Chat with Socrates, Rethink the Degree, Kairos, and more in the Ed3 Roundup

It’s “too cold to start the car” season in Fargo, where I’m based, but in the world of education, things are 🔥.

Heading into the weekend, let’s take a peek at some of the people, projects, and ideas that you should know about.

As always, invite your friends to subscribe to Ed3!

On AI

🪞Krishna created an AI chatbot trained on his newsletter. The next step is for educators to train models on their own writing or on the writings of the classics. Class discussion can happen outside of class and across time.

📖 Want to create your personal chatbot? Build a GPT-3 product in less than two hours using no-code with this guide.

🎓️ In a world of AI, students need to be more human.

• David Brooks notes this:

  “AI will force us humans to double down on those talents and skills that only humans possess. The most important thing about A.I. may be that it shows us what it can’t do, and so reveals who we are and what we have to offer.”

• Tyler Cowen argues similarly:

  “The rewards and status will go down for those who produce [ordinary, bureaucratic] writing today, and the rewards for exceptional originality are likely to rise. What exactly can you do to stand out from the froth of the chat bots?

• It echoes David Perrell’s essay on Saving the Liberal Arts:

  “Though we should train students for economic prosperity, we should not lose touch with our humanity. We should embrace the transcendental as well as the tactile; what’s interesting in addition to what’s practical. To make that happen, we’ll need to separate education into two camps: civilized and professional.”

On the Changing Value and Time of a College Degree

This week, many ideas on how to reimagine the college degree and the amount of time spent on it.

📆 Scott Wyatt argues in The Wall Street Journal that “College Doesn’t Need to Take Four Years.”

He notes: …surveys found that 94% of executives, 93% of supervisors, and 91% of human resources professionals see people without a degree and holding only alternative credentials “to be about the same or better than those who only hold traditional educational backgrounds.” Alternative credentials are already held by 45% of workers, while 49% are considering earning one.

✅ Utah, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Colorado are the most recent states to eliminate 4-year college degree requirements for most jobs in state government. The hope is to open opportunity and encourage alternative learning paths.

As PA Governor Josh Shapiro notes, “This demonstrates both good policy and good leadership, representing a concrete change in hiring philosophy that stops reducing people to a credential and conveys that everyone — college-educated or not — has experience and worth that employers should consider. It is a step — and a mind-set — that other leaders should consider as well. […]”

🕰️ Students are spending less time studying:

On Projects and Companies to Watch

🤖 Nolej AI launched their beta and was featured on the podcast. Create curriculum and learning tools in minutes using just a link or document.

🪩 Disco.xyz is inviting more users to claim their backpacks and start giving and receiving verifiable credentials. Evin McMullen joined us on the podcast to talk about creating personalized experiences online and offline with verifiable credentials.

💨 Experience You launched to encourage the adoption of Learner Employment Records, or LERs, leveraging AI technology. It is a new initiative sponsored by the Gates Foundation and jointly pursued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Education Design Lab. Their call for participation is open and here.

🏪 Maven launched to build and sell cohort-based courses. It is now open as a tool anyone can use to create courses. It includes a marketplace to help teachers find and sell courses to their audiences. (Note: I am an early investor.)

On the Curious and Fascinating

🗣️ The letters "ough" can be pronounced in at least 8 different ways in English. The Cultural Tutor shares how that happened.

🖱️ The much-derided Apple Magic Mouse that plugged in on the back was designed that way on purpose - to break your reliance on cords. A fascinating look at design and psychology from Sohrab Osati

⏳️ The Greeks had two words for time: one for the linear time we use. The second is for the moments in our life that leave an outsized impact. Learn about Kairos.

Text of the Week

Each week, we text practitioners to ask what they are thinking about. This week: Colin Reynolds from Education Design Lab.

A Look Ahead

Next week, we will hear more about Experience You in an interview with Colin Reynolds, who just texted with us. Plus, look forward to more ideas and resources on the future of education.

Stay warm, and have a great weekend! 🙌

-Scott