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Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.
Chinese proverb
This past weekend our kids had their first marching band competition. Can we pause for a moment to appreciate what goes into getting nearly 200 teenagers to do anything – let alone performing music while marching in complex formations and perfectly in sync!?!!? I’m continually amazed by how these band directors are able to pull it off. If that’s not a masterclass in teaching, I don’t know what is!! They make it look easy and I know it isn’t – both for them and the kids. Oh, and get this—they cleaned up, winning in every category they could! How awesome is that?
Thanks for reading!
🎶 What I’m Listening To
Another serendipitous music discover this week. Mills is a bit of a throwback of the best kind. Perfect vibe for work or just chilling.
👆 Last Week’s Most Clicked
📰 News & Notes
The “secret sauce” behind the world’s most popular online course
Barbara Oakley’s course, “Learning How to Learn” is the world’s most popular online course. Oakley and her team at Coursera share seven key ingredients for creating an engaging and effective online course. These ingredients range from the strategic use of visuals and multimedia to the importance of community engagement. Oakley emphasizes the blend of academia, Silicon Valley innovation, and a dash of Hollywood-style presentation as the formula for a successful online course.
🎯 Take away: Creating a world-class online course is an art that blends academic rigor, technological innovation, and cinematic flair, all aimed at engaging a global community of learners.
Google Bard is Getting Personal
Google’s Bard AI chatbot has evolved beyond mere web searches, now diving into your Gmail, Docs, and Drive to fetch and summarize information. This new integration, dubbed “extensions,” allows Bard to sift through your emails or documents to pinpoint specific data, which can then be transformed into charts or bullet summaries. While privacy concerns loom, Google assures that this data won’t be used to train Bard’s public model. The chatbot is also expanding its reach to Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights, making it a more integrated part of the Google ecosystem.
🎯 Take away: “It’s the first time a language model product is truly integrating with your personal data”.
Teaching With AI
OpenAI has unveiled a comprehensive guide tailored for educators aiming to integrate ChatGPT into their teaching methodologies. This guide encompasses a range of suggested prompts, a detailed overview of ChatGPT’s operational mechanics, its inherent limitations, the effectiveness of AI detectors, and the potential biases present. Educators from various backgrounds share their experiences, highlighting the versatility of ChatGPT in roles such as simulating challenging conversations, crafting curriculum-based quizzes and lesson plans, aiding non-English speakers, and fostering critical thinking in students.
🎯 Take away: OpenAI’s guide offers a roadmap to harnessing ChatGPT’s potential, enhancing learning experiences and promoting critical thinking in AI-driven environments.
Find free resources on the Neovation Learning Hub to help you expand your eLearning toolkit! Subscribe to the Neovation Learning Hub and receive our helpful, practical, and actionable resources directly to your inbox.
🧰 Tech Tools & Tips
If tools are your jam, check out my new Work Smarter newsletter.
HeyGen – AI Video Generator
HeyGen is an innovative video platform that harnesses the power of generative AI to streamline your video creation process. No camera? No crew? No problem!
Free Online Teleprompter
Free online prompter. Paste your script and your text will start scrolling up the screen. Use the teleprompter while streaming on Zoom or to practice your speech.
bigvu.tv/create/free-online-teleprompter
Unlock the power of the brain with Offbeat’s “Designing Learning for the Brain” program!
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🎧 Podcast
This is the conversation that caught my ear this week. Check out previous episodes in the Friday Finds podcast playlist.
The role of Chat GPT in modern learning design with Megan Torrance
On the Learning While Working Podcast Megan Torrance shares what she is learning about using Chat GPT. We focus on using Chat GPT to enhance the learning experience itself, and just using AI to generate content. Get Megan’s one-page practitioner’s guide job aid too!
🧳 Where’s Mike?
- CUNA Learning Live , October 16 San Antonio
- Learning Rebels Learn Something New (Curation Workshop), October 18, Online
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If you or your event needs a speaker or workshop that is highly interactive and super practical we should talk.
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Mike Taylor 