On Wednesday morning as part of our Art of the Possible week, we heard from three colleagues who have been working with and using AI. They brought very different perspectives:
Dr Stephen Parnell, from APL, described his experiments with Midjourney, an image generating tool. Stephen outlined and illustrated how he has used AI generated images to explore his own research interests and catalyse creativity with his students. (View Steven’s slides).
Dr James Stanfield, ECLS presented reflections from his students’ use of AI in a Masters module, revealing their sophisticated multi-tooled approaches. For his students of Technology Enhanced Learning, James encouraged experimentation and positive use of AI to help support their learning. Acknowledging the use of AI was an integral part of their assessment. (View James’ slides)
Dr David Grundy, NUBS, described his own use of AI as a productivity tool and walked us through how he uses AI to produce audio podcasts feeding the output from ChatGPT prompts into his own AI generated cloned voice to make MP3 files. (View David’s slides)
You can catch up on this session from the recording below:
Use the contents page in the recording (^) to jump to specific segments or scroll to the following timestamps: Stephen 0.00; James 16:16, David 34:24
The Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University podcast was launched in the 2021 Art of the Possible week Blended learning: effective practice. This monthly podcast celebrates the great things we are doing in learning and teaching here at Newcastle University.
In each episode we hear from a wide range of guests, and guest hosts to discover more about their stories and the work behind their stories. These can be long form conversations, magazine style articles, and much more.
In the latest episode (episode 37), Ben Steel from LTDS sat down with Pro Vice Chancellor Education Professor Ruth Valentine and Dean of Digital Education Dr David Kennedy.
AI text generating technologies have been around for a long time, but they have made significant advances in recent years. Most are trained on extensive data sets and are capable of producing human-like written content quickly and easily. There has been a lot of media coverage of these tools recently (in particular ChatGPT) with concerns raised about the risk they present to academic integrity.
As with all emerging technologies, it is our role as educators to explore and investigate the opportunities they provide to our students’ educational experience, as well as to consider any potential negative impacts. Ben, Ruth and David discuss Newcastle University’s response to these tools, with a focus on the five principles for the use of AI at Newcastle.
You can find this episode (and our back catalogue) at the following places:
Next time we are going to look at our 2023 Art of the Possible week AI in Education, with highlights from our sessions.
So, remember to download, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. If you are new to podcasts, you will see some useful links on each episode page.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly changing landscape, with new and innovative tools emerging constantly. But how can you keep up-to-date with the latest developments and trends in this fast-moving field? In this blog post we will share some of our favourite articles on AI to help get you started:
To find out more about AI at Newcastle University, and keep up-to-speed with new and emerging developments in the use of AI in teaching and assessment, please visit our Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle site.
We were delighted to welcome Debbie Kemp, MBA director from Kent Business School to open our Art of the Possible week. Debbie described her practical experience of openly embracing AI in her module on “Delivering Innovation”. She shared her initial fears and concerns and reflected on the response of students and the wider impact of AI use on their programmes.
We said to the students “we have taught you how to use AI in an ethical way… use it”
Many thanks to Debbie for such an engaging talk and for giving permissions to share the recording. It generated many questions and comments.
This year there have been many conversations about AI in Education – at School level, with our students and between colleagues. Next week we have further opportunities to keep the conversation going and learn together. What’s clear is that no one person is the expert in this fast moving space.
Over the week we have a number of in-person and online events. We will also be adding to this blog over the week. Come back to see posts about AI, outputs from our events and the next AI themed episode of our Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle podcast.
Add your thoughts
Throughout the week we will be collating questions and opportunities and adding them to two Padlet boards. Get involved by adding your own thoughts to these boards or upvoting ideas that resonate with your own. At the end of the week we’ll revisit these with our Dean of Digital Education, Dr David Kennedy.
We have a few places left on many of our in-person and online events:
Monday 26 June
Embracing the AI Landscape: Debbie Kemp from the University of Kent will open our week, sharing and reflecting on how she has incorporated AI in her teaching and assessment. Online 10:00-10:45
Introduction to AI: a one-hour overview from LTDS and FMS TEL colleagues. In person 14:00-15:00
Wednesday 28 June
AI and Assessment: a one-hour session exploring the impact of AI on assessment. In person 10:00-11:00
Embracing AI @Newcastle: find out how colleagues at Newcastle University are embracing AI in their teaching and learning. Online 14:00-15:00
Thursday 29 June
Hands on Explore AI Tools: Join us in the Herschel Learning lab to try out a range of AI tools. In-person, bring your own device: 10:00-11:30
Microsoft 365 and AI: Join the NUIT Digital Adoption team for an overview of what is currently possible, and what the future holds, for AI in Microsoft 365. Online 14:00-15:00
AI in Education Retrospective: Dr David Kennedy, Dean of Digital Education will present his thoughts on the week and comment on outstanding challenges going forward. Online 14:00-15:00
Artificial Intelligence is this year’s hot topic for our Art of the Possible week 26-30 June 2023.
We will be offering a series of in-person, online and asynchronous opportunities to join the conversation, share ideas and reflect on the ways AI affects education.
Save the time in your diaries to join in and hear from external speakers and colleagues, and to experiment with a range of AI tools.
Schedule
Monday 26 June
Embracing the AI Landscape: Debbie Kemp from the University of Kent will open our week, sharing and reflecting on how she has incorporated AI in her teaching and assessment. Online 10:00-10:45
Introduction to AI: a one-hour overview from LTDS and FMS TEL colleagues. In person 14:00-15:00
Wednesday 28 June
AI and Assessment: a one-hour session exploring the impact of AI on assessment. In person 10:00-11:00
Embracing AI @Newcastle: find out how colleagues at Newcastle University are embracing AI in their teaching and learning. Online 14:00-15:00
Thursday 29 June
Hands on Explore AI Tools: Join us in the Herschel Learning lab to try out a range of AI tools. In-person, bring your own device: 10:00-11:30
Microsoft 365 and AI: Join the NUIT Digital Adoption team for an overview of what is currently possible, and what the future holds, for AI in Microsoft 365. Online 14:00-15:00
AI in Education Retrospective: Dr David Kennedy, Dean of Digital Education will present his thoughts on the week and comment on outstanding challenges going forward. Online 14:00-15:00
Get involved
We will be blogging over the week, gathering question, sharing comments and recordings on our Learning and Teaching Development Blog, so come back for updates.
On the 24th of March 2023, Teesside University hosted a meeting for ALT North East where attendees discussed the latest developments in education technology. The event was well attended by various institutions in the region, namely the 5 Universities, Middlesbrough College, and the Workers’ Education Association.
The meeting began with a welcome and introduction from the host. 4 of the Universities presented slides that demonstrated the way their teams are organised with Durham’s model of technologists based both centrally and in Faculty sparking discussion.
The first topic discussed was Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software that helps educators check the authenticity of student submissions. Dr Malcolm Murray facilitated a discussion about the quality of the support provided by Turnitin with quite a lot of dissatisfaction voiced, particularly with the proposed launch of their AI checker on the 4th of April.
The next topic covered was the Adobe Creative Campus program. Teesside University is an Adobe Creative Campus. This program offers students and educators access to a range of Adobe Creative Cloud tools, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Teesside discussed how these tools could be used to enhance teaching and learning, as well as to develop students’ digital literacy skills. Problems (sorry, opportunities) were highlighted where Adobe products were encouraged to be used where a more appropriate technology may be available that has a lower learning curve.
The third topic discussed was student feedback, an essential component of the education process. Sunderland University discussed their use of Qualtrix within Canvas through which student module feedback can be collected and analysed to improve the teaching and learning experience.
After lunch, the attendees discussed AI technologies such as CoPilot and OpenChat GPT, a language model trained by OpenAI. Chat GPT is a sophisticated AI tool that can respond to text-based questions and generate coherent responses. Teesside University led a discussion on how institutions were responding to AI technologies, what was the policy taken at each institution, what sessions were being developed, what resources, etc. It was a very useful and lively discussion regarding the various approaches.
The day finished with an enjoyable tour of the beautiful Teesside University campus.
In conclusion, the meeting of ALT North East held at Teesside University was a valuable platform for learning technologists and educators in the region to share ideas, discuss the latest developments in education technology and explore potential use cases for emerging technologies such as Chat GPT. The event was a success, and we hope attendees left with new insights and ideas to improve teaching and learning in their respective institutions. Thank you to Teesside University for being excellent hosts, and we look forward to reconvening on the 9th of June at Durham University.
Please note – AI technologies were used in the creation of this blog post 🙂
The Jisc Digifest 2023 was held on 7-8 March at Birmingham ICC (it was also online) and I was fortunate enough to attend this year’s event.
According the Digifest website Digifest is:
‘a celebration of the creative minds who think differently, who introduce new ideas and technologies to their organisations. Whether it’s the researcher at the cutting edge of vaccine development, the lecturer inspiring the next generation or the manager leading digital transformation, Digifest is for the innovators of tomorrow.’
Ben, our man on the inside
The two days both had a packed agenda of exciting talks, presentations, discussions, and great catering. The agenda was based around celebrating innovation in all its forms using three key tracks:
Learning, teaching, and resources
Research
Leadership and culture
The agenda was so packed, you couldn’t get around everything. Here are some of my highlights from the event and some useful links to follow up if you wanted to know more.
The event started on the Tuesday with Heidi Fraser-Krauss, chief executive of Jisc, welcoming everyone to Digifest 2023.
Heidi Fraser-Krauss, welcoming delegates to Digifest 2023
This was followed by a great keynote presentation from Inma Martinez, a digital pioneer and AI scientist, and a leading authority in the sectors of digital technology and machine intelligence. Since the 1990s, Inma has been a revolutionary figure within the technology industry and has become well known for her talent to create social engagement through technology. She’s been recognised as one of the top 50 AI influencers to follow on Twitter and one of the top 20 women changing the landscape of data.
Inma’s session was called ‘How artificial intelligence will ignite human creativity and help pave the way to human and machine innovation’: AI is making incredible (and fast) inroads into the innovation processes of many creative industries. This session explored how education will benefit from an AI that enhances human creativity, and how the future of innovation is a collaborative sandbox for humans and machine intelligence. The key takeaway from Inma’s session was not to panic. Although Open AI is here and it’s probably not going anywhere, the question is, how we can use it, rather than how is it going to change everything. AI can’t replicate our own imagination and emotional intelligence. Neoteny (a new word for me) is something that only we as humans go through and this how we can use AI to our advantage rather than panicking about how AI might change our industry.
Before lunch (which was very good), I managed to catch three further sessions.
Firstly, a lightning talk called ‘Fostering authentic assessment and feedback to hone 21st-century skills’. In this session, Abdulla Dilimi showcased how TU Dublin, OsloMet, and Deakin University cultivated high-quality feedback and authentic assessment with the help of pedagogical technology. The session was very good. As you’d expect, it was giving high praise to authentic assessment, focusing on how authentic assessment could combat some of the negative aspects of open AI technology; and how personalised feedback is a key benefit to authentic assessment.
The second session was called ‘How green is your campus? Supporting a student friendly, sustainable hybrid campus’. In this 30-minute session Anne Robertson, head of EDINA services, University of Edinburgh, gave a presentation of simple and fast location data solutions that:
Support students to find their way around campus, highlighting sustainable travel solutions and helping them find and book study spaces.
Enable estates colleagues to sustainably and safely manage the physical estate.
Assist with effective energy management, in a hybrid working world.
With the use of campus maps and real time analysis, University of Edinburgh helped students to become greener and get the best out of their time on campus. To maximise the use of university spaces and ensure that students could find a space to study with friends or individually across their vast campus.
The final session before lunch was a session about using virtual reality in teaching and learning practical skills. Josephine Grech, biology lecturer and digital excellence leader from Cardiff and Vale College gave a demonstration of how virtual reality is used in training learners for WorldSkills competitions, but also how it is applied in the classroom to increase engagement and learning outcomes. This was really engaging as a viewer and clearly engaging for the students. It is also student-led and student-developed to enhance the learning for others.
The first session in the afternoon was a keynote panel discussion with:
Paul Burne, customer success/service lead – hybrid edge, Amazon Web Services (AWS);
Karen Cooper, senior director – offer management, Honeywell;
Gareth Piggott, major accounts manager, Fortinet;
Richard Jackson, lead cloud security specialist, Jisc.
The title for the panel was called ‘On the Edge’ and was about a cloud-based programme called Edge Computing. This session was quite interesting and went through the benefits of this product.
The final session of the day was around Micro Credentials and how these have been utilised at Abertay University. They have seemed to get the best out of micro credentials using them across multiple courses in stage one and providing students with skills outside of their discipline.
The second day opened with a truly inspiring keynote presentation by Dr Sue Black, entitled ‘If I can Do It, So Can You’. Sue told the story of her life and career, the ups, the downs, and how by putting herself out of comfort zone, she was able to achieve so much and support so many other women.
Dr Sue Black, delivering her keynote presentation at Digifest 2023
Sue talked about her passion for getting everyone excited about the opportunities that technology offers, how she brought her family out of poverty and built a successful career through education, and a determination to succeed.
This was a great way to start day two of the conference on International Women’s Day.
Here are some links to find out more about Sue, her work and how she saved Bletchley Park:
Tech Up – retraining women from underserved communities into technology careers.
#Techmums – #techmums is here to take the mystery out of technology. Whether it’s helping you to reconnect with old friends via social media, chatting to your child about online safety or finding out how to use technology to help you at work, #techmums can help!
The rest of day two I managed to take in these sessions.
Firstly, Richard Buckley and Kate Whyles from Nottingham College delivered a session called ‘What does that button do?’ Shifting digital culture and growing innovation, engagement, and attainment at Nottingham College. The presentation went through how a small but perfectly formed team of six is at the forefront of developing and promoting a culture of digital curiosity, innovation, and increased collaboration to help drive up standards in teaching, learning and assessment in one of the UK’s largest FE colleges. My key takeaway was the phrase Positive Nuisance, I like that concept. How can you be a nuisance to others but in a way that will positively affect our students.
The second session was about how good AI and using things like the WHO5 can be for supporting students with their mental health and allow us to safeguard our students. Professor Peter Francis, deputy vice-chancellor (academic), Birmingham City University, took us through how their project developed a ‘predictive analytic system’ that integrates data from across university sectors and generates a predicted likelihood score for students experiencing poor wellbeing in the following month.
Implementing a model of student consent for this system, approximately 70% of the student population consented and this predictive system has shown over 80% accuracy in identifying students at risk of poor mental wellbeing. Through this identification they were able to intervene proactively through tailored messages to students that highlight wellbeing services that are proportionate to their level of risk.
The final session before I braved the snow and the long train journey home was about why you should consider student-led learning for your future education.
The session focussed on four key areas to fuel activity and deepen learning for our students. These were:
Challenge
Curiosity
Control
Fantasy
This will help students to develop job-readiness and learn to take responsibility themselves.
Digifest 2023 was a fantastic conference, and I would recommend getting along next year if you can. Please get in touch if you would like to know more, and thank you for reading.
The University Education Development Fund provides grants of up to £10,000 to support the development of new approaches to learning and teaching across Newcastle University.
Two strands of funding are available:
Up to £2,500 for projects focused within an individual academic unit through the Responsive strand.
Up to £10,000 for projects with collaboration across academic units through the Strategic strand.
Chaired by the PVC Education, the fund offers a fantastic opportunity to propose and deliver projects with real benefit to student education. Applications should further the aims and key themes of the Education Strategy.
We are pleased to announce the launch of the University process to determine our nominees for the 2023 National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) and Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) Scheme.
The NTF Scheme is a highly prestigious award celebrating excellent practice and outstanding achievement in learning and teaching in higher education. The awards support professional development in learning and teaching and provide a national focus for institutional teaching and learning excellence schemes. The CATE awards celebrate collaborative work that has had a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning.
In previous years, Newcastle University has had 16 NTFs awarded and three CATE award winning teams. Read more from previous year’s National Teaching Fellows and CATE award winners.
Nominations are welcomed from all members of staff who feel their/their team’s work has a major, positive impact on student teaching and learning. Staff and teams who would like to be considered need to submit a maximum of 1000 words which address the following criteria:
Your personal practice/Your team’s practice and why this should be recognised as outstanding
Your/your team’s impact on colleagues, both internally and externally
Your reflection on the above.
Nominations should be sent electronically to ltds@ncl.ac.uk by 12pm on Friday 11 November 2022.
