Ice to Water - Exploring Biotechnology through Virtual Reality

It was an honor to present this paper, Ice to water: Exploring biotechnology through virtual reality at the 35th EdMedia + Innovate Learning Conference (by AACE) in Vienna Austria this week. A special thank you to my co-authors for their hard work and contributions to the paper (Ahbi and Mustafa!).

Ice to water: Exploring biotechnology through virtual reality
(Sean Leahy, Mustafa Demir, & Abhishek Singharoy)

Paper Abstract

The BioSense Network has developed a new generation of a virtual computational microscope using virtual reality (VR) to bring the wonders of the microscopic world of biotechnology to a mainstream audience. Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense National Defense Education Program (DOD NDEP), the BioSense Network aims to build sustainable biotechnology programs for middle and high schools by redefining the approach to biotechnology learning in the K-12 environment enabling learners to experience the behavior and interactions of molecules in a simulated first-hand experience in virtual reality.

TPACK and the Cambrian explosion of AI

Cambrian Explosion of AI

Unlocking New Possibilities for Education with Neural Network-Based Models

The 2023 SITE conference provided a great opportunity to launch a short paper into publication that had been bubbling up since late 2022. Generative AI - a topic that is never far from the top of news feeds at the moment. Specifically, this paper was intended to approach the conversation in way that aims to cool the wild speculation around the hyperbole of Generative AI in education - and remind ourselves that with all new and emergent technology innovations and disruptions comes an ecological change… and while this change may have lots of affordances and constraints that need to be examined, explored, and deeply considered… we have existing technological, pedagogical, content knowledge frameworks that can help us navigate this new era of Generative AI in education.

TPACK and the Cambrian explosion of AI
Sean Leahy, Punya Mishra

Abstract
The Cambrian explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) powered tools has raised important questions about their use in education. The TPACK framework address the knowledge and skills that educators need to effectively integrate such emergent technologies into their current and future learning environments. As technologies continue to rapidly evolve, TPACK must likewise adapt to new eco-technological changes. The recent emergence of freely available AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT have the potential to revolutionize education. In this brief paper we examine the use of AI powered tools using neural network-based models in education and how the TPACK framework can be applied to consider the implications of these technologies on teaching and learning. We also explore the opportunities for educators to create new, authentic, and deeper learning experiences in their learning environments using AI tools, while also considering the potential risks and challenges.

Futures Futures Futures - ShapingEDU GCSS23

In February I was invited to present a handful of lectures and workshops to the ShapingEDU community at the ShapingEDU Global Community Solutioneering Summit 2023. The event was split over several days, starting with a virtual component where I presented a short lecture on Becoming A Citizen Futurist.

“
What could we accomplish together that we couldn’t accomplish alone?

For this event, we chose the theme of Education As Jazz. The Smithsonian Institute eloquently summarized the importance of jazz: “Often acclaimed as America’s greatest art form, jazz has become accepted as a living expression of the nation’s history and culture, still youthful, difficult to define and impossible to contain, a music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists.””

— Shaping ShapingEDU GCSS23

February 16 - Virtual Component

Lecture on Becoming A Citizen Futurist: Preparing for Uncertainty (a few select slides shared below)

February 23 - In Person Conference Event

Lecture on Educating for Sustainable Futures: Scanning the Futures Horizon (select images from presentation)

February 24 - In Person Workshop

Workshop on Strategic Foresight (Becoming a Citizen Futurist). This workshop focused on using the Axes of Uncertainty as an introductory foresight tool. This session was also followed up by an extended Q&A session of “Ask a futurist” where I fielded a wide range of questions from the conference participants. (A few select slides shared below)

The Futures of Learning in the Fourth Industrial Revolution - Keynote

On July 11, 2019 I had the pleasure to address the audience of the Global Learn 2019 Conference in Princeton New Jersey with a keynote focused around a growing area of my research on the preferable, plausible, and possible futures of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The keynote titled ‘The Futures of Learning in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ took the audience through an exploration of the challenges to the traditional educational system presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR), and presented three different vignettes of emerging technology that will drive the need for educators, technologists, and leaders to understand how to leverage these new disruptive technologies to work towards the ‘preferred’ futures of their organizations.

The technology vignettes that I discussed in this keynote were: Open Learning & Smart Materials, Augmented Reality (AR), and Artificial Intelligence in education (AIEd). Each vignette presented the audience with examples of these categories of technology disruptions and the opportunities they present the current systems of education in terms of how we think about the role and intersection of technology and learning. While these technologies give hope to a wide range of new possibilities, they are not without their concerns, and not all technologies are welcomed.

To address this issue I also discussed the role of working to identify the ‘unintended’ consequences of emerging technology through the theoretical metaphor of the Black Swan Theory. Through this theoretical methodology, leaders are encouraged to work to understand the deeper levels of impact that adopting various technologies may have on a given population. A repeated quote from the lecture derived from my published work (Leahy, Holland, & Ward (2019):

“Technologies are not neutral entities, they are values-laden, and become culturally embodied when integrated into practice, and as a result have the capacity to restrict or transform learning”

— Leahy, Holland, & Ward (2019)

The keynote concludes by addressing the use of a Futures Studies framework approach to working towards the possible, probable, and preferable futures as described by Wendell Bell (1977).

INTED 2017 Conference Presentation

It was with great pleasure that I was able to present our paper on the use of podcasting to enhance and enrich international education along with some wonderful colleagues at the 11th International Technology, Education and Development Conference in Valencia Spain.  

We had a wonderful round of discussions and questions from the conference session attendees, and it was so inspiring to hear how many other educators are looking to integrate a project of this type to enrich the student learning experiences.  I can speak for the group when I say that we are looking forward to continuing the development of the project and will be sharing our "toolkit" soon under a Creative Commons License to ensure that it stays open and accessible to anyone who would like to adapt an integrate this type of project.

The International Podcast Project Team
Dr. Sean Leahy (Webster University Leiden Campus)
Prof Kit Jenkins (Webster University St. Louis Campus)
Julie Smith (Webster University St. Louis Campus)
Dr. Brad Wiggins (Webster University Vienna Campus)
Francesco Arese Visconti (Webster University Geneva)

“INTED is one of the largest international education conferences for lecturers, researchers, technologists and professionals from the educational sector. After 10 years, it has become a reference event where more than 700 experts from 80 countries will get together to present their projects and share their knowledge on teaching and learning methodologies, educational innovations and experiences in technology and development. ”

— https://iated.org/inted/

Our paper was entitled: INTERNATIONAL PODCAST PROJECT: USING PODCASTS TO ENRICH AND ENHANCE EXPERIENCES IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION.

Abstract
The purpose of this oral presentation is to share information on the outcomes of an international collaboration involving student-produced podcasts as a course requirement. This project took place across multiple campuses in the global network of Webster University. Students and instructors participated from the following campuses: St. Louis, Missouri (the university’s home campus), Leiden, The Netherlands, Geneva, Switzerland, and Cha-Am, Thailand, and Vienna, Austria. Podcasting has increasingly become a useful tool in nearly all aspects of learning, but perhaps even more so when students produce the podcasts as part of a course assignment (Ashraf, Noroozi, & Salami, 2011; Çölkesen & Bedir, 2016; Forbes, 2011). The concept of the International Podcast Project was to provide an active learning experience in which students participate in a global media project by choosing a topic related to media and society, research their topic, develop a short audio program in the form of a podcast and publish their work along with their fellow classmates from the participating international campus locations. A main goal of this project was to provide a common cross-site academic activity that all Webster University campus locations could participate in. This project is intended to be an independent modular assignment / activity that can be adopted by any media (related) course, and therefore is not limited to a specific course offering, but can be adopted by faculty in which this assignment meets a curricular goal or active learning experience. Finally, the presentation offers best practices when designing a project that involves differences in terms of location, culture, resource, technological proficiency, and time zones. Attendees will benefit from hearing about challenges and opportunities that were encountered and the solutions that emerged from group discussion and collegial collaboration. While the project itself was developed by instructors who teach courses in media, many of the students involved in the project were not media majors or had little to no prior knowledge of how to produce a podcast. This presentation will also address how to mitigate such possibilities.

References:
[1] Ashraf, H., Noroozi, S., & Salami, M. (2011). E-listening: The Promotion of EFL Listening Skill via Educational Podcasts. 6th International Conference on e-Learning (p. 10-16). Canada: University of British Columbia Okanagan.
[2] Çölkesen, D., & Bedir, G. (2016). The use of student-produced educational podcasts in foreign language vocabulary teaching. International Journal of Research in Education and Social Science 1, (3), 2415-2528
[3] Forbes, D. (2011). Beyond Lecture Capture: Student-generated Podcasts in Teacher Education. Waikato Journal of Education, 51-63.

Keywords: International collaboration, podcasts in education, student-oriented learning.