6
- URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyZaUw-QK_o
- Channel:
- Fetched: 2026-07-12T11:31:12+00:00
- Language: English
Transcript
[00:00] 5 years after the COVID pandemic caused
many educational systems to rush to online
[00:04] learning we’re now back to a world where most
learning is done in physical environments but
[00:08] is there still some momentum for online
learning remote learning and using new
[00:12] digital tools especially in the era of
artificial intelligence we’re going to
[00:16] talk about these issues and others with
a university expert and find out what’s
[00:19] new and whether employees looking to upscale
can take advantage of these new tools [Music]
[00:34] hi everybody welcome to Today in Tech i’m
Keith Shaw joining me on the show today is
[00:37] uh Evan Crop he is the executive director of
distance education for the University of Florida’s
[00:43] College of Journalism and Communications that’s
a really long title welcome to the show Evan uh
[00:47] thank you that’s not even the whole title so Oh
wow is it is it is it like the school has is a
[00:52] sponsored name on it too like the the Joe Smith
University of Yeah we we don’t have a name if
[00:58] anybody wants to you know put their name on the
building I’m sure our dean would be happy to do
[01:01] that all right so for the sake of this discussion
I want to we when we talked before the show there
[01:07] was some confusion about the you know the terms
of online learning digital learning that kind
[01:11] of stuff i want to kind of I want to cover the
whole uh the whole range of different tools but
[01:16] um online learning from my perspective implies
that a person is attending a class in a remote
[01:21] location somewhere that’s you know far away from
not far away but not on you on campus right yep
[01:28] okay digital learning that implies tools and
technologydriven innovations that help students
[01:33] learn regardless of their setting or location
okay so you can learn you can use digital tools
[01:39] on campus but it’s not an online thing yes right
okay uh are there other definitions that you see
[01:45] out there when when when you’re talking about uh
the ways I guess and again in university settings
[01:50] but this can also apply to high school and and
elementary school too right yeah certainly and the
[01:55] one phrase that we use is distance education uh a
lot of people aren’t happy with the term distance
[02:01] education because it is old it was used back
during the times of correspondence courses okay
[02:08] so now everybody’s kind of floating more towards
the online education so we talk about online we
[02:13] talk about onampus and we talk about hybrid those
are the three primary classifications that we
[02:18] generally use okay um but then also digital
tools i mean do you get involved in that a
[02:23] aut in two ways well more than two ways uh two
areas so the first one is on campus digital tools
[02:33] in the physical classroom is a thing uh it’s not
just showing up with your iPad or your laptop to
[02:41] take notes there are tools out there that will
allow class to be interactive so for a long time
[02:46] now uh clickers have been a thing and instead
of purchasing clickers now a lot of the digital
[02:50] tools allow you to do it on your iPhone so the
students come to class they already have a phone
[02:55] they can participate in class this will do things
like for example in a lecture the instructor can
[03:00] ask a question the students can log on answer the
poll on their phone see the results and then the
[03:05] the instructor can talk about those results right
um so that is a digital tool we can also use the
[03:10] digital tools in online classes um obviously
a clicker in that in that scenario wouldn’t
[03:16] work but a online poll would work uh we use online
discussion boards we have a suite of tools doing a
[03:24] lot of things that enable us to teach online right
and and were a lot of these tools developed after
[03:30] the pandemic before the pandemic probably before
and then they they you know took off because of
[03:35] the pandemic yeah um they were developed I mean
not all but the majority of the tools that I use
[03:41] were uh in place already prior to the pandemic i
think the pandemic certainly for some companies
[03:48] increased demand and all of the sudden people
realized ooh we need that tool and some of the
[03:54] edte providers were actually a little bit slow
to respond there’s all of a sudden an influx
[04:00] of potential customers and for a smaller edtech
company for example how can they deal with that
[04:06] big uh influx of of potential customers because
it’s not just hey here’s a tool go and use it it’s
[04:12] also here’s a tool here’s how you use it here’s
how you implement it where do you put it into the
[04:18] class how do you train the faculty how do you get
the students on board to using it there is a lot
[04:24] so it’s not like during the pandemic people could
just flip a switch and go “Hey now we’re online
[04:28] and using these tools.” That’s what everybody
did i mean right well that’s what they claimed
[04:32] to do uh the online experts pushed back right
after the pandemic everybody started saying “Hey
[04:40] uh we taught online we shifted to online learning
we like this online learning we’re going to do
[04:45] it.” It was not online learning that they shifted
to what we say now is uh onampus programs did a
[04:52] uh emergency remote teaching oh okay so we’re
trying to classify the difference between what
[04:59] the learning was and how it was structured and
put in place during the pandemic versus what
[05:04] we had place in place before and after we don’t
really necessarily want to continue on with that
[05:10] emergency remote model it was created quickly
okay it allowed us to fill the gap of everybody
[05:17] going home and needing to continue learning in
that semester but beyond that it didn’t offer
[05:23] that many benefits that we would continue with
that model instead we’re trying to take people
[05:28] from that model and introduce them to the actual
models of online learning right so that that that
[05:33] would have been my next question is is that we
saw like this big spike and then you know now
[05:38] 5 years later at least in my experience you know
there’s very little online learning that’s going
[05:43] on but again this is the the high school level and
the elementary school level they were like “Get
[05:47] the kids back in as quickly as possible.” Um did
have you seen it in in in the college environment
[05:52] where more people were attracted to moving from
that emergency access you know the the emergency
[05:58] what would you call it emergency emergency remote
teaching emergency remote teaching to now phasing
[06:03] into a real online learning platform or did those
go away too um or the people that had it still use
[06:10] it but but they was there an upswing on on online
learning after the pandemic there’s definitely an
[06:16] upswing in the number of schools attempting to go
into the online marketplace a lot of the schools
[06:23] who started the emergency remote teaching who
may not have been online already are saying “Hey
[06:27] you know let’s continue with this let’s put some
more effort into it and and keep moving forward.”
[06:32] I would not say that there was a spike that then
went down in higher ed i think there was a spike
[06:39] it dropped a little bit but online enrollments are
still up uh compared to pre- pandemic numbers so
[06:47] there there is a upward trajectory right now in my
college for example uh we have 2500 or so students
[06:54] between onampus online undergraduate and graduate
uh 48% of our students are now learning online
[07:02] uh that’s a really big percentage of students
and for schools like ours the importance now is
[07:09] how do you manage you’re used to managing the
onampus students you have your processes in
[07:13] place you have your faculty in place everything is
humming along wonderfully then you add this online
[07:19] component what do you do how do you implement it
how do you launch it uh was there something there
[07:24] already or not so there’s a lot of questions to
continue everybody got forced in the pandemic to
[07:30] do that whether they continue learning and moving
forward or going back is really the question on a
[07:35] school by school basis but definitely increased
enrollment i’d like to think that there’s an
[07:40] analogy between um what what a lot of corporations
are doing with their they sent everybody home as
[07:46] well and there was a remote work and then we saw
you know some return to office u initiatives and
[07:51] there was hybrid and things like that so are you
seeing a hybrid any hybrid models out there where
[07:57] uh a professor could be like all right I want
most pe you know we’re going to we’re going to
[08:01] be back on campus for some things but then other
things we are going to adopt an online learning
[08:05] thing or is it just one or the other it’s it’s you
know depending on the the professor it’s either on
[08:10] campus in a classroom or completely online yeah
it it it’s not one or the other it should not
[08:17] be one or the other we should we should embrace
all learning methods uh and and ways to deliver
[08:25] lessons or information to students that fits them
and suits them yeah so is a student going to be in
[08:33] the on-ampus program do an emergency remote
teaching and then go “Oh my god this online
[08:37] thing is wonderful i’m going to stick with it.”
Maybe maybe not do we want them all to no we don’t
[08:42] what we tell students is that they should choose
online or on campus based on their learning styles
[08:50] okay so some people do really well online they’re
self-motivated they understand how to create a
[08:55] schedule they can answer questions for themselves
they work let’s say during the day so they want
[09:00] nighttime uh to be available to study wonderful
that works really well you take a 21-year-old
[09:06] who is you know just off to college and used to
showing up into like a high school classroom and
[09:12] then a college classroom they may not want to
move online they want to show up and say “Hey
[09:16] I’m forced to show up in a classroom from 8 to
10:00 a.m and if they didn’t force me I wouldn’t
[09:20] actually show up.” That student’s probably not
going to do so well online the question now here
[09:25] is what you mentioned the hybrid in the middle and
that is a different type of teaching than online
[09:31] or on campus so as we’re trying to train faculty
and develop courses for online me personally we’ve
[09:40] dipped our toes into hybrid we’ve not fully gone
in that direction yet because I don’t feel like
[09:44] you can go in 10 different directions at a time
you need to focus on one make sure it’s high
[09:48] quality keep moving forward with that one and
then move into something else so we are seeing
[09:54] the the the hybrid i think the challenge is like
I mentioned on the learning the students what do
[10:00] they want where are they going to succeed best
in which model and can we serve that and deliver
[10:06] that to them in a way in which it works yeah and
I’m glad you you helped me redefine the the term
[10:11] for online learning that was experienced during
the pandemic into this emergency remote teaching
[10:17] because my experience with our kids and they were
in high school at the time was was just awful yeah
[10:22] um and and it felt like and then I ended up
retaking 8th grade and sixth grade basically
[10:27] because I was helping them with this it was it it
just felt like it was an online platform they had
[10:32] uh it was a PowerPoint i mean every every subject
or every module was watch a PowerPoint watch a
[10:39] video and then take a quiz right and so those
were the three components and then you just
[10:43] did the same thing every day y and so the next
day another PowerPoint another video and and you
[10:48] know and then they had five different classes to
do this in and by the end of it it was like I was
[10:53] just sitting there helping them and be like “Yeah
this is what he’s trying to teach you or this is
[10:56] what they’re trying to teach you.” Like so tell me
about how online learning is different like you’re
[11:02] not just watching PowerPoints you’re not just you
know taking quizzes i have the same problem with
[11:07] security training at corporate you know kind of
platforms where they just be like you will pass
[11:12] our security training if you just watch this video
take a quiz at the end it’s like well did I really
[11:17] learn anything so what we saw during the pandemic
in this emergency remote teaching were faculty
[11:24] members who had not already many faculty members
I don’t want to speak in grand generalizations but
[11:29] but many faculty members who did not buy into
online learning who were forced to go online
[11:35] or ones who bought into it but maybe didn’t have
the time or energy so what we saw when everybody
[11:40] scrambled to go online was that these faculty
members knew how to teach in person so basically
[11:46] they took their in-person class and moved it into
the digital area instead of giving a lecture in
[11:52] person they gave a lecture on Zoom and they put
the recording up they took their PowerPoint they
[11:57] put their PowerPoint up that was it that’s not
learning on that’s not quality online learning
[12:03] right that’s taking you know campus and throwing
it online we don’t like to claim that as online
[12:08] learning so So what are the features of now online
learning that that can benefit students yeah so
[12:14] most importantly we talk about course design
uh course design and the effort that goes into
[12:19] creating a quality online course is substantially
different for online than in person what we find
[12:25] in person very often are faculty members who are
experts in their area who are given a class and
[12:32] told to go teach it and those faculty members
say okay you know I’m going to cover this topic
[12:37] that topic and we’re going to go and we’re going
to see how it how it works out and at the end of
[12:41] the semester you get an evaluation from the
students the administrators look at it and
[12:44] they go “Good job keep going.” There’s there’s a
lot of freedom there and a lot of questions about
[12:52] okay here’s a faculty member who got a bachelor’s
a master’s a PhD who’s doing research probably
[12:59] uh they’re an expert in their field but did they
ever take a class on teaching right no did they
[13:04] ever take a class on course design no do we expect
them to no so so how do we fill this gap and and
[13:11] one of the things is the introduction of uh course
developers instructional designers instructional
[13:17] technologists so these are the individuals who
can go out and learn about learning styles and
[13:23] different edte tools that they want to integrate
into classrooms and present those to the faculty
[13:29] as options when they build the class so the class
becomes a collaborative development among multiple
[13:37] stakeholders and really what that’s doing is
that’s allowing us to make sure for example
[13:42] there’s no wasted time it used to drive me nuts
i’d go to a class and the faculty member would
[13:47] tell stories and talk about and I’m like okay
it’s 20 minutes into a 45minute class what are
[13:52] what are we doing here what are we learning
you can take everything and you can compress
[13:56] it condense it and deliver it in multiple ways
so for us first of all like online learning is
[14:01] accessible if done correctly so anybody who is
visually impaired or has hearing issues should
[14:08] be able to log into a class and be able to take
that class and complete it the same as any other
[14:13] student okay so this allows us the opportunity to
build classes that meet those students needs okay
[14:20] is there still a separation between the the types
of college students that might be uh more into
[14:25] onampus learning uh versus uh maybe someone who’s
taking the online classes and again I’ve I’ve I’ve
[14:31] just seen this from marketing materials it feels
like from the online learning area you’re always
[14:38] looking at you know students that are probably
working um you know they’re like “Oh the single
[14:43] mom who doesn’t have time to work cuz she’s taking
care of her kids and so she takes classes at night
[14:47] online.” Things like that is is that is that still
there or is it more melding now so that you know
[14:54] my my son who’s about to graduate um he is going
to an in-person college but you know are they
[15:01] going to start marketing towards the high school
students because you know maybe it’s less e it’s
[15:07] is it more economical or is it about the same I
mean it’s still a college yeah so sorry I threw
[15:13] like three questions at you at once sorry I’ll
start with the who are these students yeah who
[15:17] are the students typically and And realistically
uh the students in online programs are usually
[15:23] considered non-traditional students so as you said
these would be either uh 18 to 22 year olds who
[15:29] are not following a traditional path as we know it
of you know show up on campus your freshman year
[15:34] stay for four years graduate go get a job right uh
these could be individuals who are working who are
[15:40] maintaining other responsibilities who also want
to continue and and accomplish school as they go
[15:45] um we’re seeing an increase in those students the
traditional students who are looking for online
[15:50] programs some want that flexibility some realize
they’re they’re better at learning online okay um
[15:57] and we’re also seeing the trai the non-traditional
students um continuing to show up and we’re
[16:06] looking at um some college degree individuals
uh especially for online undergraduate programs
[16:14] there’s about 40 million people in the United
States who have some credits but did not achieve
[16:22] a degree okay and and for us you know let’s
not waste that time or money that you put in
[16:27] let’s go ahead and help you finish up and you know
that’s where the big dogs are making their their
[16:32] play so the Southern New Hampshire Arizona Purdue
Western Governors with their competencybased model
[16:39] you know they’re going after those learners
and they’re going after them in mass so will
[16:44] the numbers of traditional college students ever
catch up to those numbers no yeah with 40 million
[16:50] against about 14 million okay um college freshmen
going to school for the first time this year it’s
[16:57] not as um attractive I guess for the schools to go
after let’s go after the bigger bucket let’s get
[17:04] these learners in and and there’s a flexibility
that’s offered with that as well which is great
[17:09] because no longer do we have these really clear
set degree paths there’s students coming in with
[17:15] all sorts of credits and experiences and whatnot
so we give them credit for experiences and work
[17:21] or not right uh prior learning credit is is what
that would go under a classification of so there’s
[17:27] a lot of questions but that’s also Yeah i mean
that’s also an appeal to someone maybe who’s
[17:31] been working for 5 to 10 years in in an industry
and they they feel like well this is not going
[17:35] anywhere this isn’t what I want to do maybe I
should go back to school um not necessarily to
[17:40] get a master’s degree but maybe look at another
program and and things like that i mean obviously
[17:44] I could get a master’s degree if I wanted to not
journalism though i don’t think but but is that
[17:50] that is something that could be an appeal for for
a university right to to say “Hey you don’t have
[17:55] to come back on campus we understand that you’re
still working and and obviously but come back and
[18:00] you know maybe look at some other programs that
you weren’t able to look at before right?” Yeah
[18:03] oh absolutely i mean look I’m at the University of
Florida we’re in Gainesville it’s in North North
[18:08] Florida for for if you want to live in Florida and
be as far away from the beach as possible come to
[18:13] Gainesville you have trees yes we have beautiful
trees um you know the the difference is that
[18:20] we have for example graduates who finish their
bachelor’s degree and live throughout the state
[18:25] and want to come back to us for a master’s degree
but they live in Tampa Orlando Miami so it just
[18:30] does not make sense for them to come to campus
uh those online classes allow us to extend our
[18:35] reach into other areas i will say there’s a lot of
smaller reasons why people choose online programs
[18:41] and and they may be valid or they may not so your
example there of somebody who has 5 years of work
[18:46] experience great that’s very common uh type of
student that we’ll see and I laugh but they’ll
[18:53] talk to me and and I’ll say oh you know why online
well I’m 29 years old i’m so old i could never sit
[19:00] in a college classroom with 19 year olds and I’m
going you’re 29 my average age in my program is 30
[19:05] and they go wow really and you go yeah so there
are these misconceptions that people have that
[19:10] I’m too old to be in a classroom there’s also um
sometimes people are planning out their couple of
[19:16] years so I’ll talk to a lot of undergraduates who
are graduating at the University of Florida and
[19:21] they want to stay in Gainesville but um they want
to keep their future flexible so by staying in
[19:28] Gainesville and actually taking an online program
instead of an on-ampus program if they get a job
[19:33] offer somewhere else they pick up and leave
and they never have to miss a beat with their
[19:37] with their degree program so people are trying to
leverage the flexibility of the online programs um
[19:45] which works great because you know they’re as
good or better than many onampus programs and
[19:50] and 10 years ago I don’t know if we could have
necessarily said that right and and are you also
[19:54] seeing the some of the demographic shifts that
are going on with the number of 18 year olds is
[19:59] as I think starting like next year or very soon um
it’s going to start dropping in the US at least is
[20:05] there’s going to be fewer and fewer 18y olds that
are going to be entering college at some point so
[20:10] at some point it has to be almost a competitive
uh situation for many of these universities right
[20:15] i’m seeing stories of smaller schools that are
shutting down yep um because they just can’t
[20:19] get the enrollment that they were looking for and
so I’m wondering if online is is a way that maybe
[20:23] they can they can appeal to some students that
they weren’t going to appeal to before yeah there
[20:28] has been a tremendous increase in the number of
schools that are closing or consolidating I do not
[20:36] think that online education is an answer for uh us
to be able to keep schools open i really I really
[20:43] don’t um those schools very often are serving
those traditional 18 to 22 year olds and as we
[20:50] just discussed those are not necessarily the big
enrollment groups yeah that we’re seeing in online
[20:59] education so oh I was I was trying to see if there
was a a way where you guys could could grow your
[21:03] program but you’re also come and save everybody
you’re also University of Florida I don’t think
[21:07] you have too much of a problem attracting
potential no I I think we had an undergraduate
[21:13] there was close to 100,000 uh applications for the
onampus program last year for 20,000ish spots wow
[21:21] yeah wow uh all right so I want to shift gears a
little bit um you know we’ve also seen the rise
[21:25] of generative AI over the last last 5 years um has
initial fear of tools anytime I get an academic in
[21:32] I always got to ask him have has the fear about
tools like chatpt gone away and and now we’re
[21:37] seeing students and and professors and teachers
um embracing it more uh cuz I still see stories
[21:42] about no you can’t use chat GBT that’s cheating
and then there was a story about I think people
[21:47] in Nor Eastern are are trying to get their tuition
back because the professor used it y I was like
[21:52] wow that’s that’s amazing that they would do that
like you know you know but also using other tools
[21:57] like Grammarly and things like that are you seeing
a rise in tools right grammarly is AI based and
[22:04] you know should we say don’t use it no the foreign
language departments the students who want to go
[22:08] on Dulingo and practice their Spanish Portuguese
French whatever it may be we’re not going to tell
[22:12] them not to use that the problem with AI as I see
it right now or not the problem but the challenge
[22:18] is that it’s scary and a lot of the faculty
members you’re looking at them and you’re saying
[22:23] “Hey it’s time to upskill.” You’re looking at
the administrators and you’re saying “We need to
[22:26] figure out how to put this into the curriculum do
we put an I AI class in every major do we thread
[22:33] it throughout the curriculum so it’s not just in
one class but it’s touching every topic and the
[22:39] challenge in doing that is you have these experts
in a field who are creating these courses but all
[22:45] of a sudden here’s this new tool so they need to
reach out more to their advisory boards and their
[22:50] alums who are working in the field and say “How
are you using these tools?” So the first thing
[22:55] that we need to get better at as higher education
is figuring out how the tools are being used in
[23:01] our areas and then teaching the students that I
think the the knee-jerk reaction to no you can’t
[23:07] use AI is bad i I think also if you think back to
computers when computers and laptops start first
[23:15] started being a thing it was no computers in my
classroom could you imagine today no computers
[23:20] in my classroom utterly ridiculous i was on the
cusp of the early days of the computers in the
[23:25] classroom when when I was at school and I don’t
think there was resistance to them i just think
[23:30] that a lot of them just didn’t know how to use
them or like how am I can how can I use this to
[23:35] teach something in journalism for example or are
you cheating are you recording me is it cheating
[23:40] to type notes instead of handwrite notes are you
looking up additional information you know there
[23:45] were a lot of questions and a lot of unfound
when the internet came around too that was a
[23:48] probably a big thing too right right and then of
course it went into are you just on Facebook and
[23:53] Instagram instead of instead of in class um but
but AI I think is incredibly important for for
[23:59] really any area and where I think I’ve seen the
most use of AI in higher education right now has
[24:06] been in the course development and the digital
tools that we’re using to to build these classes
[24:12] that are going out to students so for example for
our online courses we want every usually we’ll
[24:18] say one module equals one week so we build out a
content module and we introduce that module so we
[24:24] go welcome to week three you are going to learn
this but we want a really robust introduction
[24:31] we want to tell the students what they’ve been
learning what they’re going to learn here how the
[24:35] two concepts connect to each other we want to tell
them that we’ve curated all these resources and in
[24:41] which order they should read them and what they
should be looking out for within each uh resource
[24:45] that we’ve curated for them and we can now use
AI in course development to take the instructor’s
[24:53] paragraph or two that they’ve written and expand
on it make sure that it’s clear make sure that
[24:58] it’s it’s written to the right accessible level
for the students to understand and know what’s
[25:04] the expectation of them so I I love the fact that
we’re seeing it behind the scenes we need to do
[25:10] better in the classroom and guiding and teaching
students just how to use it and like you my son
[25:17] was a freshman this year and I told him I said
“Do not shy away from AI but do not let it do your
[25:22] work for you i want you to write your paper and
then you put it into AI and you see how you can
[25:27] improve it if you’re stuck with an idea tell it
you’re stuck and see where you can keep moving.”
[25:32] Yeah I think there are certainly a lot of people
that are quote unquote cheating um but if we trust
[25:37] the students and we teach them how to use it as a
tool right then we can succeed with it right right
[25:42] and right now but of course what gets the hits
and you know we had your colleague Dustin on the
[25:46] show talking about verality um you know what gets
the eyeballs are the ones the videos where people
[25:52] like are like “You’re cheating you’re cheating.”
And you know and it’s back and forth between the
[25:55] student and there there was one I saw on Instagram
where it was like the the students were defending
[26:00] it while the professor was like “Well wait no what
are we doing?” Like “We’re are we actually having
[26:05] any discussion?” They’re like “But you put the
syllabus out there we just typed it in and and you
[26:09] know got a paper out of it.” But also we did write
read it you know I I’ll give you one real world
[26:15] example uh we teach public relations part of that
is press release writing right and uh one of my
[26:22] faculty came and called and said “Uh Evan I have
a problem we’re teaching press release writing but
[26:29] the students are going to AI and having AI write
the press release for them.” So I said “Well do
[26:34] you think when they go and get the job in the real
world they’re going to have tools like AI and be
[26:38] able to use those do you think they would use them
to save time?” And she kind of thought about that
[26:43] for a minute so I said but it is important for
them to understand how to write and how a press
[26:49] release is structured and formatted and and the
tone that you would use in it so I said instead
[26:54] of just saying she her solution was just saying no
use of AI so I said let’s change it a little bit
[27:00] let’s say write a version no AI allowed whatsoever
have that do students submit that then the next
[27:08] week the students take what they submitted and put
it into AI and they learn prompt engineering right
[27:15] where can this be improved what is this ask it
questions to make a better press release and then
[27:21] go ahead and have them submit that and then ask
them to reflect what did you find easier what was
[27:27] more difficult what potential problems did you run
into that maybe it gave you unreliable information
[27:33] or improperly sourced information that will allow
them to to learn still how to write it but also
[27:40] use the tool that will help them more effectively
when they’re in the workplace instead of us just
[27:45] saying no AI yeah I I would imagine that in a
journalism class too the big concern would be
[27:51] sources cited journalism uh um you know accuracy
is is the big thing in journalism is like how do
[27:59] I know that the information that you’re giving me
if if I’m using AI maybe to do some research on
[28:03] something like how do I know that that’s accurate
you usually just check the source right you know
[28:08] same thing with we were doing the same thing with
Google you know whenever Google would give you a
[28:11] list we’re like well is that I don’t know this
sounds like this looks like a blog post from
[28:15] somebody i don’t even know who it is but if it but
if the story was in the Wall Street Journal it’s
[28:19] like okay I can I can reliably assume that someone
at least a human edited this at some point so
[28:25] yeah with the AI you don’t know what’s feeding it
information it’s also similar to the arguments we
[28:30] heard years ago of uh don’t use Wikipedia and we’d
always tell the students don’t use Wikipedia it’s
[28:36] not reliable anybody can write anything they want
on there for me it was like why not use Wikipedia
[28:42] i’m not going to use it to site my whole paper
but if I’m just exploring a topic and wanting
[28:47] to get information sure it’s a good way to get
summarized information i’m not going to use it to
[28:54] you know I’m not going to start citing it because
no it’s not reliable in that way all right um does
[28:59] this apply to a lot of people that might be out
there in the working world that that might want to
[29:03] kind of look at some of these things and and and
upskill i mean would you if you had advice to give
[29:08] to them i mean obviously they could go to an you
know online learning school or they could go back
[29:14] to school but they could just use some of these
tools too right to upscale yeah absolutely i mean
[29:18] there there’s tons of opportunities out there
um schools like ours are offering a couple of
[29:24] basic AI classes just to get people familiarized
with what it is organizations online certainly
[29:30] have tons of AI courses and different use cases
for them and we’ll teach you prompt engineering
[29:35] we’ll teach you whatever you need to know uh
I love on my social media feed there’s that
[29:39] probably everybody gets it that image of 30 days
to being an AI expert and every day yeah every
[29:45] day is a different one and I’m I’m tempted but I
haven’t done it yet uh but there there’s places
[29:50] and I think I think most importantly though not
every field is is moving forward with AI at the
[29:55] same speed so if you were in journalism and you
wanted journalism AI education sure maybe you can
[30:01] find specific AI journalism education but you can
go off and just get AI education that’s equally
[30:08] as important even if it’s not focused to your
industry you can make that connection between
[30:12] what you learn at AI and your own industry i I my
experience is that I just I just go on to chat PT
[30:18] and say “Hey can you do this for me or do this?”
And then I look at the response and it’s like “Oh
[30:22] I can use this in my own life or I can use this to
to speed up some things.” And then other times I
[30:26] look at it and like one of the tools I was using
start was like “Hey we can do an AI thumbnail uh
[30:35] image generation for your videos.” And so I tried
the tool and it was horrible i was like “Well no
[30:40] I’m not it’s not ready yet you know because again
we have a specific look and feel that we like to
[30:45] do with our thumbnails or at least try to match
what but and it was just like it just took two
[30:50] pictures and put really horrible font on it it
was like this is not ready yet.” No I’ I’ve tried
[30:54] that too i’ve had no luck with the the design and
probably good cuz everybody will tell you I’m a
[30:59] horrible designer um but you know I I think AI is
is something that like any new technology that’s
[31:07] going to cause change is going to cause aida in
people’s stomachs and you know be nervous about
[31:14] that and and I think people just need to say hey
let’s take it one step at a time let’s learn what
[31:20] it is after we are familiar with it how might I
use it and one thing I’ve been doing I heard a
[31:25] lot of uh individuals talking about no longer
using Google search uh but using chat GPT to
[31:32] search yeah and so I’ve been trying that for the
last week or so and trying to get out of you know
[31:37] we just so easily go to Google and type away um
so when I remember and I go to chatgp and do it I
[31:43] actually get better answers and I’ll give you one
example i was looking on LinkedIn and I wanted to
[31:48] figure out how to do something so I went into
the LinkedIn help pages couldn’t get an answer
[31:54] to my to my question went to Google couldn’t get
an answer to my question i went to chat GPT and
[32:00] I said “Listen I want to do this on LinkedIn but
I can’t figure it out is this possible?” And it
[32:07] came back and it goes “No it’s not possible.” I go
“Why is it not possible?” “Well it’s not possible
[32:11] for these reasons.” And and I fully understood
that so I go “Oh great let me ask it two or three
[32:15] more questions.” And I asked a few more questions
in 10 minutes I answered all the questions I had
[32:21] about what I was doing and it spoke to me almost
in my own language not just a generic help page
[32:29] answer but really targeted to what I was trying
to accomplish and telling me if I could do that
[32:34] or not if we scare the students away from the
tech they’re not going to find those really
[32:40] cool instances to be able to use it like that and
isn’t this what the people at Google and LinkedIn
[32:46] are probably really fearful of is that most of
their users are going to just go right to to
[32:51] Chat GPT i’m surprised you didn’t say uh YouTube
you didn’t try to find out if you could do that on
[32:55] YouTube i I save that for my uh do-it-yourself
stuff at home okay but yeah Google’s Google’s
[33:00] got to be terrified what no one’s created a video
yet on how to do something on LinkedIn uh I’m I’m
[33:06] sure there was but maybe I got to search for
that exact person with my exact same problem
[33:12] um yeah and we’ll see i mean there’s no ads right
now on chat GPT google does not want us to stop
[33:18] searching because right you know advertisements
in their search engine is a huge business for
[33:23] them uh so will we see that come over into the
AI uh chat and if they do that’s going to be
[33:30] a problem I think because people might just say
well if I’m going to have an ad I might as well
[33:33] just have it served to me from Google but I don’t
know um just switching gears again uh are there
[33:39] other digital tools or learning methods that that
you keep an eye on um in the space I I think when
[33:44] we were talking before the show I was thinking
about AR and VR and maybe some of these these
[33:48] interactive methods i’ve seen you know whenever
someone came out with a new headset they were
[33:53] all like and it’s going to revolutionize the way
we teach it’s like you’re going to put on this
[33:56] headset and you’re going to go visit ancient
ancient Greece and you’re going to see you
[34:00] know what happened when Vuvius exploded in Pompei
things like that or are they are those just like
[34:07] um icing on the on the top or or or glittery too
you know not very helpful type of things or the
[34:15] other one I was thinking about was gamification as
a as a teaching method so do you follow a lot of
[34:19] those trends or are those just not like ready
for prime time no no I I do i um I personally
[34:25] I love gam gamification um I talked to a lot of
people about it and what I hear back from a lot
[34:31] of people is that gamification is for kids
it really doesn’t belong in adult learning
[34:36] i disagree with that i am a big fan of Duolingo
myself i’ve been 256 day streak on Dualingo and
[34:44] I’m a you know old academic guy and I love it and
I think that I’ve probably learned more in you
[34:52] know almost a year than I did in several years
of high school taking that language i love the
[34:57] game aspect i got this right I got this wrong
can I go up a level can I win coins that stuff
[35:03] really keeps me engaged right and I think that the
more we can incorporate that into learning and and
[35:09] making learning fun um I think that’s great i I
think we’ll we’ll see more and more of that why
[35:15] did why did companies never jump on that i mean
I I I saw a bunch of people that were trying that
[35:19] maybe 10 15 years ago the you know I think it
was the the the PlayStationification of of Oh
[35:26] wow all these people are playing e uh Xbox and
and PlayStation and they’re getting achievements
[35:31] and that’s what we want so but then they never
they never you know I’m still stuck doing this
[35:36] PowerPoint video watch take a quiz type of a thing
yep and and I think that is that because of your
[35:42] the change management thing you were talking about
with the fear of change and they didn’t you know
[35:46] it takes too much time to develop that that that
new way of of teaching it does all of these things
[35:52] take time they take money um the VR AR is a good
example to kind of go back to that a little bit
[35:59] i was looking into VR AR 10 years ago
yeah and we had a um uh whatever from
[36:07] our president directive okay directive okay and
he said uh I’m going to put together this small
[36:13] group you guys figure out how to use AR and VR and
through the research we found 10 or so years ago
[36:19] uh what we really found was people were using it
for campus tours and Oh okay and different types
[36:25] of non-academic initiatives uh we had actually
come up with the idea of using VR and AR for a
[36:32] graduation ceremony and having the students names
announced and showing them on video from home on
[36:38] the big board and them having this immersive
experience as graduates so they could look
[36:42] around in the stadium and and have it be almost
like they were there it’s too bad that didn’t go
[36:48] into effect because then with the pandemic that
would have been perfect graduation ceremony right
[36:53] um I’ve seen a lot of that i see some really cool
uh AR and VR implementations but not nearly enough
[37:01] i think that it’s a it’s an awesome technology i
think that enough people probably aren’t having
[37:08] the level of familiarity they they need with it
i think it’s also a cost issue yeah and I don’t
[37:13] see it being adopted fast enough if I were to sit
here and say what is the next 10 years of online
[37:19] learning and what role does AR and VR play in it
i don’t think much yeah i I think the closest you
[37:25] would get to would be some like medical school
training i’ve seen videos where instead of
[37:31] um operating on a cadaavver you’re you know
you’re teaching your students virtually first
[37:35] so that then you know obviously then the cadaavver
and then and then then once they’re ready then
[37:41] they can do the the on live patient and we started
off this conversation talking about digital tools
[37:46] um my son’s school has a big digital table in one
of their labs and it can pull up like a picture
[37:55] of a cadaavver and they can see in 3D and move it
and pull pieces and move things out of the way um
[38:01] that’s great i think that’s a great use for the
tools will we see ARVR take off in journalism
[38:07] education probably not yeah probably not yeah or
holographic press press conference uh simulation
[38:14] type thing I guess maybe i don’t know um all
right i I did want to ask one more question about
[38:18] um some of the social aspects of online learning
um and I think obviously college at least from
[38:23] my perspective as a parent um it’s not just about
my kids going to the classes and learning stuff i
[38:29] mean obviously that’s the most important thing I
want them to get out of it but it’s also things
[38:32] like you know how to do your laundry correctly
and how to live with a roommate and some of the
[38:36] social stuff and you know making friends and all
that kind of stuff how do you do you try to think
[38:42] about that when you’re when you’re talking with
your online students about you know how can we how
[38:48] can we help you do that as well without it turning
into something like okay here’s a Zoom party that
[38:53] we’re going to have like cuz that was the worst
thing about the pandemic was was all those Zoom
[38:57] parties I had to attend yeah that I mean that’s
exactly what it turns into i was hoping there
[39:03] was something that I hadn’t know that I hadn’t
seen yet no I there are people out there doing
[39:07] different initiatives and for me one area that I’m
trying to focus my research on right now to figure
[39:14] out how to bring it um in a more meaningful way
to our online programs is engagement so really how
[39:21] I don’t think we can duplicate that traditional
college experience that you’re talking about uh
[39:26] I agree with you i think that is a great advantage
for going to a traditional 4-year onampus program
[39:32] my son finished his freshman year and uh you know
look I could have said go to community college and
[39:38] save money go to online and stay from home and do
whatever for him I felt like his development as a
[39:44] human being was really needing four years of like
you say living alone doing your laundry finding
[39:51] out who you are testing relationships it’s a it’s
supposed to be a safe place to do those things
[39:55] right we can’t emulate that necessarily online but
what we can do is try and increase engagement what
[40:02] I fear is the students who literally open their
laptop sit at home and stare at a screen close the
[40:09] laptop and go off i don’t think online learning
should all live in the laptop and I don’t think it
[40:15] should all live in the the LMS and the learning
management system where the classes are being
[40:19] delivered we need to create more opportunities
for students to engage than that so they can have
[40:26] some of those opportunities to grow and learn
um I do a lot of uh exhibiting at journalism
[40:33] events where I’m out there recruiting for our
bachelor’s and master’s degree programs and
[40:38] sometimes those events will come with a few free
tickets so I generally give those to students and
[40:42] then while I’m there exhibiting I have a couple
students walking around and they come back and I
[40:46] go “Okay how’s this go watch this one and say hi
to this person and go introduce yourself here and
[40:51] go over there and they love it.” And we need more
engagement like that so how can we do it i I wish
[40:56] I had an answer that’s what I’m trying to figure
out and how do we leverage the digital tools there
[41:01] are schools that have tried i’ve seen all sorts of
different hey come in the community and one thing
[41:07] I’ve learned is building these big communities is
not what really the students want they want to be
[41:13] able to find and connect with others like them the
same way as college right i’m going to gravitate
[41:19] towards people with the same major i’m going to
graduate with people who are in the same classes
[41:24] right uh so how do we get those people not just
talking to the professor but talking to each other
[41:31] and creating that type of environment where more
learning beyond the classroom can happen yeah and
[41:36] and again does is that something that a technology
platform can solve or is it something beyond that
[41:41] like maybe you have to think about non-technology
right i have a survey actually going out uh next
[41:47] week to my students where we’re thinking about
having an inperson event and we’re just not quite
[41:52] sure what they want so I said “Well you know we’ll
send them a survey do you want to do it on campus
[41:56] or do you want to do it in a central location do
you want it to be you know multiple hours long or
[42:01] days long or do you just want to show up for a
quick talk what do you want to get out of it?”
[42:05] So I’m planning hopefully bringing my career
services people along with me and you know put
[42:10] all of my students in a room and listen to the
career services person engage with them set up
[42:15] one-on-one appointments things of that nature i
I don’t like necessarily I understand the purpose
[42:22] sometimes but online programs who have required
in-person elements i think that kind of defeats
[42:29] part of the point of being online people don’t
want to travel but that’s what they’re trying to
[42:34] preserve they’re trying to preserve that building
a relationship engaging with faculty beyond the
[42:40] classroom things of that nature so we’re going
to try and do it and see what happens if it’s
[42:44] not within a requirement and do people want to
show up what do they want out of it and can we
[42:50] create better community that way yeah if there’s
just a way we can get it off of that laptop
[42:56] computer screen type of thing I think you’ll
you’re on to something at at some point where
[43:01] you can have engagement with other students and
not have it be just sitting in front of a laptop
[43:06] because again I think if you’re just sitting
at home you’re not really experiencing the the
[43:10] college no and we can get this experience right we
get them out there we we put them in internships
[43:16] and they’ll go do things like that uh we opened
up our study abroad opportunities to our online
[43:21] students um Yeah and and we have some really cool
stuff i mean for like sports fans we take them
[43:26] to the NBA when they’re playing in Europe the
NFL when they’re playing in Europe we go out to
[43:31] uh professional soccer games all over the world uh
really awesome opportunities so we just launched a
[43:37] journalism program and we’re uh waiting for final
approval on a sports program so what’s going to be
[43:42] better than going to Europe and and having those
opportunities and to open those up to the online
[43:48] students I think it’s terribly important you see
a lot of schools treat their traditional onampus
[43:53] students one way and then they other the online
students but bringing them together and then
[43:58] even getting them to participate in activities
like study abroad together I think brings it an
[44:03] advantage for everybody yeah yeah cool cool stuff
uh Evan Crop again thanks again for being on the
[44:08] show thanks for coming in it’s funny that you’re
you’re talking about distance learning yet you
[44:11] came into our studios um so I really appreciate
it thank you for being here well thank you for
[44:15] having me i appreciate it that’s going to do it
for this week’s show be sure to like the video
[44:19] subscribe to the channel add any thoughts you
have below if you’re watching this on YouTube
[44:22] join us every week for new episodes of Today in
Tech i’m Keith Shaw thanks for watching [Music]