Talking and thinking together about AI and higher education
I launched this Substack last month to share my research into the intersections of AI and higher education. At the same time I wanted to spark conversation on the topic, because I firmly believe that’s a great way to learn and to advance public understanding. This seems to be succeeding within Substack, as people have written thoughtful comments on the platform in response to my posts so far.
At the same time we know that internet conversations cross platforms. Someone writes a blog post, someone else tweets about it, a reaction springs up on LinkedIn, the argument pops up on YouTube and podcasts, and so on.
I’d like to encourage that cross-platform discussion today by linking this Substack to relevant commentary on another one of my projects.
The Future Trends Forum is a weekly video discussion program. Since 2016 we’ve conducted live sessions on a range of topics concerning the future of higher education, from demographics to economics, pedagogy to leadership, academic mental health to geopolitics. Each session usually focuses on one or several experts with particular expertise on one part of higher ed’s unfolding future.
A key feature of the Forum is that sessions are not presentations, nor do I dominate each event as an interviewer. Instead, these are open conversations driven by participants. The audience asks the questions and puts forth comments; I’m just the facilitator and organizer.
We record each session and post them to YouTube, so you can find the archive of >360 videos here. We also break down the archive into topics, so you can browse that index right here.
Naturally we’ve held sessions on AI and education for years, including one on an innovative AI writing education program and a converastion with an IBM research scientist on AI tutors. Since generative AI took off last year, we’ve held a series of Forum sessions, which have turned out to be well attended live and widely watched on our YouTube archive:
Today we’re hosting one such expert on digital equity to explore equity, AI, and higher education. Dr. Maha Bali, (blog, Twitter, Mastodon) is professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at The American University in Cairo, as well as Equity Unbound's co-facilitator and co-organizer of MyFest.
You can register for the event here, or just jump in at 2 pm EDT with this link:
I’d be delighted if you can join us. If you’re new to the Forum, I’d be happy to answer questions about it.
At a meta- (not Meta-) level, I’m interested in your thoughts and suggestions about this kind of cross-platform conversation on AI and higher education’s future. Are there other guests we should invite to the Forum? Are there other platforms we should work in?
Hi Bryan - I hope readers who have found you here on Substack check out the FTF. The recent discussion I found most powerful was "What should academics do about climate change?" with Dougald Hine. I watched the whole thing twice and still think about it often.
Have you ever done any data analysis of the stats for FTF sessions? Just scanning the titles in the YouTube archive, I'm amazed at the variety of topics you've covered, and I'd be interested to know what kinds of patterns you might uncover in terms of number of participants, views of recordings, etc.
And in addition to all the terrific content, you've built a wonderful community of curious, engaged, and supportive colleagues. It's very inspiring!