Launching the AutomatED Tech and AI Learning Community
A new space for in-depth dialogue and resources on tech and AI in higher ed.
Graham Clay
August 02, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
[image created with Dall-E 2 via Bing’s Image Creator]
Welcome to AutomatED: the newsletter on how to teach better with tech.
Each week, I share what I have learned — and am learning — about AI and tech in the university classroom. What works, what doesn't, and why.
In today’s edition, I announce the launch of the AutomatED learning community.
I am excited to report that the AutomatED learning community is now live!
But what is it?
First, the learning community is a place for you to engage with other professors, teaching and learning experts, administrators, and higher ed stakeholders on topics related to tech and AI.
There are three discussion sections:
“Ask Questions and Brainstorm” - This is a primarily forward-looking space where we ask questions and help each other out; the goal is to explore what we can do and what we should do.
“Reflect on What Worked (or Didn’t)” - This is a primarily backward-looking space; the goal is to reexamine, reevaluate, and analyze what we have done so that we all can gain insights from what worked and what didn’t. Tell us about your successes, failures, and everything in between!
“AutomatED Newsletter Pieces” - This is where you can discuss the latest AutomatED newsletter pieces with other learning community members and the AutomatED team.
Shoutout to Kirsten Helmer for inspiring the pairing of a brainstorming section with a reflections section!
A reflection of mine.
In the near future, we plan to expand the dialogic aspect of the learning community by adding live streams, webinars, and courses from domain experts.
Second, the learning community is a resource repository that is full of guides, tutorials, how-tos, lists, and databases concerning tech and AI tools.
We have guides and tutorials for teaching students with AI, using AI to grade, using technology to reduce administrative work, addressing AI plagiarism, and drafting institutional policies.
These will be developed by both the AutomatED team — building on our past work on these topics, some of which is linked above — and by the community.
On August 16, the AutomatED team will release a comprehensive guide for the fall semester that will live in the learning community’s resource repository and that will be updated before every upcoming semester.
We are also curating lists of software and information on them, whether it is text-generating AI tools, image-generating ones, tools that improve our productivity, or even Canvas apps. Members can submit tools to be added to the lists and provide how-tos on their functionalities.
The learning community menu.
To become a member of the learning community, all you need to do is refer two other people to subscribe to the AutomatED newsletter/blog. After you have made these referrals, you will get an invite link via email.
We think the learning community will benefit most from engaged users who are familiar with AutomatED, and we want to incentivize people to get “involved” rather than simply lurking.
To make a referral, simply click the button below or copy and paste the provided link into an email. (Remember, if you don't see the referral section below, you'll need to subscribe and/or log in first.)
We hope to see you in the learning community soon. Come to learn, and come to share your insights, experiences, questions, and tips! Anything and everything related to tech, AI, and higher education is fair game.
