I was delighted to speak with Cristi Ford, D2L’s VP of Academic Affairs, about durable skills and AI in higher education. You can find the episode in all the usual places:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-teaching-skills-can-complement-the-use-of-ai/id1663544722?i=1000649960964
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1iYsMHqAKXzts9i4skDHPE
YouTube (audio only): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE6bbJHSa-A
Cristi is a delightful, thoughtful educator and a pleasure to talk with about these important issues. (Side note: D2L is building up a very impressive staff roster. They have more people I would gladly share a meal with—and more that I would call my personal friends—than any other company in EdTech today.)
The podcast flowed directly from a talk I gave at a D2L Ignite conference in Orlando, which, I’m gratified to say, has brought me more meaningful feedback and new connections than any talk I’ve given in a long time. We often talk aspirationally about AI being a humanizing technology. In my talk, I start by putting the idea of rapid change, including AI, in the context of humans learning from other humans. The heart of the talk is my own deeply personal story about how ChatGPT helped me cope with a terrible crisis. And I close by arguing that teaching skills are durable skills. Cristi was in the audience. Much of our podcast conversation elaborates on some of those themes in what was a packed 45-minute talk.
Below, you can see my original talk, recorded for my hospitalized sister on my iPhone.
