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Crystal ball... There's so many things I need to know
220 Plays10 months ago
Phil, Neil, and Morgan highlight key news stories from the holidays and then turn their sights towards expected EdTech news stories in 2024. What stories are we tracking, and why are they important?
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Transcript
Welcome Back to 2024!
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic. We're excited to get started again with the new year with 2024. And before we really get into the news, I hope you guys had some good time off over the holidays. You've stayed away from work. So anything exciting or exciting that there wasn't anything exciting for you too?
Holiday Reflections
00:00:35
Speaker
Neil, how was your holiday?
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed a really nice two weeks off where I didn't spend a lot of thinking about higher education and I just back into work this week and that break from thinking about not thinking about higher education was really good but I realized earlier today that it wasn't so good for our discussion segment of the podcast so I've had to quickly get up to speed and I'm slowly easing into the year, had a horrendous day of
00:01:04
Speaker
January blues yesterday for no reason other than you know, just the usual But I'm feeling energized to see you guys today. You're helping me ease my way back into work But yeah, really nice break. Thanks. And how about you guys? I I had a I had a good a good Vacation as well. I I I traveled a bit going to go see the in laws in Iowa Who doesn't want to go there?
00:01:29
Speaker
especially in late December. It's a hotspot. I was elbowing people out of the way. But yeah, it was good to take some time off and to do some deeper thinking.
00:01:44
Speaker
Well, that's good. We're quite busy. I mean, like you guys, it was great clearing the head a little bit. I guess I wouldn't say I stayed away from the news, but at least I didn't have deliverables and things that had to be done over the holiday that was nice. But work is fully started last week, so I've gotten over the hump already.
00:02:07
Speaker
So with that, we'll test Neil's ability to do quick reading of the news.
Micro-Credentials: A Strategic Non-Priority
00:02:14
Speaker
One of the things that came out was this report from Upsia that was covered in Inside Higher Ed looking at micro credentials. And it was, I don't know if you guys looked at the details of reports, but it was somebody really went all out with the cross tabs. Like if you look at each of the things, they wanted to show every question across multiple dimensions, which I appreciate it.
00:02:37
Speaker
made for interesting reading. And then the other thing I got out of it, which was not important. I didn't know that Upsia is now Upsia. They're no longer the, you know, the professional and continuing education association, but they're now just formal. The artist is formally known as that. They're now just Upsia. So.
00:02:56
Speaker
the things that you learn. But in there, it looked at micro-credentials, and I think the headline they tried to portray, at least in the media, was there's a lot of activity around non-credit and micro-credential work, but it's not really a strategic priority.
00:03:17
Speaker
Which is not a surprise to me, but as you dig into the report, it was hard to pull the key messages out of the data. But definitely what I saw were things such as the budget. It's very hard for schools to make money off of it, and they have various ad hoc business models.
00:03:41
Speaker
and they're not really in the strategy. So it sort of aligns with stuff that we talked about in an earlier episode that just, this seems to be an important area, but it's definitely not taking off. And I think this report gives some insight into some of the reasons there's no business model or there's no common business model and it's hard to make any money off of it. Any thoughts that you guys had from seeing that report?
UK MOOCs vs. Micro-Credentials
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, I've already made my disclaimer about my homework prior to this podcast, but I have read the article, but not the report. But there were a couple of things that it made me think about. One of the things it made me think about was the way in which universities in the UK engage with MOOC platforms in the earliest days, in that it was this kind of trend
00:04:32
Speaker
that there was a certain degree of budget and staffing created for it. But it was an activity that was kind of done over here, over to one side, not that critical. And that kind of thing has sort of died out here in the UK for obvious reasons. But in terms of what you were saying, fill around the priorities there and the kind of budgets, that's what it reminded me of.
00:05:02
Speaker
I thought another thing that kind of jumped out at me was around some of the percentages of providers who hadn't necessarily engaged with employers around the types of courses that they create in these kinds of segments and I think you know we had a whole episode didn't we around kind of micro credentials and we were debating around definitions and Morgan your definition was really strongly around if I remember correctly that this was really employer focused so that was
00:05:32
Speaker
a little bit alarming and I think in a way you know thinking bigger around that kind of thing I think
00:05:40
Speaker
that it speaks to how well universities are able to cultivate portfolios, how well they're able to get insights from employers around employer-focused offerings. I think those are the bigger picture challenges that may be this report.
00:06:04
Speaker
nods to. But yeah, those were my main reflections, but interested to know what you guys thought.
Report Critique: Sample Size Issues
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of what I'm going to think about or say about the report is
00:06:24
Speaker
should be thought why I'm thinking through a lens of what their sample size was. And partly, this is because I'm a I'm a survey Nazi. And I get obsessed about these kinds of things, but they lined up with 83 respondents.
00:06:40
Speaker
which is roughly 2% of US higher education. So it's a very small sample and I wonder how much self-selection there was, which makes the larger question probably even more grim because I think they probably got people who were further down the road in terms of micro-credentials than some other schools might be.
00:07:03
Speaker
But, but yeah, you know, I think it's, it's still a very, very mixed bag and still sort of emerging on the making money front. You know, I, last year, I had an interview with somebody who works in online marketing, she's worked for OPM, she's worked for higher rate institutions, and now she works for an association. And she was just saying, you know, she doesn't understand micro credentials at all, because
00:07:31
Speaker
you know, that they're much cheaper generally than degrees, but you still got to spend a giant amount of money marketing them unless you have
00:07:39
Speaker
a captive audience so like the economics aren't there so it's bringing into focus some of the core challenges I think of higher education and online education generally so that was sort of one of my sort of takeaways but the other thing and going back to that sample size there I think they mentioned that you know the average school offers 64 micro-cadentials and I think that isn't
00:08:04
Speaker
indicated that they've oversampled on people further down the road, because I think that's a very large number. So I think that the actual situation is even more grim in terms of ad hoc business models. And, you know, it's split between this organization and that organization and so on. So I think we've still got a long way to go.
UK Short-Course Trial: Effective or Not?
00:08:25
Speaker
Well, if we're talking small numbers, add in that OFS study or the data analysis from the program in the UK. Because I noticed that one, Neil will test you. This is your pop quiz to summarize that study. But I noticed that had some very low numbers as well about taking out loans for short courses. And it was related to the micro credentials. But it's interesting, it also had very low sample size.
00:08:52
Speaker
So here's your pop quiz. Can you tell us about that study in a nutshell? I can. Released today, I should say, as well. Again, I'm getting my excuses in early on this whole podcast, aren't I? This has kind of been in the works for a little while, so it's a short course trial on the back of some funding changes that are going to take place in the UK around
00:09:15
Speaker
funding, um, changing from being, uh, funding for a degree, but you're able to take up funding for shorter courses and then, you know, potentially bundle those together into a degree or across your lifetime. So life, uh, long, uh, loan entitlement. And so there was this kind of trial that was to assess certain things. And I think it's actually long been known that the demand for
00:09:41
Speaker
Student finance on the back of of a trial of short courses amongst a bunch of UK universities was low But this is kind of a as far as I understand a kind of culminating report on that particular trial and project So we kind of got definitive numbers on that. I mean, it's an interesting one because I think David Latchman the VC of Birkbeck is kind of
00:10:05
Speaker
Has said you know this trial was a fiasco I think is the word he used and burke beck in in the uk are You know renowned for being an adult education provider so, you know What can we learn from the trial? I think it ties in with what we've already discussed around the awareness of these types of things Well, actually sure if you don't mind share some of the numbers that were there like just startlingly low participation
00:10:34
Speaker
yeah I mean there were 41 I think students that took out the loan and yeah I mean it's just it low enrollments that kind of of courses yeah it just not doesn't paint a good a good picture but I again I think maybe to take a similar line to Morgan that
00:10:57
Speaker
What does a trial that on the face of it doesn't seem to have been that effective or that nuanced to tell you about this?
Low Uptake of Short-Term Pell Grants
00:11:07
Speaker
You know, we already know that
00:11:10
Speaker
micro-credentials, and if we could potentially call these micro-credentials, depending on our definitions, they're not that well known. And there's a challenge not just in marketing the specific micro-credentials themselves, but actually marketing them as a product. We all know degrees, they're a product that are in the consciousness of everybody. And I think
00:11:32
Speaker
You know, that's that's part of a challenge really so It's interesting to see the numbers What we actually learn from it. I think is is is debatable but it yeah, it doesn't it doesn't present the best picture and there's been debate on the back of similar projections that haven't been finalized previously around look is there actually a demand for this and
00:11:57
Speaker
Well, here in the U.S., you have short-term Pell that is working the way through the system to basically give grants for low-income students to take short-form programs or courses. I don't know the exact details of what they define.
00:12:15
Speaker
Certainly that OFS report or project makes you wonder if we're going to have a particularly low uptake on short term PELs in the U.S. Everybody talks about it for a while, but do actual students care about it? That's something that we might find out fairly soon. Especially given in the current bill where they're taking away the ability to grant
00:12:37
Speaker
financial aid away from a whole bunch of schools, which presumably won't make it into the final form of the bill, but they're stripping the rights of Harvard, et cetera, to give financial aid. Yeah, it's a mess, but it'll be interesting to watch.
Financial Concerns for Online Universities
00:12:55
Speaker
All right. So as long as we're on the theme, a lot of times we talk about things that talk to happen in the US and in first, and then they sort of hit the UK and other areas later.
00:13:04
Speaker
Let's go with the theme where we're taking it in a reverse direction, although in a negative story, Open University just reported a 25 million pound financial deficit. And I think they had been expecting around 10 million pound deficit, but that goes hand in hand with the Coventry University.
00:13:25
Speaker
deficit, which is huge. And Morgan, you wrote a little bit about this, but were you surprised? Like, what's your surprise in seeing some of these numbers coming out of UK, particularly with institutions that are heavily or strongly based on online learning?
00:13:42
Speaker
I'll interject that. I mean, the Open University is an interesting one. I read Morgan's newsletter where I think you're a big fan of the Open University. And I am as well, and many of us in the UK are. It's a fantastic concept.
00:14:00
Speaker
I am not overly surprised because I know that there's challenges there. There was a Times Higher Education article actually at the beginning, I think, of last year which pointed out the difficulties that the university have had in terms of students completing. So there are, as much as the OU model is
00:14:23
Speaker
you know, has a lot of positive sentiment towards it, there are challenges there. I think there's also, there's maybe like a, to just go in a slightly different direction if you just humor me for a moment. There's kind of similarities when I think about Moodle. You know, there's a lot of positive sentiment towards the ethos behind the company or the university
00:14:47
Speaker
But there's also challenges around the business model and the financials. And because there's such positive sentiment towards the ethos, that can sometimes make it difficult to critique. And I am always reluctant to critique the Open University because it's a kind of a, you know, we have the term national treasure here in the UK. But, you know, there are eminently challenges around
00:15:14
Speaker
Recruitment of students based on greater competition, which actually isn't mentioned in this report, but I think that's a factor You know, there's a university also in Coventry called Arden University that's been growing online Student numbers in recent years. I think that the university potentially presents a challenge as do all the other universities who are developing programs so I I am not
00:15:40
Speaker
totally surprised you know they are operating in a landscape in which there is just going to be more and more challenges and you know they're going to need to change and they've talked about actually opening up a campus in Milton Keynes for on-campus students so interesting example of an online distance university going on campus.
00:16:03
Speaker
So, no, not overly surprised. I mean, the Coventry one, I don't think really pertains strongly to online education. You know, they're a big group. They do have really big student numbers, transnational students and a range of different things.
00:16:20
Speaker
So my impression is that they've been quite aggressive around that kind of thing and maybe that's left them a bit more exposed. Hard to say really, but I just think we're going to see more of this in the UK in the year ahead, unfortunately.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's part of what I took out of it was the I don't know if it's commiseration. The fact it's not just the U.S., which has had more severe enrollment declines, but, you know, the higher education environment in multiple global regions is difficult. And we're seeing specific examples in the UK. And then the other part is inflation. I don't think we talk about it enough how much inflation affects the operations of universities, which clearly
00:17:03
Speaker
impacts not just online, but general, you know, general operations.
Open University's Structural Challenges
00:17:08
Speaker
And that was certainly cited as a reason for this. And it's basically it's a difficult environment across the board in higher education. It's part of what I took out of it. So it's more of a commiseration or I'm glad we're not alone here.
00:17:22
Speaker
But I think Neil raises an interesting point in the sense that, you know, a lot of us shaped our impression of the Open University at a certain time when it offered the one route to a part-time degree, offered at a distance. And I started off my teaching career at the University of South Africa, same sort of thing. It was huge.
00:17:47
Speaker
a lot of people in prison, political prisoners taking courses and things like that. But now a lot of places are getting into that line. And so there are substantial structural changes coming for those kinds of early movers, perhaps. Yeah. And I don't know if you saw Donald Clark's post at the beginning of the year around an AI university, because he actually talked about the open university. So he was making a call for a new similarly radical
00:18:17
Speaker
initiative that you know the open university was when it was launched way back when and you know he was talking about a kind of ai university and almost kind of a government-led initiative but he was you know i mean donald is very frank so he was um he was he was frank about the open university um but it yeah i think
00:18:40
Speaker
There's something in this story that is not unique to higher education as a whole, but then there's something that leads you to reflect on an institution that was a real pioneer at the time, and I guess raise questions as to what their place is in a 2023 higher education landscape in which more and more universities are offering online distance education.
00:19:11
Speaker
So you're also questioning our reflective attitude. Oh, I love Open University. I love that. They're like Moodle, great ethos. And maybe we need to look deeper. So, all right, one other quick story and then we'll get to the focus today where we actually wanted to look for like, what are the three of us looking forward to?
00:19:32
Speaker
and online and ed tech stories this year.
Debate: UC's Stance on Online Education
00:19:35
Speaker
But before we get to it, let's get the mood set with the University of California and their faculty senate's ability to say, hey, online education does not belong here for undergraduates. And it's been an ongoing experience.
00:19:52
Speaker
situation, it's not brand new, but for people who aren't familiar, last February, the Faculty Senate of the system, 300,000 plus students, they basically said they voted for closing a policy loophole that would effectively prohibit any fully online work in the University of California. And sometimes they claim it's because of control. Sometimes they claim it's because of quality.
00:20:19
Speaker
But I have to say, if you read their actual studies and workgroup reports that led up to that decision, there's no clarity on what they mean by UC quality. So it's like they're using the name quality to effectively
00:20:38
Speaker
pull back in their cocoon and say, you can't do online education. The administrators are fighting back saying, that's not your decision. So we have an ongoing battle here. But to me, it's still shocking that the people, this many people, because the vote wasn't close in the Senate, this many people in California of all places, the home place of Silicon Valley and a lot of the innovation here, which could be negative as well.
00:21:06
Speaker
think that we can just ignore online education for an entire university system. They didn't say, here's extra safeguards or how we're going to do quality. They said it's not allowed. So to me, it's stunning the way this is shaping up. Maybe it's not a surprise, but it's still stunning, if you ask me.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, I was struggling as I was reading the article to retain kind of more moderate language in my head, shall we say. I just, the whole thing- So British people are polite even in their heads. That's what I mean. Look, I'm trying to, yeah, I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be. I'm trying to have that Britishness encompass all my being. But I just, I mean,
00:21:55
Speaker
just came across as such a mess because you know an aspect of the story was also the question around governance wasn't it and around faculty role in all of that and you know that's a fair thing to discuss but to discuss that and to have that raised in the context of what seems like
00:22:18
Speaker
a bit of a bonkers kind of decision. It was also just, you know, added injury to insult to me. I mean, I found it staggering in that I was struggling to find a rationale.
00:22:36
Speaker
And I was almost thinking to my head, you know, if I would make this decision and I maybe had an ulterior motive, how would I seek to justify this publicly? You know, maybe I would raise something around integrity in an AI world.
00:22:52
Speaker
maybe I'd do that. I mean, I don't buy that, of course I don't. But I was thinking about how I might communicate effectively, like why I'd taken the decision in a way that people might at least buy into. But there's just nothing, nothing there. And it's evident that what's happened has actually caused greater ruptures that
00:23:12
Speaker
to a certain extent important but needless, needless to have kind of opened those kinds of worms really. So it was a depressing story for me on the whole and I don't know what line of argument you guys tend to take but now I'm kind of at the stage where when someone raises questions about efficacy of online learning I just don't really have time for that anymore because
00:23:38
Speaker
You know, that's an old argument in my mind. We've moved on past that, I think, or at least we should have done. You know, this is about how you communicate and educate at a distance via online as just part of the landscape. It's not an adversarial thing. It's just another form of educating people and providing access to education.
00:24:04
Speaker
to expend my energies on debating that kind of thing versus thinking about ways in which that can be done effectively. But Neil, Neil, online learning is not perfect. Therefore, we should not do it. Are you practicing for the post you're writing right now? Yes, I'm writing a post. So I was not at all surprised by that article because I've been neck deep in that sort of bullshit argument about how we shouldn't be doing online
00:24:34
Speaker
It's not perfect, therefore let's not do it. Three quarters of people say it's the same or as good as on-campus learning.
Resistance to Change in Education
00:24:45
Speaker
Therefore let's report the findings of that survey as people have mixed reactions to online learning. There's a lot of bogus stuff and I'm sort of the social scientist in me.
00:24:57
Speaker
is trying to figure out, is it just a reaction to change? Is it people wanting to go back to a world that was predictable, that was kind of thing? But I think a couple of things were happening and I was having a conversation
00:25:13
Speaker
with somebody based on another post that I wrote, the one about the law schools. And, you know, I was just saying I was concerned because five out of six historically black colleges or universities that have law schools fail the financial value transparency thing.
00:25:29
Speaker
So, you know, that's a real concern to me. So, you know, their response and a really thoughtful smart person said, well, maybe this will make them raise the funding for HBCUs. And it's just like, I wish that that was the case, but
00:25:44
Speaker
I strongly fear that it's not going to be. We have to work in the world of things. So I really am trying to understand that. And going back to your earlier response about being polite inside your head, I am deeply, deeply disappointed in you, Neil, that you didn't start by saying in response to that article, with all due respect, because there's nothing better than a British with all due respect. With all due respect, that's bonkers.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, look, I think bonkers is a good British word to add in the mix. I was also wondering, and this kind of ties in with, this is me being slightly flippant, but it ties in with another news story. Maybe they need to enroll a couple of AI students in an online course to gauge, you know, how effective it is or isn't, you know, maybe that's what they need to do.
00:26:36
Speaker
I'll just highlight one thing you've already mentioned, then we need to move on to sort of our what we're looking forward to.
Major Stories to Watch in 2024
00:26:43
Speaker
You make a really good point about governance, which is, you know, because think of it this way, if you're trying to think of motivations. If I wanted to sabotage the Faculty Senate,
00:26:55
Speaker
this would be one of the main approaches that I would take. Let's come up with a very cloistered view of online education. Not make any improvements, just say we're not going to do it. And then in very typically faculty senate
00:27:11
Speaker
manner, just say, we should study this more for a couple more years before we have to deal with it. That is the best way I can think of to pull yourself out of a governance role. Because if you're an administrator, they have to say, we can't just ignore online education. It's an important strategic choice and the faculties in it are taking themselves out of that conversation. So I feel that they're shooting themselves in the foot or sabotaging their role.
00:27:41
Speaker
Which is ironic because they're arguing it's so much over this is about governance. It's just not the best way to do it That's that's one of my reactions. So it's good to know I'm not the only one having this type of reaction from that story
00:27:56
Speaker
OK, let's look forward. What we wanted to do for the second half of this episode is really say, what are the big stories that each of us are going to be looking for in 2024 and why are these stories important? And so what is your heads up? But so each of us is going to share some thoughts and we'll discuss them. But this will give insight into the types of things that we're likely to be talking about on the podcast moving forward.
00:28:26
Speaker
So any volunteers to go first?
The Rise of Chatbots in Academics
00:28:31
Speaker
Sure, I'll go first. So what am I going to be talking about? Well, it's a bit of a hodgepodge. There's no underlying theme, but I'm going to just go with the hodgepodge in a way. I think we're going to see a lot of action around chatbots this year. So that's going to be something that I look for as a
00:28:49
Speaker
As a natural extension of some of that AI work, you know, we had the action around Alexa and things and then experiments with chatbots and then rolling them out and then becoming more used. But I think we'll see a sort of upstep in terms of their activity, particularly into the academic realm. So that's one thing.
00:29:06
Speaker
I think enrollment certainly in terms of the the US has to be a giant giant thing and and so I anticipate just more looking at how places are thinking about enrollment how they're trying to fix it how they're trying to address that in different sort of sectors of the economy so that's in some ways an extension of what I was thinking about this year so it's not really a new one but I want to go deeper into that because I think it's one of the big challenges of
00:29:36
Speaker
similarly with microcredentials, I want to get more into some of the mechanics of it and how people are doing it. So both the business models and the technology. A lot of what I see right now with microcredentials sort of reminds me of the old joke of the guy who loses his keys and he's looking under the lab post and he said, did you lose your keys there? It's like, no, but I can see here. And a lot of work around microcredentials is the easy stuff. But I think
00:30:05
Speaker
And it'll be interesting to see how I do that. But increasingly, I come back to this issue of change that you just raised with the California Senate and things like that. Why are places struggling with change so much and what's going on? As readers of the newsletter and things will know, I have a PhD in political science.
00:30:29
Speaker
When I think about my training as a graduate student, a lot of things were useful, but the one particular thing that stands out, the one particular thing that stands out is a book we read about the peasantry in Indonesia called Weapons of the Week, W-E-A-K, so people that had no power.
00:30:52
Speaker
And it starts out with a wonderful joke, and I'm going to use a slightly colorful term in telling this joke, but it's about, when faced with abuse of power from on high, the wise man bows low to the great Lord and farts quietly. And it's about how people worked to stymie the system in quiet sorts of ways. They aren't going along with things and they're stymieing the system. That makes so much sense to me.
00:31:18
Speaker
in ed tech, you've got people sort of resisting and trying to not get along. And so a lot of the lack of processes, this sort of like active resistance. Part of why I'll never go back to a campus is because my last time on campus was spent always trying to work against my colleagues, both in my department and outside my department, who were always working it.
00:31:40
Speaker
cross purposes, even if something was deemed a priority from on high. So I want to try and understand what is the situation and how can we address that or make that better. So that's what I've got. It's a real, as I mentioned, a grab bag there.
00:31:55
Speaker
Well, you do have the theme of the nature of change itself and how groups react to it.
Fragility of the UK OPM Market
00:32:01
Speaker
And considering the California Faculty Senate is a collective fart. So that's a, it's an interesting theme. It's for right there. Okay. Neil, with that set up, what are you looking forward to this year in terms of what are going to be the big stories you're keeping your eye on?
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, I have a I I feel like I have a positive and a negative So maybe i'll go with a negative first and then we'll can end on a positive but the I guess one of the things that i'm following is I guess something we've talked about a lot but i'm thinking about this very much in terms of the uk context and that is the fragility of the opm market um not necessarily in terms of the kind of regulatory pressures and threats that you have over there, but just that
00:32:50
Speaker
You know, there are significant company troubles, some that have come to the surface and some that are bubbling underneath the surface. And, you know, I think that has the potential to really bubble over and affect the ambitions of various universities.
Positive AI Impacts Beyond Plagiarism
00:33:07
Speaker
who are either looking to get into online or are kind of a bit further along in online, it really has the potential to stall and negatively affect what certain universities want to do. So that sounds like a horrible thing to say I'm watching for in 2024, but to be honest, it's something that
00:33:28
Speaker
concerns me about online education over here and I hope things do run smoothly for people but I guess allied to that there's also you know a number of universities that maybe fall into the bracket of sort of post-OPM so I'm interested in terms of what they do given that they're in a new chapter of their evolution there's a few that are in a kind of a state of flux I think
00:33:54
Speaker
around that kind of thing so you know that's probably more of a negative thing that I'm kind of keeping an eye on but it's really kind of in the in the
00:34:02
Speaker
in my mind for this year. And then, you know, on a more positive note, I guess this is slightly chimes with what Morgan said, and I'm really hopeful for a year in which our talk about AI is a bit more positively framed in terms of, look, how can we really leverage this in interesting ways that improve higher education? You know, we've had the kind of knee jerk
00:34:26
Speaker
period where, you know, it's all about is the essay dead, you know, detection tools, plagiarism. And even when we talked about VLE, sorry, LMS, I'm, I've just been writing something about VLE. VLE LMS, sorry. He's a better term, so go for it. Okay, okay.
00:34:46
Speaker
You know, even when we talked about how AI was affecting those products, we talked about the fact that a lot of the developments were focused on educators, basically. And so interested, you know, can we have more around a student focus? So I'm hopeful, you know, me, like others, I guess, got a bit
00:35:09
Speaker
tired of some of the AI stuff and it wasn't just the volume it was also what so I'm really hopeful for more interesting experimentation a bit more of a student focus hopefully the debate about detection is you know kicked into the long grass a little bit and I you know I nodded to that idea that came out of Ferris State University that they announced recently around the two AI students like not perfect by any stretch of imagination but
00:35:36
Speaker
noble in terms of at least an attempt to do something interesting around AI that hopefully in some way positively benefits the student experience and the learning and teaching experience. So yeah, those were two. One bad, one good.
00:35:55
Speaker
How about you, Phil? Well, before I get to mine, I will ask a question. On the AI front, if I sort of combine these more work with chat bots and hopefully we're past what Morgan's called the moral panic and get into more productive conversations.
00:36:11
Speaker
Do we expect to see actual usage this year, not just talks, talk about things and not just very small pilots? Are we expecting that in 2024, we'll see actual usage having an impact on large numbers of students? So not just, is it a positive talk about it, but will it be happening at greater volume?
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean to Morgan's point about chatbots, the one thing that interests me, I think when Canvas announced the partnership with Khan Academy around Khanmiga, I think there was going to be a period of experimentation. What I'm really interested in is
00:36:50
Speaker
I would be interested in that being rolled out more widely and then seeing actual usage. I think there's been lots of examples of chatbots used at a smaller scale maybe or in particular ways but
00:37:07
Speaker
That's an example that has the potential to reach a whole bunch of students and Have much greater usage of those kind of things. So I guess that probably entails people taking their handbrake off a little bit on certain things But you'd you'd like to think that Something like that might be rolled out more widely and that's just one example, of course, but maybe that speaks to the kind of wider usage point sure any thoughts Morgan before we move on I
00:37:37
Speaker
I was just about to say, Mainstay has entered the chat and says that they've been doing it with a large number of students for a while. And I think certainly that is true. I always forget what their previous name was, but I think sort of broader than that and in some different kinds of areas. So yeah, so that's one comment. The other comment, equally snarky perhaps, but it's, look at Mr. Fancy, Ed Tech, analyst over there. He has an OPM market. I think we used to have one of those back in the day.
00:38:06
Speaker
We've sent it over to the UK to do a summer break. Sort of reverse colonialism. So on that note, so what am I going to be
US Department of Education's 2024 Agenda
00:38:18
Speaker
looking for? One of the biggest stories this I have been known for occasionally being skeptical or negative. But there's the time where I'm actually somewhat positive. So I had written about
00:38:34
Speaker
that the Department of Education in the U.S. is likely to pull back, try to consolidate some of its regulatory wins and not introduce more chaos into the market. So, for example, reintroducing the third-party servicer guidance in some form or rescinding
00:38:52
Speaker
the bundled services exception that would get rid of OPM rev share models and I had you know it's one of my few times I said I just don't think that's going to happen. I think the department of ed's going to recognize what's happened and take a step back. Well as soon as I had written that I just saw a lot of signs saying I might be completely wrong on that.
00:39:12
Speaker
That's one of the main things I'll be looking for, is they're trying to remake such a higher education in the US. Will the department pull back, as I had originally guessed, and say, we need to consolidate our wins, defend against lawsuits, make small revisions and
00:39:32
Speaker
you know, try to achieve something or will they view 2024 as let's just double down. We don't know that we're going to be here in 2025 and let's just throw everything we can out into the regulatory landscape and just see what happens. And there's arguments on either side, but I think that's one of the big stories. 2023 was defined so much in the U.S. by regulations.
00:39:58
Speaker
And it's really up to the Department of Ed if they're going to pull back or if they're just going to double down on their strategy. So watching that happen is going to be one of the main things I'm looking for. And I think we'll get a lot of insight into that by the March timeframe. You know, we'll have real clear insight.
00:40:18
Speaker
The other one, and Morgan, you already mentioned it, specifically enrollment and the National Student Clearinghouse, because that's the most up-to-date enrollment estimates nationwide. So we'll be getting those in the April-May timeframe for spring. Then we'll be getting more in the October-November timeframe for fall.
00:40:41
Speaker
We need to really look at that. And why is it important? It's because we did have an uptick in enrollment in the fall. Was that something structural that indicates that some of higher, at least in some sectors, higher education is going to come back and we'll get more students involved in the system and try to overcome some of our difficulties we've had for years?
00:41:07
Speaker
Or is this just something like essentially pull forward effects from the COVID? And it's like a minor one-time correction that we saw in the fall, but we're going to go back to significant enrollment declines.
00:41:23
Speaker
I don't know how to read it. I mean, I know my gut feel is that it's not structural and that we have big enrollment decline issues we're going to continue to be facing and we haven't really even hit the enrollment cliff impacts broadly at this point.
00:41:39
Speaker
But if you look at the data, there were some significant increases in the fall and it should be cause for us to question, maybe we got some of this wrong. So that is which is the right way to interpret the enrollment gains we had in the fall.
00:41:58
Speaker
And I think we'll find out a lot by looking at the National Student Clearinghouse in the U.S. and the spring and fall moving forward.
Enrollment Trends Shaping Education
00:42:05
Speaker
That will help set up the drivers of, you know, a lot of what we talk about, ed tech usage, online education.
00:42:14
Speaker
is, and one way to look at it, if for some reason, I don't think this is what's happening, but you have to look at the data. If there is a significant enrollment rebound in any of the sectors, will that actually reduce the demand for some of these alternative approaches and online education? Or if it goes the opposite way, is it going to say we got existential issues, we've got to get things fixed and invest in online right
00:42:43
Speaker
So I'm just calling out that I know how I think, but that data, we need to understand how to interpret it. And so looking at enrollment is very important.
00:42:56
Speaker
in your hunches, Phil, because there's a degree of symmetry in that we're both facing an election this year. And so the feeling in the UK is that even if higher education was on fire, and some people would say it is on fire, the government's going to be turning a blind eye to that and being out canvassing for the election. And so I guess probably more of the inclination and hunch here is that the government's not going to deal with any major policy regulation.
00:43:24
Speaker
Things this year, but I just wondered what whether there was a similar hunch and feeling over there. I was a bit more uncertain Well, what you described is the thinking that I had when I wrote the post saying I think they're going to pull back is saying the rational english thing to do is to pull back and you know not mess up an election and try to
00:43:49
Speaker
not stir the pot anymore. So what you described was my thinking. I don't think it's broad based, but it certainly was behind my thought process. But quite honestly, I'm thinking I was too optimistic of that. And there's a lot of views that it's the opposite here, that it's going to be throw in whatever you can while you have time to do it.
00:44:12
Speaker
The other thing is also just a lot a lot happens in higher education at the state level. And education, I was speaking to somebody at a university this week, and they were saying that the word from their state legislature is education is going to be the one number one topic in 2024. Not in a good way. More like
00:44:37
Speaker
taking action against education run riot, they say. It's a red state. So, you know, I think it's going to be a lot of, but it trickles down into ed tech issues as well. So it's going to be a tough year, I think.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So long and short, we are, I think we have big election impacts here in the US, but at least for this term, if I had to put my money on it right now, I'd say it's going to be the opposite of what you described, Neil. It's going to be not the matter of let's not stir the pot or do anything big. It's going to be let's deliberately make big changes and see the reaction. So which
00:45:18
Speaker
Go ahead. In 2024, you're even less likely to get Christmas cards from certain think tanks. Is that my intent? Maybe I'm doing a disservice there. I don't know, but sounds interesting.
00:45:32
Speaker
Morgan wants to get on the disinvite list and uh so yeah we're more likely we'll need to stop by your house and uh I actually feel personally doomed because in some ways I'd much rather just write about like enrollment rates or this particular edtech or that particular edtech but like policy has been so important and I feel doomed because when I was still at Gardner we used to have to practice our symposium presentations and then we're vicious
00:45:59
Speaker
like random people from the company would come and they'd rip you to shreds and there was one particular guy who at the end of my talk said he was from the government team he said what gives you the right to talk about educational policy he was serious inside my head in Neil's manner inside my head I thought hmm you mean apart from the PhD and working on it for a long long time
00:46:22
Speaker
But I said nothing. I just let the thing go there. But because of that, I feel doomed to spend the rest of my life working on policy issues. That's my own personal...
00:46:31
Speaker
and I'll be quiet now. Yeah. Well, I'll end on a positive note there. Yes, we're going to be missing some Christmas party invitations this year or for a couple of years.
Wrapping Up: Abundant Material in 2024
00:46:43
Speaker
But the good news is I think that for this podcast and for our respective newsletters, there's going to be a lot to cover. Like 2023 was a banner year of change and big stories.
00:46:56
Speaker
And the positive news is we're going to have plenty of material to cover for this coming year as well. So we'll leave it and try to interpret it on a positive basis. Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. OK, well, with that in mind, look forward to this new year and we'll start doing some of this coverage. But thanks, Neil. Thanks, Morgan. It's great to see you guys again and us getting back into action this year.