LiveBlog #Ectel2019 Rose Luckin @Knowldgillusion Keynote #AI & #education mindset

 Rose Luckin takes the stage with a headset and immediately getting into her talk. The talk was very informative and to me it looked as though Rose is so knowledgeable about a range of topics, so I got a bit curious and envious in how her mind works [It I heard - I do not know if this is correct, will ask her ] that she only got into academic life later on in life?

Key topic: develop the right AI mindset for businesses

A perfect storm: data mass plus computing power and memory enhancements, sophisticated algorithms ... this made AI part of our lives and education.

3 routes to Impact on Education

• using AI ED to tackle some of the big educational challenges
• education people about AI so that they can use it safely and effectively
• changing education so that we focus on human intelligence and prepare people for an AI world (hardest to do at the moment)

Working with select committee processes to try and take forward new developments. Debating on 4th industrial revolution and what it means that people understand AI (it is not coding, it is about the humans and their understanding of the fundamentals of machine algorithms, awareness, it is a much higher order we need to engage people with).

Need for multidisciplinary teams with equal input
As change happens, we need to change our educational systems (Singapore). Be resilient to change, be adaptive.
The above are not separate routes, it interconnects, and these interconnections increase AI and that we need to change and invest in our society using emerging ideas and realities of these three buckets.
We need to build bridges between communities: all stakeholders (parents, communities, government, coders...).
Currently separated communities need to work together to build a credible, societaly based AI solution.

Companies working with UCL EDUCATE
Not all companies are already using AI, but they want to understand more about it.
EDUCATE was from Europe, but turning into a global program from Jan 2020.
250 educational study start-ups (each start-up has to have a link with London, but they need to have some profile in London, so most UK-originated).
UCL provides training (labs, clinics, blended rooms, mentoring sessions)
It is free for the companies (years spend on figuring out the gaps between educational departments and industry. This was the case for hard sciences and industry, but not education). A lot of the reasons was because they did not know who to talk to, where to start => reason for starting with start-ups, embedding the educational mindset and to understand more about outcomes and validation of educational projects, so what it means when we say 'it works' (complexities... this results in the golden triangle: edtech developers, teachers & learners, academic researchers).

Start-ups are pushed to build a logic model, and the change being the learning that they want to take place. Opportunities they have to analyze the data, how should they demonstrate impact. We hope they will get to the last stage (see picture).
EdWards are set in place (awards to proof evidence applied and evidence aware awards).
120 companies became evidence aware, and 25 become evidence applied (last being much more difficult to achieve).

EDUCATE for schools
objective: build capacity in schools to identify and evaluate edtech that meets the needs of their teaching, learning or environment.
This approach can work in different educational programs.
Sit down, get head teacher in to pick two or three educational challenges - what they find tricky, than teachers are chosen to test it, to find out how the edtech works.
Currently this is under development:
all resources included in option 1, schools identify new or existing edtech to pilot
EDUCATE provides new resources to help schools plan their edtech pilot,
educate povides video and document resurces to walk schools through the pilot process
schools step through piloting process and recieve one hour of 1:1 video mentoring support
evaluate it (not sure I put this in correctly - this last step)

Sources
Century AI:
AI and big data powers personalised learning
Quipper: video insight, smart study planner, knowledge base
EvidenceB KidsCode : paths through materials, optimised parts through material

classic recommender systems (finding the right resources for the educator/student)
Bibblio
teachpitch

Chatterbox: refugee as expert native speaker with matching backgrounds (e.g. engineering background)
OyaLabs cloudbased monitor in the baby lounge and monitors interactions between baby and its cognitive developments for language developments
MyCognition algorithms automatically increase the number of training loops for the domains where you have the greatest need. If attention is your greatest needs you will receive more attention loops, building resilience in attention. As you progress the loops become more challenging. Looks at your attention, actions... assessment and report, which powers aquasnap and takes you to a underwater world (sea routes, fish names...) and adapted to your own cognitive status.

Building an AI mindset
Important for any company that wants to get into AI
What does it means to have the right data,
not just the tech team must understand the data and AI
as an individual it would be good to understand more about AI

Working with OSTC / ZISHI company: example of AI mindset collaboration. What they do: training for trader floors. They have to train everyone. They try to attract diversity in the workforce and pick them from less evident universities. ZISHI tries to use AI, AI for financial sector.
Financial sector has used AI for some time. AI used for assist in recruiting the best traders, assist in training the traders, help traders in improving performance, mentor the traders through out their careers.

Understanding OSTC's performance metrics

• how can training behavior be measured?
• can we profile traders by their trading behavior?
• how do these profiles relate to performance?
• can we then create a tool to help recruitment a tool to help traders and a tool to help managers?

The CEO of OSTC started out at the post floor of Lloyds and moved up. One's he saw the lack of training, he got into training and set up OSTC. Fundamentally what they try to do is creating AI mindset.

Much is not easy or obvious of what traders do

• what others tell me that I do
• what I think I do
• what I really do
• what family thinks you do...

Workflow
Nearly half their traders left less than one year in. So something was wrong, and investment was too costly for the results in the longterm.
Modeling using machine learning techniques to profile traders and make predictions (recruitment data from tests, interviews and videos, trading history data from trading platforms, multimodal data from eye-movements and button clicks, and behavioral data.
Masses of data from the tools used in the company.

Profiling 4 types of traders, using four identified characteristics:
data visualizations, using clustering techniques.
It turns out that the behavioral patterns relate to significantly different performance (risk management, bonuses... and different cognitive abilities & traits (openness to experiences, agreeableness...) [here my mind went off... must be something related to trader-vocabulary?]

Challenges to IA mindset

• collaboration: is everybody onboard?
• getting rid of AI's sci-fi fantasies and fears
• digging in rich soil will bring out stuff. Are we ready to act upon it?
• the appetite comes with the first byte - be ethically prepared to diet
• data is har to collect, standardize, clean, #you-name-it

Opportunities for IA mindset

• map the organisations' data information knowledge wisdom pyramid (and who is where
• identify data sources: what is ready to be picked, what still needs to be ripened or sown
• what can we learn from previous (successful of failed) experiments or pilots? what hypotheses they already have? what are their blind spots?
• metrics - how do we know what success looks like?

OSTC - lessons

• team members across different tiers need to embrace change
• collect as much data 
• tech team in company not the same as data team
• need new expertise to digitize documenten and learning content
• develop coherent and consistent procedures in all offices across the globe despite the cultural bias
• track the daily activities through logs and multimodal data
• develop tools

Developing an AI mindset

• AI is set to transform education
• three core types of interconnected work: using AI, understanding AI, changing education because of AI
• multi-stakeholder collaboration can help achieve these three types of work
• EDUCATE is an example of a multi-stakeholder collaboration to help develop a research mindset in Edtech developers and educators
• for AI companies, or companies who want to use their data and AI we also need to develop an AI mindset (or perhaps initially a data mindset)
• Academic research partners need to be put in this mix

Barclays provided somebody (eagle) in branches, and they would help people to use technology (from simple to complex) to get people engaged about using and thinking about technology, and how they can get involved.

#CfP Call for papers on #education, open #learning, #AI and #teaching

This call for papers offers a mix for research papers and call for speakers, enabling more research-based or more experienced based proposals to be written. The calls are organized in order of deadline.

ECTEL2019 conference

Deadline for submitting the mandatory abstract: 29 April 2019 (200 words using Springer template)
Deadline for submitting a full paper: 13 May 2019 (6 - 14 pages using Springer template)
When: 16 - 19 September 2019
Where: TU Delft, Netherlands
More information: http://www.ec-tel.eu/
Description (from website)
The European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) is a unique opportunity for researchers, practitioners, educational developers and policy makers to address current challenges and advances in the field. This year’s theme of “Transforming learning with meaningful technologies” addresses how emerging and future learning technologies can be used in a meaningful way to enhance human-machine interrelationships, to contribute to efficient and effective education, and to assess the added value of such technologies.
The conference calls for papers focusing on this theme and addressing many topics: intermediation between learning systems, learners and educators; guidelines and methodologies to enhance learning experience through technologies; bridges between technology and learning; assessment of technologies’ educational added value; promotion of coherence and unity of technology and learning; and improvement of complementarity between technology and learning. We encourage participants to extend the debate around the role of and challenges for cutting-edge 21st century technologies and advances such as artificial intelligence and robots, augmented reality and ubiquitous computing technologies and at the same time connecting them to different pedagogical approaches, types of learning settings, and application domains that can benefit from such technologies.

Online Educa Berlin  

Deadline for submission call for proposals: 30 April 2019
When: 27 - 29 November 2019
Where: Berlin, Germany
Link to 'submit your proposal': https://secretariat.oeb.global/oeb_proposals/
More information: https://oeb.global/
Description (from website)
OEB Global, incorporating Learning Technologies, brings you to the forefront of learning technology developments. Get insights on opportunities and challenges that are changing the world of learning

• Find out how to choose and use various technologies
• Discover proven practice, approaches, strategies from leading institutions and organisations
• Participate in pre-conference activities and 120+ break-out sessions with 300+ expert speakers from 70+ countries from across different disciplines, sharing their knowledge, skills and passion
• Follow case studies presenting critical success factors and discuss innovative approaches with peers
• Meet with 2,500+ learning professionals from the education, workplace learning and government sectors and forge essential international contacts and partnerships
• Explore the exhibition at the heart of the event, where leading international e-learning manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers give hands-on demonstrations of innovative products and tools
• Join us as we analyse new technologies and trends within ICT-enhanced learning and training

OEB Global has pushed boundaries, challenged preconceptions and catalysed new ideas for shaping the future of digital learning for 24 years.

International Open and Distance Learning conference

Deadline for submission: 15 July 2019
When: 14 - 16 November 2019
Where: Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey.
More information: http://iodl.anadolu.edu.tr/
Description

The Anadolu University is proud to invite you to the INTERNATIONAL OPEN & DISTANCE LEARNING CONFERENCE – IODL 2019, which will be held at Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey on 14-15-16 November, 2019. After the conferences in 2002, 2006 and 2010, IODL 2019 is the 4th IODL event hosted by Anadolu University Open Education System. The conference is organized by Open Education Faculty, Anadolu University.

Anadolu University, one of the world leaders in open and distance education, currently offers higher education to over one million students worldwide. Anadolu University Open Education System aims to reduce the barriers to education, especially for adult and self-learners. In the 21st century, the idea of openness is in the very core of education which is surrounded with technology in multi-cultural learning environments.

Scope
The main theme of the IODL 2019 is “Glocal ODL Opportunities and Dynamics”.
The aim of the IODL 2019 is to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss a broad range of topics related to open and distance learning, including but not limited to:
• Open and distance learning, Lifelong learning, Open education and globalization, Drop-out in open and distance education, Open and distance learning for refugees, Learning analytics, Financial issues in massive education, Digital division, Barriers to learning, Role of education in crisis, Education in a multicultural society, Micro credential and short learning programs, Mobile learning, Adaptive learning environments, Deep learning in ODL, AI in/for ODL, IoTs for ODL, Student Support Services in ODL, Public science, New challenges to the Higher Education Area, Evaluation and assessment in ODL, Accreditation and QA in ODL, MOOCs and OERs

Transdisciplinary AI (TransAI) conference (combining AI with other disciplines)

Deadline for submission: 1 July 2019
When: 25 - 27 September 2019
Where: Laguna Hills, California, USA
More information: https://www.transai.org/
Description
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is concerned with computing technologies that allow machines to see, hear, talk, think, learn, and solve problems even above the level of human beings. On the one hand it allows data to be analyzed by real-time models that enable unprecedented levels of accuracy and efficiency. On the other hand it enables domain specific problem solving and knowledge discovery that cannot be easily done by humans.
Transdisciplinary AI 2019 (TransAI 2019), technically sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society, is an international forum focusing on the interactions between artificial intelligence (AI) and other research disciplines. It consists of themes that each addresses the applications of AI to a specific research discipline as well as how domain specific applications may advance the research on AI.
The TransAI themes address two dimensions--technology and academic research domains so that technologies can be mapped to domain applications.

Asian conference on education

(focusing on dependence and independence, nice topic)
Deadline for submission abstract: 22 August 2019
When: 31 October - 3 November 2019
Where: Toshi Center hotel, Tokyo, Japan.
More information: https://ace.iafor.org/
Description
The 2019 conference theme for The 11th Asian Conference on Education is “Independence & Interdependence”, and invites reflections on the desirability, extent and limits of our individual independence and autonomy, of that of our students, and of the institutions and structures within which we work, teach and learn. We do not educate, and are not educated in vacuums, but in such contexts and constraints as families, groups, and societies; of nations and cultures; of identities and religions; and of political and financial realities.

Ever changing technologies offer new ways for us to be independent and autonomous learners, encouraging students to be self-directed and confident in making choices, and enabling and empowering students and teachers to be proactive and tailor content. However, myriad technologies and services make us more dependent on the very things allowing autonomy. How do we help students and teachers alike navigate and curate the vast information available? How do we encourage individual growth while also underlining the importance of belonging and of the reciprocal responsibilities and privileges of education? How do we help students build the skills and attitudes necessary for positive engagement in distributed, globalised communities that so often lead to polarisation and alienation instead? How do we educate with independence and interdependence in mind?

This conference is organised by IAFOR in association with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) in Osaka University, Japan.

Just sharing a few rejections: paper & funding, and solutions #academicLife #life #loveMyNetwork

Life can be hard, both personally and professionally, yet at the same time life can simply push you towards a more pleasant option along the way, seemingly using rejections to get you on to the right track. I sure hope this will be the case, but only hindsight will tell. [addition one day after writing this post: while sharing these ideas on Facebook, I got such an inspiring response from my network, I decided to add the ideas and remarks they had below, between square brackets]
Today I was informed that my co-authored paper for the eMOOC summit 2019 in Naples was rejected. Rejections rarely result in joy, and this was no exception. For some reason writing a paper is also a personal effort. You try with all your ability (and mostly under a bit of time pressure) to come up with a paper that shares your research in just a few pages. Referencing to prior great minds in your field of expertise. So, when a paper gets rejected, it simply hurts. It feels personal to some extent.
The rejection came one week after my submission to get a prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship got rejected as well, it did not get the threshold. The review did have a lot of positive points though (which did soften the blow). Granted, I wrote this submission as a plan B in order to increase my options to get back to work after I recovered from the year rehab after the cancer diagnosis. I put my heart into it, not only me but also the professor who was willing to employ me in his department if the fellowship was successful. Luckily, I was able to get back to work and on good terms, and on an inspiring project.
[It seems that rejections are common to everyone, even the highest esteemed scholars get them despite their obvious wisdom and knowledge. My friends shared some good advice and resources that help to bounce back from rejection. First off: upward and onward, as simple as it sounds, it works ... once you have managed to soften the feeling of a work being rejected. The process is to reflect, look at the feedback (or if they did not send any, ask for all the feedback, of course, anonymized), and rewrite and resubmit. Next, a great article in Medium on The Iceberg Illusion, adding the picture here as well.]

But the above two rejections just made me realize once more that I am not a traditional academic and as such, I doubt whether I can ever be part of the whole deal. Maybe this frequency of rejection is simply normal, but at present, I just feel I need to take another leap. Just like I did three times before. Maybe I am not made to gradually move forward? Maybe my thing is just this .... jumping ahead and then working on that 'new' concept until it becomes more mainstream.
[Feedback is an essential first step, next of course is to get going and to know thy self. And to repeat to yourself that critique is not personal, and it can be based on a number of reasons that do not even have to be immediately related to the work you did. In a way, emotion wins over ratio every time, but that does not mean we cannot rationalize after the first emotions have gone.]
Ciska sometimes tells me: "don't wine because you are living off the beaten track, even if you could walk the straight and narrow, you still would roll out your own route to get to the next place". Maybe she is right, but it does not make things easier. Maybe, it is never easy for any of us. Even for those who walk the more traditional roads to achieve a professional space in society. I don't know, but each time I get such a rejection, I just feel it's because of me, and it feels personal.
Okay, time to move forward again. Working on a project which combines human resources, AI and learning... fun, I must admit.
[and this is - and has always been - an inspiring Last Lecture]


Cartoon in this blogpost is from the fabulous Nick D. Kim - the http://www.lab-initio.com/ site

Session on #AI, #machineLearning and #learninganalytics #AIED #OEB18

This was a wonderful AI session, with knowledgeable speakers, which is always a pleasure. Some of the speakers showed their AI solutions, and described their process; others focused on the opportunities and challenges. Some great links as well.

Squirrel AI, the machine that regularly outperforms human teachers and redefines education by Wei Zhou

Squirrel AI is an AI to respond to the need for teachers in China. Based on knowledge diagnosis, looking for educational gaps. A bit like an intake at the beginning of a master education for adults.

Human versus machine competition for scoring education, and tailored learning content offerings. (collaborates with Stanford Uni). Also recognized by Unesco. (sidenote: it is clearly oriented at 'measurable, class and curriculum related content testing). 

 The ideas behind AI: adaptive learning is a booming market.

Knowledge graph + knowledge space theory: monitoring students real-time learning progress to evaluate student knowledge mastery and predict future learning skills. based on Bayesian network plus Bayesian inference and knowledge tracing and Item Response Theory. The system identifies the knowledge of the student based on the their intake or tests. Based on big data analysis the students get a tailored learning path. (personalised content recommendation using fuzzy logic, classification tree, and personalized based on logistic regression, graph theory, and genetic algorithm.). Adaptive learning based on Bayesian network, plus Bayesian inference, plus Bayesian knowledge tracing, plus IRT to precisely determine students current knowledge state and needs.

Nanoscale Knowledge Points: granularity is six time’s deeper.  Used in medical field.

Some experiments and results: the forth Human versus AI competition, which resulted in AI being quicker and more adapt to score tests of students.  Artificial Intelligence in Education conference (AIED18 conference link, look up video youtube.com, call for papers deadline 8 February 2019 for AIED19 here).

Claus Biermann on Approaches to the Use of AI in Learning

Artificial Intelligence and Learning: myths, limits and the real opportunities.  

Area9 lyceum: also adaptive  learning long-term company with new investments.

Referring to Blooms 2sigma problem.

Deep, personalized learning, biologically enabled data modeling, four-dimensional teaching approach.

How we differ: adaptive learning adapts to the individual, only shows content when it is necessary, takes into consideration what the student already knows, follows up on what the student is having trouble with.  This reduces the time of learning, and increases motivation. Impact from adaptive learning, almost 50% reduction of learning time.

Supports conscious competence concept.

AI is 60% of the platform, but the most important part is the human being, learning engineers, the team of humans who work together makes it possible.

Marie-Lou Papasian from Armenia (Jerevan).

Tumo is a learning platform where students direct their own development. After school program, 2 hours twice a week, and thousands of students come to the centre of TUMO. Armenia and Paris, and Beirut.

14 learning targets ranging from animation, to writing, to robotics, game development…

Main education is based on self learning, workshops and learning labs.

Coaches support the students and they are in all the workshops and learning labs.

Personalisation: each students choose their learning plan, their topics, their speed. That happens through the ‘Tumo path’, which is an interface which enables a personalised learning path (cfr LMS learning paths, but personalized in terms of speed and choices of the students). After the self-paced parts, the students can go to a workshop to reach their maximum potential, to learn and know they can explore and learn. These are advanced students (12 – 18 years, free of charge).

Harnessing the power of AI: the AI solves a lot of problems, as well as provide freedom to personalise the students learning experience. A virtual assistant will be written to help the coaches to help the student guided through the system.

AI guided dog: a mascot to help the students.

The coaches, assistants… are their to learn the students to take up more responsibility.

For those learners who are not that quick, a dynamic content aspect is planned to support their learning.

Wayne Holmes from the OU, UK and center for curriculum redesign, US

A report commissioned about personalized learning and digital ... (free German version here , English version might follow, will ask Wayne HOlmes).

Looking at the ways AI can impact education

A taxonomy of AI in education

Intelligent Tutoring System (as examples mentioned earlier in the panel talk)

Dialogue-based tutoring system (Pearson and Watson tutor example)

Exploratory Learning Environments (the biggest difference with the above, is that this is more based on diversification of solving a specific problem by the student)

Automatic writing evaluation (tools that will mark assignments for the teachers, also tools that will automatically give feedback to the students to improve their assignments).

Learning network orchestrators (tools that put people in contact with people, e.g. smart learning partner, third space learner, the system allows the student to connect with the expert).

Language learning (the system can identify languages and support conversation)

ITS+ (eg.. ALP, Alt school, Lumilo. The teacher wears google glasses, and the students activity comes as a bubble visualizing what the student is doing).

So there is a lot of stuff already out there.

We assume that personalized learning will be wonderful, but what about participative or collaborative learning

Things in development

Collaborative learning (what one person is talking about might be of interest to what another person is talking about).

Student forum monitoring

Continuous assessment (supported by AI)

AI learning companions (e.g. mobile phones supporting the learning, makes connections)

AI teaching assistants (data of students sent to teachers)

AI as a research tool to further the learning sciences

The ethics of AIED

A lot of work has been done round ethics in data. But there are also the algorithms that tweak the data outcomes, how do we prevent biases, guard against mistakes, protect against unintended consequences….

But what about education: self-fulfilling teacher wishes…

So how do we merge algorithms and big data and education?

With great power comes great responsibility (Spiderman, 1962, or French revolution national convention, 1793)

ATS tool built by Facebook, but the students went on strike (look this up).

Gunay Kazimzade Future of Learning, biases, myths, etcetera (Azerbaijan / Germany)

Digitalization and its ethical impact on society.

Six interdisciplines overlap.

Criticality of AI-biased systems.

(look up papers, starting to get tired, although the presentation is really interesting)

What is the impact of AI on our children is her main research considerations. How is the interaction between children and the smart agents. And what do we have to do, to avoid biases while children are using AI agents.

At present the AI biases infiltrate our world as we know, but can we transform this towards less biases?

Redirect FB algorithms now and 4 lessons from #CambridgeAnalytica #digitalcitizens

Anyone interested in data and ethics has been reading a gazillion of articles the last week. So, time to recap the big results coming out of the Cambridge Analytica files: correlations have their scientific merits (argh!), humans can be profiled in just 12 likes (honestly, this is how diverse we all are?!), anything measured can be used against us (a Cobra), and teachers around the globe seem more ethical than scientists (my partner says it’s true, I say it isn’t). Well... manipulation is part of history, I guess... but still!

First of all, a nice MIT research project on “How to manipulate Facebook andTwitter instead of letting them manipulate you’ (yes, it is a timely title 😊 ) mentioned in MIT’s Technology Review. The project let’s you – the user – manipulate algorithms emphorced on you by Twitter and Facebook (I like it, activism from within the system). This initiative is called GOBO (if you want to jump right in, you can login for this project here) and it is a prject from researchers at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for CivicMedia. It has an interesting parallel referring to Cambridge Analytica approach, BUT in this case it is truly scientific, and they ensure deleting ANY and EVERY data collected once they have results on how you would like to see algorithms adjusted. So take back the algorithms of Twitter and Facebook with GOBO.

I am just resurfacing after the Cambridge Analytica fraud (I call it fraud as they have been anything but ethical in their so called scientific data gathering: no informed consent, data gathered and not anonymised before using it for 3 parties, data not deleted after a project was finished….).

Correlations are used successfully? Argh!! For years, many educationalists and researchers emphasize that correlation is no replacement for causality. Causality is the basis of all strong research. It is clear that education and correlation aren’t a love story. We- as educators and researchers - know and understand the importance of context, of language use, of how personal each of our learning journeys takes form. In a sense, we should know better then to construct a test that puts everyone in the same batch, and then believe in it to state those things that we think sound nice (however tempting that type of action is... I mean, saves time on reflecting, nuancing, evaluating... and all these time-staking stuff) … but Cambridge Analytica got away with it. PISA was/is another such example. It even manages to enter the OECD report (https://www.oecd.org/education/) as core element of proof leading to rigorous outcomes. PISA test is an in correlation resulting test. A nice list of educationalists that argued against using PISA here. With the Cambridge Analytica files, the correlation monster pops up once again … AND it is now used ‘successfully’ to blind-side people and to get them to doubt their political choices just enough to swing their vote. So, correlations can be used quite viciously for some of the time.  

Forget complex human traits: humans can be profiled in just 12 likes! And all of this comes from research (great paper on how it was set up here, Schwartz , Eichstaedt, Kern, Durzynski, Ramones, Agrawal, Shah, Kosinski,Stillwell, Seligman and Ungar (2013) . Well… how difficult is becomes to state (and belief) that humanity is truly diverse! Admittedly, the Big Five Traits also distil human diversity into just 5 personality traits, but still… being profiled on 12 likes… How individual are we, if that is all it takes to cast each one of us in a box that subsequently can be manipulated from that moment onward? It becomes quite difficult to see humans as complex beings when I take that into account… but we are social, at least that is now proven once again.

Anything measured can be used against us. One of the most interesting blogposts I have read, is an older one from MikeTaylor, stating that as soon as you try to measure how well people are doing, they will switch to optimising for whatever you’re measuring, rather than putting their best efforts into actually doing good work, and this optimising is always at risk of being distorted, even corrupted (Mike refers to Goodhart’s law, Campbell’s law and the Cobra effect – great read).

And teachers around the world have more ethical sense than scientists that do not teach… well it is a discussion, my partner says that fact is well known, I say scientists who do not teach can be ethical as well…. Those darn Cambridge Analytical (and derivates) people! (good example of this is Autumm Caines , she wrote on Platform literacy refering to her encounter with Cambridge Analytica to get all her data from them all the way back in February 2017 (which was a hastle!). Yes, she got active one year before this whole event blew up into an international scandal. Autumm keeps ethics high!   

Call for proposals: 8 conferences and workshop #CfP #elearning #mlearning

This is a Call for Papers delight! It seems that an array of inspiring conferences is open for proposals, workshops, doctoral consortium options. Listed below are one workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics, six academic conferences (mLearn conference in Chicago, , the ECTEL conference in Leeds, UK, the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) in Sydney, Australia, IAU global university partnerships, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, EdMedia in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Alt-C conference in Manchester, UK) and two grand elearning conferences (mixing academia, policy and corporate): DevLearn in Las Vegas, USA and Online Educa Berlin (OEB) in Berlin Germany.

mLearn2018 – International Mobile Learning conference

Where: Concordia University, Chicago, USA

When: 11 – 14 November 2018

Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2018

More info: http://iamlearn.org/mlearn/

Call for papers: http://iamlearn.org/mlearn/call-for-papers/

General theme and description

Mobilized Learning: Pedagogical and Technological Innovation for Teaching & Learning

mLearn is the leading international conference on mobile and contextual learning and attracts participants annually from more than 60 countries. mLearn 2018 provides a forum for researchers, policy makers, professionals and educators from higher education, school education and vocational education, government departments, industries and international organisations as well as IT developers and solutions providers to share knowledge, research and practices and debate critical issues pertaining to sustainable futures for mobilized learning.

EC-TEL – European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning

Where: University of Leeds, UK

When: 3 – 6 September 2018

Deadline for abstracts: 15 April 2018 (with statement of Open Science!)

More info: http://www.ec-tel.eu/index.php?id=805

Call for papers: http://www.ec-tel.eu/index.php?id=791

General theme and description

‘Lifelong technology enhanced learning: Dealing with the complexity of 21st century challenges’.

We live in an increasingly digital and globalized world that offers great opportunities for information sharing and the generation of new knowledge. This reality has enabled us to move forward rapidly as a society in many respects, but has also led us to complex, diverse and interdisciplinary challenges that affect all areas of knowledge such as health, demographic change and wellbeing; food security and bio-economy; secure and clean energy; smart and green energy; or climate action and environment - to name just a few that are emphasized by the European Union.

Australian International Education Conference (AIEC)

Where: Sydney Conference Centre, Sydney, Australia

When: 9 – 12 October 2018

Deadline for proposals:9 – 12 October 2018

More info: http://www.ec-tel.eu/index.php?id=805

Call for papers: http://aiec.idp.com/call-for-proposals

General theme and description

The theme is 'empowering a new generation' and the program will feature world leading experts, unique social events and an exhibition, all hosted in and around the new Sydney Convention Centre, ICC Sydney.

With over 1300 attendees, AIEC 2018 will once again be the leading event on the international education calendar in Australia.

Higher Ed Partnerships for Social impact - IAU International Conference

Where: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

When: 13 – 15 Nobember 2018

Deadline for proposals: 3 April 2018

More info: https://iau-aiu.net/IAU-Global-events

Call for cases: https://etouches-appfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/html_file_uploads/359a2a74df239ceb38058b89d2a040c5_Callforcasestudies.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22casestudies2018%22&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJC6CRYNXDRDHQCUQ&Expires=1519126805&Signature=z%2F34LHX4LaVnayZo7CpkoKNo3TY%3D

General theme and description

The conference will address the theme ‘Higher education partnerships for societal impact’.
IAU believes that higher education institutions (HEIs) play an important role in the development of societies. Higher education institutions engage with society in a variety of ways. Partnerships with civil society, the private sector, the local authorities and decision-makers or between HEIs take on numerous forms and shapes. IAU invites its Members, the global higher education communities, and their partners to reflect on and discuss their mandate and social responsibility, while presenting different forms of partnerships adopted around the world and for what societal impact. The conference will also be a venue to discuss the challenges and obstacles related to this mission.

Call for case studies

Several breakout sessions will show-case examples of partnerships from around the world between higher education institutions and different partners (civil society, the private sector, local authorities etc.). If your institution is pursuing partnerships for societal impact and you wish to show-case your experience during the conference, please send a short description of the partnership and its purpose to IAU.

EdMedia

Where: Amsterdam, Netherlands

When: 25 – 29 June 2018

Deadline for proposals: 9 April 2018

More info: http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/about/

Call for papers: http://www.aace.org/conf/edmedia/call/

General theme and description

Innovation and Education

EdMedia + Innovate Learning, the premier international conference in the field since 1987, spans all disciplines and levels of education attracting researchers and practitioners in the field from 70+ countries.

This annual conference offers a forum for the discussion and exchange of research, development, and applications on all topics related to Innovation and Education.

EdMedia + Innovate Learning is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Alt-C

Where: Manchester, UK

When: 11 – 13 September 2018

Deadline for proposals: 8 March 2018

More info: https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2018/

Call for papers: https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2018/call-for-proposals/

General theme and description

Will you be a part of it?

For ALT’s 25th Annual Conference we will bring together different critical perspectives in Learning Technology from across our community that will examine the challenges ahead and question the shape of things to come. Will you be a part of it? This is your invitation to make your contribution to our 25th year as the UK’s leading professional body in Learning Technology

Workshop Ethics for Artificial Intelligence

Where: University College London, UK

When: 30 June 2018

Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2018

More info: https://aiedethics.wordpress.com/organisers/

Call for abstracts (sending via email): https://aiedethics.wordpress.com/join-us-get-involved/

General theme and description

Ethics in AIED

The field of AIED raises far-reaching ethical questions with important implications for students and educators. However, most AIED research, development, and deployment have taken place in what is essentially a moral vacuum (for example, what happens if a child is subjected to a biased set of algorithms that impact negatively and incorrectly on their school progress?).

OEB – Online Educa Berlin

Where: Berlin, Germany

When: 5 – 7 December 2018

Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2018

More info: https://oeb.global/

Call for papers: https://oeb.global/programme#submit-a-proposal

General theme and description:
Learning to Love Learning!
OEB, incorporating Learning Technologies Germany, is the global, cross-sector conference on technology supported learning and training. Shape the agenda of the 24th edition of OEB by proposing a topic, talk or session under the overall theme “Learning to Love Learning”: Technology is changing society. The way we live and the jobs we do will never be the same again. In twenty years, the world of work will be unlike anything we have ever known. The development of artificial intelligence will allow machines to replace workers in many industries on an unprecedented scale. Humankind will face some fundamental, existential questions. Why are we here? What are we doing? How are we different from the machines? Education will shape our response to the immense challenge of this new age. But education and training will have to change too. So will the nature of employment. Learning will no longer be a brief phase in life. It will become a central part of our existence. In an era of constant and increasing change, we will discover a new appreciation of learning and an understanding of its place in the future. We will learn to love learning. At its 100+ sessions and at the exhibition, the conference will bring you to the forefront of learning and technology developments, give you new insights on opportunities and challenges that are changing the world of learning, show you the latest best practice from leading organisations and allow you to meet, discuss and network with more than 2,000+ international learning professionals from the workplace learning, education and public service sectors.

DevLearn

Where: Las Vegas, USA

When: 24 – 26 October 2018

Deadline for proposals: 9 March 2018

More info: https://www.elearningguild.com/devlearn/content/5230/devlearn-2018-conference--expo--home/

Call for papers: https://www.elearningguild.com/devlearn/content/5227/devlearn-2018-conference--expo--call-for-speakers

General theme and description

Developing Learning

DevLearn Conference & Expo, North America’s leading event focused on learning technologies, is where the entire industry gathers to share and learn about innovative thinking and emerging technologies, explore the possibilities they present, and define how they can drive innovation within our industry … our organizations … and our learning. It is the place where you can meet with industry thought leaders, share strategies with colleagues, discover best practices, and learn about the hottest topics and ideas for learning. Join the community of industry pioneers that is defining the future of training and performance!