topic now and it was a hot topic when I did my dissertation eons ago. So maybe that is something
That's really cool
In my field that I can talk about I have another you know concept that I also want to talk about
But let me know if you want to add something or ask
Sure. Well, um, there's a there's a lot of
Discussion going on in the discord. So there's there's plenty of shared
Disappointment or frustration with the LMS just want to let you know
So you're definitely not alone there and I will say as a technologist who spent
About eight years in in working in higher ed
I don't know that our my motto at my previous job was literally no one likes LMS
There isn't a person right? It's designed for nobody because it's attempted to be designed for everybody
That's the problem for sure and and you know one thing I wanted to kind of add because I think you're completely right about
The way their design doesn't meet
The needs of teachers or students and I think it's it's kind of a simple problem
And that's just most people don't know that the field of education
Educational psychology exists or what it says
Just most unless you unless you've been through teacher education training or you've encountered this or you've studied teaching
most people just aren't aware of that stuff and so I think
you know folks who are
Planning what features an LMS should have and what what they should provide
They're not really thinking in that light from that angle there there plus there's all of course also business motivations
Why you know they have other?
Objectives and goals than you or I would someone who's using the system
unfortunately
Because I'm gonna share my screen again because you are spot-on in terms of
Our field what might be an instructional design? I have a slide here
It borrows from at site like you said educational psychology is right here the social sciences
So we you know
We are steeped in the learning sciences or if you want to call it the cognitive sciences how people learn and of course at site
educational psychology and learning theory and then of course we borrow from the information sciences communication theory
computer science and now engineering and
Information management and in the old days it used to be audio visual technology and then at the bottom here
I have the management sciences the systems theory the systems analysis and design the operations research and
project management, so you're spot-on by saying
You know most software developers wouldn't know that if they're
Developing a learning system or platform to you know think about how people learn and so
you're spot-on and so
The the new however the problem the problem is because I do have a
sort of a solution and Jim is aware of
my
My other research interest and we personalized learning, but I'm also totally into what we call
Harold your jarci, I mean personal learning environments the problem with and I'd like students to
Create sorry. I'm scrolling through here to find the slide on PL ease, but the idea is to allow
You know students to create their own personal learning environment right using whatever tools they want, right?
They could use they could use a wordpress. They could use wikis
They could use you know, I mean, of course, they're gonna have to create a cast the problem with that though
And then we as faculty we become like facilitators for their personal learning
Environments and they try to then create their own content. They create their own learning interactions
I mean, that's huge
I'm a constructivist at heart meaning that I want students to create their own learning experiences
The problem is in higher education if we don't break away from that credit-bearing FTE core system
mean how is the institution going to
Demonstrate analytics or you know, if we don't go into X API and I have to figure out across all of that
The systems talking with each other. I mean that that's that's a huge impediment for
for that's why the LMS is still a staple because you know
It has everything in one place and people can go back and see the courses that they took and we can have surface learning
Analytics and figure out this or that and copy courses and the students are used to like a design
But ultimately you're right
Like if we you know, I don't want students to be tethered because when they leave the university then what I mean, you know
They're kind of done. What about lifelong learning? So then, you know, there are there are systems now that support lifelong learning, but again
like the Defense Acquisition University the ADL lab are considering a
Platform I forgot what I used to call it
I mean where where every one of their employees would create their own personal learning environment and then they can go learn something
Via YouTube or MOOC or they want to learn something new using some other system
but then there needs to be documentation and so the
Organization needs to document that my employee got a certificate or learned this skill or that skill so they need you know
Performance measures on that so that that is a problem, but I think if we can eventually get to that personal learning environment
Approach where every student is empowered to create their own digital learning space their own personal learning
environment using the the technologies that they are comfortable using
But then the teacher's job will become much more difficult because you're gonna have to kind of you know
Go into that personal learning environment for every student that you're teaching and then figure out, you know
How they're doing and are they actually processing the content and are they actually achieving?
so
So yeah that that thing but personalization is huge. I would say circling back to my dissertation
Has been really cool in terms of you know, thinking about
Personalization in a different way and then the other thing that I wrote in my abstract even more surprising
Was the recent connection I made between generative learning and generative AI
I mean that was something huge to me when I was studying at Penn State back in
1996
What's his name?
Whitrock, I believe was his name. He was I studied we read we read articles
for an author called Whitrock's in
1990 generative learning theory. He it's a theory
There was no AI at the time or at least not the AI that we know and now
So there was generative learning theory and then there was Weinstein's learning strategies model
well
I mean in the age of generative AI this is now making a lot of sense to me because I think about the concept of
Mind tools and I like to use technology as a companion as a mind tool
I like to use AI as a mind tool and to help me
To help me figure things out. So
My mentor David Jonathan who passed away in 2012
He was the one who introduced me to technology as a mind tool so that we can you know
Just like we use other tools in our
as humans to build things
Technology can also be looked at as a mind tool to help us learn and so
generative AI
You know, it's making me think of generative learning just like just like generative AI
Generates text from large language models. We as humans, you know can generate learning
from our experiences and from
our learning experiences with the help of
Generative AI so if we can customize if we can even you know
Build a customized version of chat GPT or co-pilot or whatever or Gemini or whichever, you know?
Gen AI tool you want if we can if we can teach our students how to
Create a personalized version of that Gen AI tool
To help them learn the way they learn best and their in corporate their interests sort of going back to you know
Personally relevant interests. I think that would be huge. I think it would be huge to have students and learners, you know
Understand how to customize the use of Gen AI tools for their own
Benefit in terms of you know using it as a mind tool to learn and as a lifelong learning tool
So I was engaged in this
Research proposal that we will have a center at George Mason University where we will
You know
We will we will use Gen AI we you know
We will customize Gen AI tools for students to become self-regulated learners because it's not easy
What I'm saying is not easy. I mean not every student or learner is able to
Figure things out on their own. That's why they need us as faculty and scaffolds to help them
But it's not easy
But if we can get them started to become self-regulated learners and you know
Evaluate their personal learning environments as they go through and figure out whether this is working for them. I think this would be
huge
Yeah, it's amazing to think through what could be possible there there's so much
You know
Personalized learning is such a big area
obviously of of interest I mean, but
what I'm kind of always curious about with
In the context of that in AI is you know right now?
I mean and maybe someday we'll see a different approach to these tools that will
Work differently, but AI is real good at reflecting back sentiment to you
or
Kind of what I would I cut I like to call like a creative mean where like it's sort of like
It takes it sucks all this content up and will deliver you some middle percentage thing something that's kind of
Acceptable and average and is you know, whatever that means obviously that is its own
can of worms but
I'm really curious to see
like I because I can see like the idea of
Personalized learning is like sure
Yeah, AI like a large language model can spit out like some questions or different variations on things
But what I'm really curious to hear about from and maybe I'm just not aware of the research too because I'm not necessarily looking at
journals every day, but
Has anyone been able to successfully
Use a tool like that to to personalize learning in a way that students find helpful
Or is it just is it a theory right now? It's been unproven so far. You know, I don't
Kind of yeah, I'm thinking about right now
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I
Don't have data to support. I know that
people in the corporate and workplace settings are
using it more like
Like a performance tool like to help them make their job more
Efficient or effective right? So we do have data on
on that I was at a
So so for example if you want to send
An email communication you can ask chat GPT to help you write that but I want to hear more about
your thoughts Taylor about
You said something that really resonated with me here is AI as a creative mean mean
But more AI as a reflective tool
how how do you see that because I think that ties a lot to my research on personal learning environments and
Self-regulated learning because if we can get learners to become
reflective and
evaluate their learning space and their digital learning space and you know figure out if they are actually
Achieving the learning outcomes and the goals that they want to achieve to become
Better employees or more efficient effective whatever or meaningful learning, you know
What how did you come up with that AI as a reflective?
- well to me, it's something that I'm interested in as a possibility. So one of the things
and and I'm it's on my brain a lot right now because
Later today. I have a session where I'm gonna be playing back a project where basically I interviewed an AI
I
About AI and education. So it's it's weird
it's a weird project but I wanted to do this because I wanted to come to terms with the tools a little bit and I
am
Interested in the possibilities of these things but also, you know
pessimistic about the business realities that tie them and and there's you know, there's plenty of things to be
You know or or or like the realities of how artists and musicians and there's a million things right
You don't necessarily need to go in
It's at it's at two o'clock one Eastern I believe
There'll be a recording of it too, but what I what I figured out though is
because I went into it thinking it would be a
Exercise in me asking kind of probing and critical questions and it being as an AI
Positive right about AI and its uses and it really wasn't I think
Because it picked up on my tone of the questions. I was writing immediately and mirrored that back to me
You know, I mean
Yeah, so but that's that's just this tool in the way. I prompted it, right and my point is though
Is so that was one thing that the more I did this project the more I was like, you know
It's it's reflecting my tone back to me
It's not it's it will and that's what I mean is it's not in that way right because I'm feeding it text that is
Tinge negative in some ways and so it's gonna respond to me negatively
And that that's that to me is something that could change right? This is how the tools work right now
it's how I use them, but that's sort of the my point is that like
the quality of the response is so reflective or so
Dependent on how you prompt it and I'm curious to see where
These things will go in a way where people can use them as reflective tools
They can because because I know people already do this though the layout an argument and say hey
Criticize this for me right and that can be a useful way to use a large language model
My problem is I didn't tell me I didn't tell it. Hey, I'm gonna ask you kind of negative questions
I want you to to go back at the questions and try to try to criticize my arguments
Because I didn't specifically tell it to do that. It's sort of commiserated, you know
it just seemed because I I was at the learning ideas conference at Columbia University in June and
The speaker I'm trying to remember which speaker
It was they think that prompt engineering is BS. Sorry, but I mean like they don't believe in prompt engineering
I mean since the AI came out everyone's talking about prompts and prompt engineering and it all depends on your prompt. So this
This guy I don't think it was Chris DeeDee, but it could have been he was the keynote speaker
You know, we are a Chris DeeDee from Harvard. Yeah Meredith has so um
He may have been him in prompt engineering is a marketing ploy the prompt changes every day
So the thing the same prompt you engineer will not yield the same answer
even if you typed in the same prompt and so
There's a ceiling on LLM's is what I guess they're trying to say, you know
it's not like you know, every time you you change the prompt you're gonna get a
different answer but going back to your point about
Yeah, I mean about it changing its tone that's that's pretty
That's that's I guess that's where that reflective maybe part comes in
for when we're using it as a mind tool with students or as a companion where
Students can really maybe use it to have it assess their learning. I don't know that yeah
You know, I think it could be used in that way, but I think folks would have to know
about the
The by the biases is not really the right word
But like the tendencies of the tool and how to set it up in a way
I agree. I I don't like I don't know much about like
Creating good prompts, but but you know your point on prompt engineering
Would you ever engineer something where you can't actually have visibility into what's below what you're engineering?
Like you wouldn't build a bridge on ground or
Over ground you haven't surveyed right or build a building is a better example, and I think that's a that's a good point
Yeah, and and I'm interested in that the the it you it's used as a reflective tool
But so far I've been a little underwhelmed and I am
curious about
You know if the large language model thing even has a path forward because it does seem like
You know two years ago. We're like wow imagine how good these things will be in a year, but I don't really think this
Line of generative AI is gonna get better in certain ways at least it will get better at certain things
But it's probably always gonna be bad at some of the things that's bad at right now at least yeah
But it's impressive that you were able that it had a tone as you're mentioning
And yeah, I guess yeah, that would be something we should do research on because you know when we're gonna use it more and more
It's important that you know to
Give you back a positive tone because if it gives you a negative tone it could you know it could affect your well-being it could
affect your mental health right and so
Yeah, so Chris Dede at that learning ideas conference. You know
Try to make the
the
Association between you know well AI is more like
You know the brain versus the mind like we humans
You know have the mind and the brain, but AI is kind of like just that brain the neural circuitry
So it's pulling from large language models, and he was like you know
Humans make are better at making judgments and decisions whereas AI is better at reckoning
I you know he made that distinction. I had to look up really what reckoning means, but I mean it's murky like you know
But he was trying to make a distinction because a lot of people are you know just saying you know
That AI is just gonna Wow like it's just it's just gonna
Disrupt our lives, and I don't know but he was like this is like the ninth
Hype cycle that we've had and they've been wrong for nine times
I mean you know what I forget what the other hype cycles were maybe I remember
Remember the 2000 where we had the Y to everything what was gonna happen then the whole Y2k?
Because everything was gonna change because we were gonna have two zeros at the end of the year and then everything was gonna like
All of our data systems were just gonna like and so he talked about we've gone through nine
Hype cycles for technology, and they've been wrong nine times. I I'm not sure I
Agree with him, but I'm just sharing and then he says you know LLM solve the natural language
processing problem
But AI is like a parrot capable of processing, but not comprehending
I mean you know that that's why I'm opting to think that maybe
You know that maybe
We can use AI as a mind tool because it's not gonna overpower us or it's not gonna like have all the answers for us
Because I want my learners
You know and when they when they design instructional systems. I want them to be able to you know
Generate their own content. I want them to be able to think through the design processes
I don't want AI to tell them
What to do so it's it's it's complex because when I like I'm teaching a course that starts in two weeks about
you know cognition and technology the intersection between the affordances and capabilities of learning technologies and and
our pedagogical sequences and cognitive
states of mind and learning preferences, etc
And so I asked actually
Chat GPT to generate learning outcomes for the course and it did an amazing job
I mean I've talked to score several times and I was like totally impressed with the learning outcomes and generated for the course
So so honestly, I I don't know. I mean, I don't know how powerful
these generative AI tools are but one thing that you said Taylor is
I
Think I also heard on NPR radio that
that
Large language models even here in Virginia where I live and you know
because of the processing speed when you ask chat GPT something and it
Processes it in like five milliseconds
the data centers that are pulling from those large language models are like
using so much power and electricity that it's not sustainable apparently and so
That is why like you said Taylor
We may need to move away from large language models and they talk about small language models
I don't know what small language maybe small language models are more like
more like
Customized, you know like by topic or customized so you it's only pulling from a limited
Dataset versus pulling from from large language models, right? So, you know anything about that?
I mean, yeah, I mean I know a little bit but
Like my understanding with the with the smaller language models is that essentially have less
Connections in their data set is one way to think about it. And so their their responses are
Average more to the again, I'll call it mean the center right the most likely response. You're less likely to get
Like interesting or outlier kind of responses in in those in those is one part of it and another part is
context window so like if you're if you're having a
if you want to use a small smaller language model and you're
Conversing with it right which and and one way I've heard this described to me
way like chat works in large language models is think of it like a
Like a like a pachinko machine like the ball with the pins, right?
you drop a ball down and it goes all the way to the bottom and
The model is where the pins are placed and the ball is the text that you've your your prompt
basically what you've put into it and when you you put in your prompt and you drop the ball down and something comes out right and
it's
Influenced heavily by the pins right and then when you ask it to follow up
So you say, you know, blah blah blah and it it responds and then you ask a follow-up question
You're submitting the entire history again. So you're submitting your first question its response and your follow-up question
And the longer you do that and so it's it's it you can think of it like autocomplete in that way, right?
Yeah, and so this is again something that I kind of learned or I guess saw demonstrated when doing this project
I was working on because I had a hard time keeping it on in the conversation context
until I figured out how to use the tool properly to do that and
So
So the smaller models have a smaller context window, which means they can't keep as much of your prompt in
Memory, and I don't mean memory in a computer sense. I mean memory and whatever AI
I actually don't know from a technical perspective what you call that. I keep hearing it called context window, but
Maybe I guess it might literally be memory from a computer perspective. But so that's that's one thing
I really think though that and I don't think this is great
I really wish the large companies that would do this with that are doing this with this huge environmental impact
Would not have done this
But I think that what they're banking on is that what we call large language models today in three years will be small and
They can run with low energy usage and on
Directly on your phone or something, right? We're seeing we're already seeing this with with
Stuff on Android and Apple is got their thing called Apple intelligence, which is coming out next year
or end of this year next year and it won't be as
Sophisticated as the like chat GPT 4o model
But it will be you know
It can do some it's a smaller version of something like that is my understanding. Obviously. I don't it's not out yet
So I but yeah, I think that's where they're banking on this
I think that is a very Silicon Valley way of doing it and I don't really appreciate it
But I can see their line of thinking
You know
But I mean, can I have like when I teach this course?
Can I can I create I guess I can I create a customized chat GPT?
Based on the content of my course only like I can feed it
Can I feed it the articles and the book that I want the students to read because I'm the expert on that topic
can I can I feed it the the readings that I want them to read and then the
I don't know some other content and and and then have them
Query that can I do that? Can I create a customized?
Chat GPT just for my course
Yeah, you you technically can and I I am less familiar with
the actual chat GPT like that that - of course I've used it but
Most of the stuff I've been using lately has been the open models like llama
And I don't I don't I'm not a heavy user of these things
But that is one that actually can run on your laptop with a program called Oh llama
And it's on my laptop not real fast. It's maybe not quite as good, but it does work
and
You can you know give some of those tools that the if the developers have set it up this way
Essentially access to a bunch of text that sort of gets added
Before your prompt if that makes sense. Yeah, and I my understanding is the chat GPT
Subscription lets you give it a library of documents too, but I don't actually use that
Yeah, I mean I also have to ask my university if they would allow me to do that because you know
Yeah, but doing that with an open model that can run on your computer locally. There are less
Problematic implications of that right because you're not actually sending
Yeah, then that doesn't work yeah, we I will also plug that we did a
Reclaimed TV stream a few weeks ago about this tool called open web UI and it's like that
But it runs on our cloud or or any cloud for that matter really, but it's it's local to that instance
So the the data doesn't leave
So if you could delete it at the end of the semester and it's gone. It's not been sent to Microsoft or whatever
So that could be something that you could use but you know, it's it's expensive to run those
I'm it's very clear to me that
Chat GPT and the alternatives are really heavily subsidized right now by a venture capital and stuff investment
Okay, so in closing and then I want to see if there are any questions in discord or what else is happening
I just want to say that again, you know going back to
Coming back full circle to personalized learning and how I'm trying to in generative learning and generative AI and
trying to figure out how to how to integrate all that and I want to say that you know, I
Just hate it when people say Oh technology is just a tool to me that is really really
not
Correct, because I believe that you know
Technology is
Has affordances and so technology shapes our socio-cultural practices and like I started, you know
Look, look what we're doing here, but it's really you know, we there's a famous saying I forget who said it
No, it's like, you know, we built our tools and then and then these tools in return shape our lives, right?
I mean, so we we you know, it's just like, you know
We make things we are tool builders as humans and we make things that change our lives
And so theory of affordances and Gibson is the big
Communications scholar who said, you know media is the message
So for example, if someone were to listen to me over video
They will get a different
impression or or learning experience than if they said they just listened to my talk over audio right because
The media is the message different media
different affordances and for learning and for teaching and for
Whatever so he was you know
he was big on on the theory of affordances and
So I want to emphasize that I think there is this reciprocal relationship between
you know between technology or the tools that we use and
Our knowledge or cognition and so we don't control technology and technology should not control us
But what was the theory of affordances as we we become what we behold?
We shape our tools and then our tools shape us in return. That was actually from Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan is the the huge communications
scholar I believe and
But then Gibson is the one who came up with the theory of affordances is that you know
Look what happened when we built cars and then cars shaped our everyday life and when you look at you know
The Industrial Revolution where we are right now
and so things evolve going back to how our field is evolving our field of instructional design is because
Mainly because of all these technologies that we build whether it's the Industrial Revolution
Whether it's airplanes whether it's cars whether it's instructional systems. All of these things are
Shaping after we use them. They are shaping the way we understand the way we communicate. So I just wanted to
emphasize that I'm a firm believer that technology is not just a tool that it is a
You know, it has its affordances and it it's it impacts hugely
our our instructional designs and therefore when we design
personalized learning experiences or whatever we're designing as instructional designers
we need to be aware of the affordances of the
Technologies or the platform that we're using and that's the course that I teach for my doctoral students
They have to do what we call an affordance analysis and there are you know, physical affordances
cognitive affordances
pedagogical affordances
So many different types of affordances negative affordances positive affordances false affordances
Hidden affordances. There's so many different types of affordances and what I engage my students to do is to do this
affordance analysis of a platform that they like whether it's an LMS or
WordPress or some type of technology and come up with all the list of affordances for that specific technology and then
Figure out what are the best affordances to capitalize on when they're designing instruction?
Okay, so I think
Do you want to ask a question kind of going back to your open?
learning environments or personal learning environments
Shannon mentioned in the in the chat a couple minutes ago about
finding it tricky to
See the line of matching students with their interests and ways they learn
but then also making sure to encourage them to push them outside of their comfort zone and
Wanted to see like in your experience if you have any like tips or tricks on how that might work or
How how you you've seen success in that or how you can kind of frame your your curriculum around that?
Right, so I have not actually
been able to
Have my students create their own personal learning environments because my university
wants me to use the LMS and so I
wish the LMS had a place in it where
So what I do is I have students create their own wikis
Which I believe is sort of a way to
Implement a PLE approach I have them create their own blog spaces within the LMS
So I've done that and that has been
Very successful. I do have some research papers on that
That Shannon might want to read
We did look at blogs and wikis and one more
Discussion boards I think as as technologies within LMS is that can support
students to build their own sort of digital space and
And reflective space where they can, you know reflect on their learning in the course
Yes, I do have a couple of articles where they could use those within the LMS
I've never I've had some colleagues for example create
Facebook pages for their courses. I have not done that but that's another way of implementing a PLE is that if you
If you create a Facebook page for your course and then allow students to create their own
personal learning networks within Facebook
Reach out to other learners kind of that goes back to my personalized learning interactions framework, which is in this book
That was just published in that framework
We have six types of interactions and I think I can overlay on that personal learning environments because students can you know?
Interact with other learners they can interact with coaches. They can interact with AI
Outside of your course, it doesn't have to be all
You know, that's a great question because when we think of a course with in higher ed we think you know
This is a closed space. That's it. That's my course it goes on for 15 weeks
These are the readings that they're doing
These are the students that they're interacting with a personal learning environment and a personal learning network opens it up
to a much larger network and allows
Students to interact have different types of interactions with different technologies and different people
Yeah, definitely
Awesome. Yeah
E-learning techie and the discord chat says that Facebook would so not fly where I am for privacy concerns. So
Can confirm on that side
Well, cool, well, yeah, thank you so much nada for this awesome discussion and Taylor for
Talking through all of the awesome stuff. We've got
Maren up next working through some
music streams for we've got a double hour or two hours of
lunchtime tunes
Coming up. So
Before that so maybe I'll do it at some other point, but thank you. This was great talking with you
I enjoyed having Taylor and you Meredith because that made it more, you know
Interactive and social and you know, we covered a lot of ground
But so this is gonna be recorded now and then I can have like you're gonna send me a link that
that has
the recording
We will share all of that
I am gonna pass it off to Maren and you're listening to DS 106 radio camp from here and we've got the tunes