Category: Technology
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Generative AI in higher education – HELTASA conference
This is a recording of a presentation I gave at the HELTASA conference, on the topic of generative AI in higher education. The focus of the talk was on ChatGPT but I tried to think about generative AI more broadly, including image generators like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. I also tried to avoid making this…
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Technology platforms aren’t communities
You can use an outstanding technology platform that will facilitate engagement, interaction, sharing, collaboration, etc. but without engaged, interactive, generous people who want to work with each other in community, the technology won’t do much at all. Conversely, a group of like-minded people who want to do interesting things will manage even if they have…
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Tool: Wikiwand – a modern reader for Wikipedia
Wikiwand is a modern reader for web and mobile, that optimizes Wikipedia’s amazing content for a significantly improved reading experience. Fortunately, all articles on Wikipedia are released under a free license, which allows us to fetch Wikipedia articles and optimize them for maximum readability and enjoyment. At Wikiwand, we’re all about providing you with a…
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A critical perspective on technology-enhanced education – World Physiotherapy webinar
In a 2020 World Physiotherapy webinar, I discussed the Covid-induced shift to online and blended learning in physiotherapy education. I urged a critical review of this transition, highlighting its potential long-term implications on teaching practices and effectiveness. In addition, I suggested using technology to foster transformative learning experiences through critical pedagogy, enhanced collaboration, and increased…
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My phone was made by slaves and I need to decide what I’m going to do about that
I’m going to need a new phone soon and I’ve been thinking about what the replacement will be. I typically buy the cheapest, decent phone I can find and replace the standard version of Android with an open source operating system. Over the last 5+ years that’s meant two consecutive Xiaomi handsets running LineageOS, and I’ve…
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PSA: How to create a good password
Pretty much anything that can be remembered can be cracked. There’s still one scheme that works. Back in 2008, I described the “Schneier scheme”: So if you want your password to be hard to guess, you should choose something that this process will miss. My advice is to take a sentence and turn it into…
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‘Structured serendipity’ in collaborative writing
In this video I’m talking to Ben Gordon, a physiotherapist in Boston with an interest in the role of machine learning in clinical practice. Ben and I have been working on the very early stages of writing an article together, and quickly became frustrated with the limitations of working collaboratively in Google Docs. We started…
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You are not what you’re thinking
If you asked me what I’ve learned in the past year or so that’s had the most significant impact on my well-being, it’s that I need not identify with my thoughts. In other words, recognising that I am not what I’m thinking. We all have that voice in our head telling us that we’re not…
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Seeing beyond our own paradigms
Yesterday I saw this tweet from Enrico Coiera: So I downloaded the editorial and noted these sections: Through the Internet, the public has access to a growing supply of information on health and disease, often of variable quality and relevance. As a result, providing information on health will no longer be the exclusive remit of…
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My top personal learning tools in 2021
This post was inspired by a recent post by Stephen Downes where he shared his own tools for learning. I know how much I enjoy reading about what other people use so I thought I’d do something similar in the hope that this post is interesting or useful for someone else. And besides, it was…
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Building a hackable, open-source, curriculum with version control
It’s possible to use distributed version control to create professional curricula that all students can edit and use for personally meaningful learning. This brief presentation discusses the major components of what would need to be in place to implement this project.
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Using email as a learning management system
First of all, we should stop calling things like Moodle and Canvas “learning management systems”. At best they’re content, or student management systems. Pet peeve out the way? Tick. I’ve been advocating for low-tech solutions to the problem of remote teaching and learning ever since I noticed how many people seemed to be pushing for…
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Resource: Low Tech Remote Teaching Principles
Keep it simple and low tech. Accessibility is core, not optional. Provide structure. Use what is available. Keep learning active. Scaffold learning by chunking content. Have a clear course outline. Be visible and contactable. Help keep students on track. Be kind to yourself and empathic to your students. This collection of Low-tech remote teaching principles…
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Open source: Jitsi Meet as an alternative to Zoom
Jitsi is a set of open-source projects that allows you to easily build and deploy secure videoconferencing solutions. At the heart of Jitsi are Jitsi Videobridge and Jitsi Meet, which let you have conferences on the internet, while other projects in the community enable other features such as audio, dial-in, recording, and simulcasting. What is…
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Resource: Creating an online community, class or conference – A tech guide
Are you creating an online course, event or conference? If you’re not a programmer, and if you don’t have a lot of money to spend, this guide will get you started. Read it from top to bottom to get a step-by-step guide to what you can do to set up your course or event. Then…
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PSA: The bomb.
In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Fred Kaplan about the ever-present threat of nuclear war. They discuss the history of nuclear deterrence, U.S. first-strike policy, preventive war, limited nuclear war, tactical vs. strategic weapons, Trump’s beliefs about nuclear weapons, the details of command and control, and other topics. Harris, S. &…
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Open Source: Zotero (reference manager)
Zotero is a free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials (such as PDF files). Notable features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies, as well as integration with the word processors Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, and Google Docs. It is produced by…
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Podcast: Are the kids alright?
In this anxious era of bullying, teen depression, and school shootings, tech companies are selling software to schools and parents that make big promises about keeping kids secure by monitoring what they say and write online. But these apps demand disturbing trade-offs in the name of safety. This is a great episode of the Rework…
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Article: Recommendations For Implementing a Longitudinal Study Using Wearable and Environmental Sensors in a Health Care Organization
This study gives examples for implementing technology-facilitated approaches and provides the following recommendations for conducting such longitudinal, sensor-based research, with both environmental and wearable sensors in a health care setting: pilot test sensors and software early and often; build trust with key stakeholders and with potential participants who may be wary of sensor-based data collection…
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Training students for jobs that don’t exist yet. Or not.
The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. It takes some work to find out that the claim is not true.…