Pitfalls await teachers who publicize lives on social mediaTribune Review... outside of school," said Piekut, a high school English teacher and vice president of the South Allegheny Education Association.
The latest news related to the meaningful and effective implementation of educational technology and e-learning in K-12, higher education, corporate and government sectors.
Watch this video to learn more about the fully online, accelerated, project-based Master of Education in Educational Technology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. For more information, visit: https://www.utrgv.edu/edtech/index.htm
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
This 30-hour accelerated program designed to prepare persons in K-12, higher education, corporate, and military settings to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for the classrooms and boardrooms of tomorrow. Students in this program have the opportunity to earn one or more graduate certificates in E-Learning, Technology Leadership, and Online Instructional Design.
This is a fantastic program! Its practical, real-world based and applicable to many areas of industry where teaching and learning, training and development are used.
"Microsoft has moved its Mesh 3D meeting capabilities into Teams through a new immersive events feature, now generally available. The company retired its standalone Mesh platform as of Dec. 1. The change allows organizations to run avatar-based, 3D virtual events directly in Teams without deploying separate Mesh applications."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Immersive events operate through the Teams calendar and support customizable environments on Windows, macOS, and Meta Quest headsets."
"When executive brain functions are compromised in virtual learning environments, due to either various external stimuli, an identified specific learning disability, or a combination of both, the individual’s access to a meaningful learning experience is impeded [2–4]. Therefore, educators and instructional designers need to understand the complexity of learning and the impact executive function has on learning in order to develop effective didactics and pedagogy."
"[I]ndividuals can recall seven (+/- 2) pieces of new information at one time. Beyond the number seven, memory becomes fragmented and ineffective. Miller reported that when large blocks of material are chunked, it requires less mental command for attention, freeing up the load capacity of the working memory."
"I’m a developer who’s spent decades working with game engines and AI systems. And watching NPCs stand motionless in elaborate, carefully crafted virtual spaces felt like a waste. These worlds had 3D environments, physics, avatars, ambiance—everything needed for immersion except inhabitants that felt alive.
The recent explosion of accessible large language models presented an opportunity I couldn’t ignore. What if we could teach NPCs to actually perceive their environment, understand what people were saying to them, and respond with something resembling intelligence?"
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"What happens when educators deploy NPCs for interactive learning? When artists create installations featuring characters with distinct personalities? When builders integrate them into complex, evolving storylines?"
When Dr. Carolina Gutierrez's physics students used artificial intelligence to solve problems, something unexpected happened: The answers were wrong
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"As AI becomes increasingly common in classrooms, teachers are moving beyond curiosity and caution to ask practical questions: How do we use these tools responsibly? How do we ensure equity? And how do we help all students benefit?"
"In higher education, we have no choice but to accept that machines already are — or very soon will be — better than humans at virtually every intellectual and cognitive task. We can resist, we can throw tantrums, we can ban AI in classrooms. It is a futile battle — and, in fact, it’s the wrong battle."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"[T]he machine by itself is a tremendously powerful engine — but without a steering wheel."
"Emerging personality patterns that drive differentiation in AI products"
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Design theory reinforces this! Norman’s emotional design theory shows that products which evoke emotion foster attachment and loyalty, while anthropomorphism explains our instinct to assign human traits to machines."
Teaching media literacy in the age of AI helps ensure that students have the skills to discern real from fake information.
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"In a world where artificial intelligence can produce convincing text, images, and even videos in seconds, the ability to read critically is essential. Today, students can find answers faster than any generation before them, but access to information isn’t the same as understanding it. The challenge for educators is helping them move from consuming information to questioning it."
The rising tide of AI slop has brought with it fake research and other sources that librarians are asked to track down.
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"AI models are generating so much slop that students and researchers keep coming into libraries and asking for journals, books, and records that don’t exist"
"Viewing agents through a human analogy can make their development and management easier to grasp. In our framework, an agent’s lifecycle mirrors that of an employee:ideate, build and govern. The same requirements we rely on to manage human teams provide a useful blueprint for managing agents."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"What do you call your agent? Like any member of a team, it needs a name so you can refer to both the agent and its growing set of skills."
"Grades show where students are, but feedback shows where they can go. After a test, you often see the same scene: papers handed back, numbers circled at the top, and quiet reactions that reveal far more than the grade itself. A grade on its own is incomplete. It gives information, but it doesn’t give direction."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"A grade is a snapshot. Feedback is momentum. Without feedback, students often create their own story about what the grade means, and it is usually the harshest version possible."
"The college students gazed intently at the screen, trying to discern whether the photo was real or created by artificial intelligence.
“It’s almost like a smudged painting,” said Quincy Shepherd, a junior. “There’s just something wrong with it.”
The photo was, in fact, real. Luckily, the Augsburg University students were better at identifying videos and photos that were fake, picking up on clues like people staring at nothing or a woman’s strange gait."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"The classes’ content pulls from many disciplines, including sociology, philosophy, communication arts and psychology. Each takes a slightly different approach to tackle misinformation — or false information — and disinformation, which is incorrect information intended to mislead people."
Roughly one-in-five U.S. teens say they are on TikTok and YouTube almost constantly. At the same time, 64% of teens say they use chatbots, including about three-in-ten who do so daily.
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Nearly all U.S. teens (97%) say they use the internet daily, including four-in-ten who say they are almost constantly online... About three-in-ten teens say they use AI chatbots every day, including 16% who do so several times a day or almost constantly."
"In recent years, artificial intelligence has rapidly integrated into learning, academia and the workforce, and it is not difficult to notice the impact of AI in these areas. The purpose of this article is to discuss the cognitive, academic and societal implications of the widespread adoption of AI."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"While there are initial benefits, such as convenience, of using a large language model (LLM), the prolonged use may lead to declines in learning skills and cognitive processes."
Instead of being defensive when a student asks “why are we learning this?”, let’s treat the question as a path to deeper engagement.
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Gen Z has grown up surrounded by constant messaging — some genuine, some hollow... So when they step into a classroom, they’re not looking for performance. They’re looking for proof."
"A lot of what you know or think you know about artificial intelligence probably comes from movies and science fiction books, but there’s a lot that the movies and the books get wrong about AI. If you want to prepare for AI and be ready for the world that’s coming, maybe you want the real stuff, not the fantasy."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Understanding all these myths helps us make better choices, build better businesses, and if we happen to be writers, write more interesting stories."
Students are chasing points and grades because that’s what the education system prioritizes, but we can guide them to focus on learning.
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"If students are using AI to accomplish a goal, the real problem is that their goal isn’t learning—it’s accumulating points to achieve a grade.
Generative AI just demonstrates that schools have gotten so caught up in the points-grades-GPA game that students have lost sight of the real goal: learning."
Aka, how to build AI content that engages learners & enhances learning
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"AI-powered content generation has become industrialised. Educators are increasingly swapping traditional videos for synthetic AI talking heads. AI-generated images, diagrams and audio are already becoming ubiquitous, while personalised AI tutors and chatbots are becoming increasingly common parts of the learning experience infrastructure rather than experimental “blow your mind” add-ons."
"GPT-5.2 is fundamentally about making small tweaks and improvements to the already fairly new GPT-5.1 model.
Today’s release improves OpenAI’s performance on a variety of industry benchmarks. GPT-5.2 is faster and more efficient than its predecessor, and it does a better job solving scientific and technical problems."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"[I]t’s better at writing code and doing math, and performs better on so-called agentic tasks, where the model operates for a long time without human input."
"As a medical school professor who teaches academic writing, I see the tension firsthand. Students are unsure what is allowed. Faculty are unsure what is ethical. And institutions are scrambling to keep up. The arrival of generative AI has triggered a wave of confusion and concern across higher education."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"[A]s panic fades, a more sophisticated reality is setting in. Far from a threat, AI is a challenge that must be studied, tamed and strategically applied if scholars want to keep pace with the new frontier of AI literacy."
Moving beyond the one-student, one-AI model to build tools that bring learners together
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"The industry is at a crossroads. We can continue down the path of isolated efficiency, creating ever-more-compelling digital companions that risk exacerbating student isolation. Or, we can choose a different path: one where AI is designed not as a private oracle for the individual, but as a catalyst for collaboration within a group."
"Yesterday, I watched a high school student present his “AI Project.” His goal was straightforward: teach an AI player to choose among six different dice to improve its odds of climbing ladders instead of sliding down chutes in Chutes & Ladders. He hit a wall. The AI wasn’t working. So he left the classroom—metaphorically—and took a free online course on his own initiative in reinforcement learning. In the course, he learned just enough to solve his problem. Then he came back and got it working. His presentation included an explanation of RL and how he did it."
EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:
"Traditional teaching often centers the teacher as the source of knowledge. This teacher understood their role differently: architect of learning environments, curator of opportunities, coach for student-directed exploration."
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