About T-Squared: a Teaching and Technology Podcast
The T-Squared podcast covers the intersection of teaching and technology. Episodes feature conversations about new and upcoming technologies, discussions about current research and controversies, as well as advice, secrets, and best practices for putting technology to use in your teaching.
In the second part of their conversation, Jacob and Matt continue their discussion of AI ethics with Dr. Eric Covey from Grand Valley State University’s Department of History.
To help find a truly international solution for climate change, they enlist the help of ChatGPT itself. Reading through its ideas leads to a conversation about whether large language models actually contain knowledge or whether it’s something else. Discussing knowledge leads to the question of how creativity relates to randomness, and whether LLMs can truly be creative.
The conversation turns a bit more technical as they consider the idea of information compression as a way to understand how large language models operate. The analogy helps illuminate why there are two different types of bias present in LLMs.
The episode includes a discussion of the concept of “openness” and the financial costs involved, raising the question of how “open” generative artificial intelligence models are—and whether they can ever actually be truly open.
In the final moments of the episode, Eric relates a story about how one of his students used ChatGPT and didn’t notice problems in the generated text. The group returns to some of the broad themes discussed, including the problem of what counts as “good enough”, the need for technoskepticism, as well as the importance of digital literacy in the higher ed curriculum.
26 Jan 2024
Critical Ethics and AI, with Eric Covey
Jacob and Matt talk with Dr. Eric Covey of Grand Valley State University’s Department of History. Compared to many faculty, Eric began talking with his students about generative Ai fairly early in the ChatGPT era. He anchored his discussion not in issues of plagiarism, as many faculty have, but in a discussion about the unseen ethical challenges that generative AI presents.
The conversation broadens to discuss ways in which education can help build learner self-awareness—whether of the global impact of their technological habits or the personal impact of practices of self-care and attention to learning science.
The question of critically engaging with technology leads to how individual educators and their institutions can balance concerns about educational technology with the institutional and societal imperatives to prepare learners for their future careers. The three consider why, compared to previous technological changes, so many in education are rapidly embracing generative AI.
The answer may lie in part with the way neoliberalism has shaped modern education. Considering the imperatives and constraints that neoliberalism places on higher ed leads to a question that will likely reappear in this podcast season: how long will it be until we see the rise of “AIU”—an institution that downplays human faculty, leverages generative AI, and claims to do so for the benefit of all.
The episode (the first of two with Eric) ends with a discussion about whether AIU will be successful, whether technical solutions to some of AI’s problems will increase its popularity, and how to counter the fact that for many people a university run by AI will be “good enough.”
18 Oct 2023
Welcome to the Season of AI
Jacob Fortman and Matt Roberts introduce the rebooted T-Squared podcast, whose third season will focus on the topic of generative artificial intelligence. In this episode Jacob and Matt set the stage for the rest of the season by talking about ChatGPT and generative AI more broadly. While there’s no shortage of news about AI—especially in higher education—Matt and Jacob lay out a plan to move past the hype and the hysteria. Future episodes will focus on a deeper discussion about generative artificial intelligence and how it differs from other types of AI; the relationship between AI, knowledge, and expertise; the legal and ethical factors involved in the use of AI; and the connections between efficiency, community, and education.
20 Mar 2020
Out of Place, Out of Time (A COVID-19 Mini-Episode)
On our campus, we're a week deep into the response to the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. As at most schools, faculty have been asked to finish the semester online. Most grasp that this means losing the act of physically meeting in a shared classroom. Given tools like Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom, many faculty are trying to recreate their classes by having students meet virtually during their assigned class times. In this first-of-several mini-episodes, we talk about why moving to remote teaching means you have to cope with the loss of your physical classroom AND your class time as well.
10 Dec 2019
New Season!
The T-Squared team returns for the first episode of season 2. In addition to choosing prize winners for the campus' New Faculty Orientation, they discuss what they learned over the summer and what they're looking forward to in the year ahead. Coffee in this episode was personally imported from Italy.
5 Jun 2019
Episode 7: Symposium, Symposium, Symposium
In the final episode of the podcast’s first season, Eric and Matt interview presenters and attendees at Grand Valley State University’s 18th annual Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium. Those interviewed are: Kevin Barrons (Seidman College of Business), Lissa Brunan (College of Education, with her students MaKenna Kane and Breanne Dalm), Robert Talbert (Mathematics), Mark Luttenton (Graduate School), Sherry Barricklow (eLearning), Cheryl Kautz (Computing and Information Systems), and Jeff Sykes (Disability Support Resources).
23 Apr 2019
Episode 6: Lightboards, Digital Video, and Justin Melick
In this second of two interviews with Grand Valley’s Digital Media Developers, we talk with Justin Melick. In his time at Grand Valley, Justin’s work has centered around digital video. In addition to helping faculty across the university develop digital videos, Justin has experimented with 360 degree video, and is the designer of Grand Valley’s three “lightboards.”
25 Feb 2019
Episode 5: Local Coffee, Mixed Reality, and Empathy with Hunter Bridwell
In the first of a two episode series, we talk to Grand Valley’s Digital Media Developers. Here we have a conversation with Hunter Bridwell. Many of the projects he works on involve virtual or augmented reality. We discuss several of thees projects, including a project for Occupational Therapy that simulates the kind of “visual field cut” that often occurs in patients after they suffer a stroke. We also touch on Hunter’s background in photography and how technology such as mixed reality can play a role in increasing empathy in education. And perhaps most importantly, Hunter brings us coffee from the Sparrows Coffee Tea and Newsstand (roasted by the Schuil Coffee Company).
14 Dec 2018
Episode 4: Ally, Panopto, Faculty Learning Communities, and a Showcase Birthday
Deep deep apologies that it’s taken so long for Episode 4 to reach your ears, but it’s been a busy autumn around here and podcast post-production took a back burner to other projects. In this episode we get updates on podcast distribution (we’re on Anchor and lots of other locations now!), campus usage of Blackboard Ally and Panopto. We talk briefly about our Online and Hybrid Faculty Learning Communities (join us each month). We also commemorate the fifth birthday of the Atomic Object Technology Showcase. Coffee in this episode is the Rwanda blend from Grand Rapids’ own Rowster Coffee.
4 Sept 2018
Episode 3: Badges, Badgers, Blackboard, and more
Topics of conversation for our third episode include the University of Wisconsin’s Distance Teaching and Learning Conference, Grand Valley State University’s Faculty Badges Initiative, and the Blackboard Ally tool for improving content accessibility. The coffee in this episode is Mzuzu Specialty Coffee, brought to us by hand from Malawi. We also get an update on Mr. Coffee and declare a temporary embargo on discussing Amazon Alexa.
20 Jul 2018
Episode 2: Conferences, Emerging Technology, and Hospitality
In the second episode of T-Squared, Eric and Matt discuss Oakland University’s e-Cornucopia Conference and the Lilly Conferences on College and University Teaching and Learning. Their conversation covers a broad range of topics: accessibility and Universal Design of Learning, hospitality as a metaphor for teaching, and the role of emerging technologies like virtual/augmented reality and smart speaker technology. This episode’s coffee arrived directly from Guatemala. And did you hear that there will be a new member of the T-Squared team?
14 May 2018
Episode 1: MACUL, Student Success, and GVSU's Technology Showcase
In this first ever episode of T-Squared, Eric and Matt discuss the 2018 Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) conference, including Bonnie St. John’s keynote focused on failure, grit, and student success. Your hosts drink Kenyan coffee from Blue Bottle and talk about the Grand Valley’s Atomic Object Technology Showcase.
2 Feb 2018
T-Squared: The Trailer (Episode 000)
Grand Valley State University’s eLearning and Emerging Technologies team is pleased to announce T-Square: a podcast about teaching and technology. The first episode of this new podcast about the intersection of teaching and technology will hit the web—and your favorite pod-catcher—in February 2018. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode.
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