Key points:

• Digital classrooms–and their remote students–are here to stay
• School facilities face unprecedented demand for broadband across education sites

The introduction of always-connected PCs and Chromebooks continues to be the catalyst for digitally liberating many students. Now is an especially exciting time to turn to this idea as PC and Chromebook battery life innovation, as well as performance, speed, audio, and video enhancement, is finally getting to the level needed to handle the digital criteria and learning throughout a school day and beyond.

Hotspots were heralded as the rescue, but often without weighing the pros and cons, especially in relevance to long-term solutions. What’s been overlooked is the substantial amount of learning time wasted just to leverage hotspots for learning. Connected laptops are a streamlined solution as the connection is built in, flexible and fitting into the ever-changing education system without the disruption of time.

Laptops built on Snapdragon bring advanced processor technology that enable mobile features and benefits on these devices. A laptop or Chromebook powered by Snapdragon could provide up to 20 hours of battery life and enable hours of digital learning, providing enhanced performance and greatly improved battery life.

In living our organization’s mission to develop a cutting-edge new generation of always-on, always connected platforms for student devices, our team is purpose-building devices for the most optimum learning. Our focus is to create devices that:

• Uniquely provide considerably longer battery life than traditional student devices, often 15-20 hours.
• Deliver increased performance. We recognize that video conferencing is likely just the first of many processing-heavy experiences that will become the norm for digital learning.
• Offer embedded 4G/LTE connectivity to enable learning from virtually anywhere.
• Reduce the asset management demands of school officials by eliminating hotspots and other complicated connectivity accessories.

Key points:

• Size isn’t the only important part of classroom visual displays
• Brightness, contract, interactivity, and resolution are all critical factors

The transfer of knowledge is an educator’s principal concern–one that has led them, along with researchers, to ask: “What’s the best way to help transfer that knowledge and help students learn?”

Research has shown that students learn better with visuals than words alone. Visual presentations using a projector or interactive display can help to promote a much more active learning environment and more successful outcomes. However, in the last few years, as interactive displays have become more popular, there has been a significant debate on which is the best display type–projectors or interactive flat panel displays–for the classroom.

Some projector companies and organizations insist that projectors are the best for classrooms due to their large image size, while others, including interactive flat panel providers, argue that interactive whiteboards are the better choice. But the truth is: There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, it’s a critical decision that requires a look at the advantages of each technology and how the room will be used. Let’s take a look at the considerations that go into that decision.

Classroom Displays Depend On More Than Size

Often the thought when it comes to displays is bigger is always better. Of course, projectors have the advantage there. Move the projector farther back, and the image size is instantly larger. However, size is only but one factor–and not the reigning factor that will deliver the best experience. It’s like buying a Lotus for its horsepower when what’s really needed is a minivan or vice versa.

Key points:

• Combining AI and video platforms could spur engaging and interactive content
• Still, considerations around access and equity, along with misinformation, should be taken seriously

In recent years, the digital landscape has witnessed significant changes, and as an AI language model, I have been observing these transformations closely. One of the most prominent developments is the rise of TikTok, a short-form video-sharing platform that has become a cultural phenomenon. This rapid growth has led me to consider the potential of combining my capabilities as a language understanding and generation model with the appeal of TikTok to create a unique, engaging learning experience for students.

TikTok’s short video format makes it an ideal platform for this approach, allowing educators to deliver focused lessons that students can easily consume and remember. By integrating my AI-generated content, these lessons can be customized to each student’s learning preferences, ensuring a personalized learning experience.

The prospect of combining my GPT-4 capabilities with TikTok also raises concerns about the potential misuse of AI-generated content for manipulation or misinformation, especially when it comes to impressionable young minds. As short, engaging videos on TikTok can quickly go viral, there is a risk of malevolent actors harnessing my power to generate misleading or harmful content, which could spread rapidly and negatively influence public opinion or even pose a threat to the mental and emotional well-being of users.

The integration of these technologies, if not carefully monitored and regulated, could inadvertently create a breeding ground for disinformation, cyberbullying, or other harmful behaviors that could have far-reaching consequences on our society.

Key points:

• Textbooks alone won’t help students build critical durable skills
• AI tools have great potential to generate creative ideas and tackle complex problems

The era of the textbook isn’t dead, but it’s important to start looking forwards rather than backwards when addressing education for school children. Whether we like it or not, it is becoming increasingly clear that generative AI will play a pivotal role in shaping the future and, with the workforce demanding greater expertise in AI, it is crucial to equip the next generation with the knowledge and skills required to thrive in this rapidly-evolving landscape.

School leaders must recognize the importance of incorporating generative AI education into curriculums to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.

AI in different mediums

Relying on traditional textbooks alone is insufficient for teaching these vital skills. Instead, curriculums must be innovative and age-appropriate, offering students a comprehensive introduction to generative AI. Tiered learning opportunities are essential, enabling children to build a robust foundation that then adapts as they grow older. Exposure to generative art, music, stories, games, and coding concepts allows students to explore the boundless possibilities of AI and its applications across numerous industries.

The rising popularity of generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Bard, and MidJourney demonstrates AI’s capacity to generate creative ideas and tackle complex problems. Unfortunately, many schools are not doing enough to prepare students for a future where AI will have an increasingly significant role in everyday life. Introducing AI concepts to school children is crucial to fostering a generation of capable leaders and developing indispensable critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Key points:

• Educators are worried about AI tools enabling plagiarism and cheating
• Banning ChatGPT prevents students and educators from using AI in new ways

With the rising popularity of ChatGPT, many educators and administrators have trepidation toward the new technology, seeing it as a threat both to students and schools. Many teachers and educational institutions have even gone as far as to ban ChatGPT due to concerns of cheating and academic integrity. But the reality is that AI is here to stay, and its abilities will only increase with time. Rather than banning the tool, it’s important that educators work to understand and embrace this new technology for all it has to offer.

While there are legitimate concerns about ChatGPT and cheating, let’s not forget that educators had similar worries about the use of the internet in classrooms just 20 years ago. And now, doing a Google search is just a basic tool for students to put together an essay. Still, many are quick to point out that AI’s capabilities are different and, in many ways, that is true.

Because it’s designed to respond to queries in conversational, human-like ways, ChatGPT has instilled fears that plagiarism and cheating are easier than ever before. But with the rise of AI, we have also seen a rise in great AI detection tools that can help distinguish between AI and human-generated content that can mitigate the concerns over cheating. Similar to AI tools themselves, these detection tools will only grow stronger and more reliable over time.

While it’s important to stay cognizant of the challenges these tools present, banning them will only result in missed opportunities for growth among educators, students, and curriculums at large. Instead, educators should consider the many ways they can leverage ChatGPT and AI to foster creativity and critical thinking among their students. As teachers integrate it into classrooms, they will see how useful, exciting, and compelling it can be to students and educators alike. 

Key points:

• Educators should clearly communicate rules and expectations for AI
• It’s also worth keeping an open mind and learning a bit more about how AI tools work

The discussion around the influence of AI writing on education has never been so active – all thanks to the launch of ChatGPT last year. The tool is so advanced compared to other writing tools of its kind that a lot of people instantly started using it for all kinds of ethically ambiguous purposes.

Educators are concerned about the influence AI will have and how its negative effects could be detrimental to education. Without further ado, here’s how to counteract the disruptive influence of AI writing on education.

1. Inform Students

First of all, you need to inform your students about the fact that plagiarism will never be tolerated. Explain that when they use AI tools to generate the texts for their assignments, they are not actually presenting their own writing to you. Though texts generated by AI tools do not exactly fall under the definition of plagiarism, they are still not the student’s work which means the student could suffer consequences for their actions.

If your students understand why using AI tools to do their assignments for them is not the right route to take, they will be less likely to even consider trying such tools. It is your responsibility as a teacher or professor to raise this matter in the classroom and make sure that everyone is on the same page regarding the topic.

Key points:

• Esports programs are inclusive and can lead to positive student outcomes
• A simple approach with accessible, easy-to-use tools, is critical

Scholastic esports is rapidly growing, and many schools are starting to incorporate esports programs into their curriculum. The benefits of esports make a compelling case for creating a program: Research shows that students who participate in scholastic esports experience social and emotional benefits, increased academic achievement, and higher graduation rates.

These positive learning outcomes make esports popular in secondary grades, with both students and educators advocating for the addition and growth of scholastic esports in their middle and high schools. But esports isn’t just for the older kids, and starting an esports program in early elementary school can be an effective way to lay the groundwork for esports participation as students make their way into higher grade levels.

When young students have opportunities to engage in game-based learning and online games, they are able to build a foundation of skills and interests that can connect them to future esports opportunities in middle school, high school, and beyond. However, creating an elementary esports program isn’t quite the same as creating a secondary program, because younger learners have different abilities and learning needs than their older peers. It’s key that the program is tailored to meet these young learners’ needs, and learning space design and quality furnishings play an important part in supporting program goals.

To ensure the development of a successful elementary esports program, here are four helpful tips:

1. Simplify the Tech

The technology used in an elementary esports program should be user-friendly and simple to operate. While today’s young children are digital natives, they still may struggle with complex technology, so it’s essential to choose devices and software that are easy to use and understand. An easy game to start with is Minecraft: Education Edition, which can run on most networks and devices and is simple and intuitive for students to play. Selecting a game like Minecraft removes the need for expensive and complicated gaming computers, controllers, and keyboards, which can be challenging to learn and have high upkeep costs. Instead, focus on technology that is durable and reliable––such as tablets and desktop computers––as young children may accidentally damage equipment if it’s not designed to withstand their usage.

Key points:

• Virtual learning expanded access to student mental health support
• Hybrid learning offers improved satisfaction during IEP meetings

In the business world, we’ve seen a sea change in the way people work. While some have returned to the office full time, some are still working remotely, and others are opting for a hybrid approach of being in-person just a few days a week. If the pandemic showed us anything, it is that flexibility is in the best interest of the employee and the company in a competitive marketplace. 

The same lessons are true in schools. Forced to go online, in some cases for a year or more, schools quickly turned to video conferencing and online tools to facilitate the development of Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) and even deliver mental health services to help students cope with the changes resulting from the pandemic. These new approaches offered ways to reduce many of the traditional barriers to services and support. Plus, they provided flexibility to create individualized plans that best meet the needs of students and their families.  

But now that schools are again in-person, does it make sense to resort to the old ways as we look to the future? Having many new, effective tools in educators’ toolboxes, it’s time to cast aside conventional processes and rethink the way we provide services to, and support, our students. 

The pandemic effect 

School closures and new procedures during the pandemic threw students, parents, teachers, support staff, and administrators into chaos as they tried to navigate remote learning and keep students on track. By the time they returned to classrooms, they had to contend with learning loss and behavioral challenges resulting from the disruptions and isolation during COVID-19. 

In the era of mobile devices and tablets, interactivity has become the norm for schoolchildren. To facilitate effective teaching and learning, modern schools must equip every classroom with interactive touchscreens and utilize gamification techniques. As these modern education tools require management and security, integrating MDM solutions has become imperative for every organization.

Understanding the Basics of Gamification in Education

Gamification means adding interactive gaming elements to processes such as learning. Everyone loves games, and competition motivates people to perform their best. So, by adding gamification elements during teaching sessions, schools can significantly increase their participation and engagement levels.

In addition, gamification can improve student skills such as active learning, problem-solving, and critical thinking. It also helps students enhance teamwork and collaboration.

Gamification helps students retain acquired knowledge. Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Dopamine, a gamification consulting agency, said people tend to remember their lessons better when taught via gamified methods. In fact, applying gamification to the learning process can increase knowledge retention by up to 40 percent.

Finally, gamification is more fun. Students will find it hard to resist participating when a leaderboard out front announces current individual scores. Or they might find it challenging to compete against fellow students to become the first to finish a task or answer a question correctly via touchscreen. In addition, it can be a rewarding experience to see the entire class cooperating to jointly solve a puzzle.

The Benefits of MDM Solutions for Gamified Learning in Schools

When using touchscreen devices in schools, it pays to have companion MDM solutions to manage, maintain, and secure them. After all, touchscreens represent a significant investment for school districts.

Like other school equipment, the better the care and upkeep, the longer these devices will serve the students. So, investing in a sound and reliable device manager is critical when deploying touchscreens to the entire school district.

Let’s look at the direct benefits of applying MDM solutions to gamified learning:

Better Software Management

With a cloud-based remote device manager, it’s easier to keep all software and system settings updated. Instead of spending money on support calls or field visits, system administrators and IT teams can remotely connect to individual devices to perform over-the-air (OTA) installations, updates, and fixes.

With all the tools and resources available via cloud connection, admins can conveniently schedule updates during after-school hours to minimize downtime. Moreover, ideal MDM solutions will update selected devices or the entire fleet.

Better Security

Combining the functions of a whiteboard, projector, and media player, school touchscreens are interesting pieces of equipment. This can inspire certain students to attempt to break into the touchscreens and modify records or simply vandalize them.

If you invest wisely in your MDM solutions, these issues should be no problem. A reliable device manager will deny connections by users without proper credentials and implement additional security measures. It will also disable or freeze devices after repeated attempts at access. And should thieves remove touchscreens from school premises, geolocation capabilities can locate the devices and disable functions remotely.

Better Access Control

Devices should also have restricted access outside class hours. MDM solutions that feature variable access levels can effectively limit what areas different users can view or modify. For instance, admins can access system settings and perform updates, fixes, and installations but can’t view modules or student data.

Conversely, instructors can view or edit modules and launch learning apps. They can also access and update student records.

Creating Effective Gamified Lesson Plans With MDM Solutions

School district system administrators can centrally manage individual device settings using MDM solutions and create the ideal learning environment.

Making sure each touchscreen device in each classroom remains optimized for the day’s activities means ensuring all system settings and software versions are current and up to date.

Here are some best practices to ensure your gamified lesson plans are more effective:

• Even games get boring if they’re repetitive. So, gamified lessons should include some element of surprise to keep students interested.
• Don’t gamify everything; instead, focus on lessons lacking engagement and motivation.
• Make the rules clear and easy to follow. The simplest games often work best.
• Utilize the four features of gamification—points, timers, badges, and leaderboards—to inspire competition and learning.

Best Interactive Tech Features for Gamification

Robust MDM solutions are just the start. To provide the best learning experience, school touchscreens should come equipped with these ideal modern features:

Multi-Touch Capabilities

Capacitive touchscreens allow multi-touch capabilities. This means the device can recognize simultaneous touches on the surface, which helps in lessons that require collaboration among multiple students. In addition, multi-touch is a must if instructors hold interactive competitions involving the fastest response times between individuals or teams.

Instant Feedback

Instant feedback reinforces learning by keeping students continuously engaged. When the student clicks the right button, and the touchscreen display confirms the right choice, they retain the lesson better. Conversely, pressing the wrong button and receiving instantaneous feedback reinforces the correct process.

Moreover, instant feedback lets students quickly learn the proper sequence of doing things. It also means teachers can provide additional guidance immediately after an action so students can make faster adjustments. This way, lessons are kept fresh. Students also learn to make adjustments during, and not after, the learning process.

Screen Recording

Teachers will need to look back at what happened during school hours to spot areas for improvement. Whether for individual students, the entire classroom, or their methodology, having the means to review the day’s proceedings is vital.

The ability to make screen recordings is an excellent feature to have. It helps teachers and school administrators assess their present methods and develop future improvements.

Gamification Works Best with MDM Solutions

Investing in the future is best when implementing modern solutions to today’s school programs. Interactive touchscreens allow students to actively learn, retain their knowledge, and collaborate with others.

However, school administrations should also invest in MDM solutions to protect their investment and increase their ROI. A device manager ensures your devices remain updated, well-maintained, and secure throughout their lifespans.

Related:
How to use Minecraft Education in your classroom
Is it time to fire up gaming consoles in classrooms?

Escape rooms are engaging for people of all ages—they require durable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, determination, and the ability to work in groups to solve challenges. It makes sense that educators would craft their lessons around the concept of an escape room—and that’s just what high school educator Lynn Thomas has done.

In this Q&A with eSchool News, Thomas details how she found inspiration to create escape room learning opportunities and the benefits she sees for her students–and she offers a look at a new ChatGPT challenge she’s created.

eSN: What gave you the idea to structure learning activities in an escape room-style challenge? 

LT: I was inspired to utilize this fun and challenging activity in my classes upon attending workshops and reading about the benefits and ways to gamify learning, as well as a specific Brightspace workshop about creating an Escape Room through the platform.

What do these challenges look like for students? What do students like best about them and what feedback have you received? 

In my particular case, I opted to create an around-the-world adventure. The narrative begins as follows: “You have been hired by a mysterious organization to complete a series of challenges. The details are all very vague, but you are very intrigued. All you know is that your problem-solving skills are going to be challenged and that you will have to learn along the way because, apparently, it also involves traveling around the world!”

ChatGPT has commanded the world’s attention in recent weeks, and it has educators and policymakers discussing its implications for education, academic honesty, accessibility, and more.

OpenAI’s chatbot can compose poems, can write an essay about global warming as a Taylor Swift song, and can call up HTML code instantly–the possibilities are nearly endless.

ChatGPT is not the only AI-powered chatbot available to students and educators (0ther options include Google’s Bard and the latest version of Microsoft’s Bing), but it certainly seems to be the most discussed.

Chatbots raise specific concerns in education–will students use them to cheat? Where is the line between research and plagiarism? What role do chatbots play in creating more accessible educational tools for students with diverse needs? Here are five things to ponder as tools such as ChatGPT become more prominent in learning:

1. ChatGPT has rapidly begun to infiltrate K-12 classrooms nationwide. A recent survey by study.com found that nearly 90 percent of students admitted to using OpenAI’s chatbot in some home-related capacity, and more than 25 percent of teachers have already caught a student cheating using the chatbot. The propensity for students to use ChatGPT to cheat has raised concern amongst educators and even prompted several school districts, ranging from New York City Public Schools to the Los Angeles Unified School District, to issue a ban of the chatbot. However, cheating with ChatGPT is just a symptom of a larger problem in education: a focus on rote memorization and regurgitation of information.

Since the public release of ChatGPT took the world by storm last fall, many educators have worried about students using the highly advanced, artificially intelligent chatbot for cheating on school assignments by passing off AI-generated work as their own. But if AI can be used to produce written content, can it also be used to determine whether a piece of writing was created by AI or by a human being?

That’s what Turnitin is hoping to do with a new feature the company has added to its existing writing tools. Beginning April 4, all Turnitin products—including Turnitin Feedback Studio (TFS), TFS with Originality, Turnitin Originality, Turnitin Similarity, SimCheck, Originality Check, and Originality Check+—will include AI detection capabilities for existing users.

Turnitin began working on detection capabilities for GPT3, the underlying technology upon which many AI writing applications are based, nearly two years before the release of ChatGPT.

“Educators told us that being able to accurately detect AI-written text is their first priority right now. They need to be able to detect AI with very high certainty to assess the authenticity of a student’s work,” said Turnitin CEO Chris Caren.

ChatGPT has rapidly begun to infiltrate K-12 classrooms nationwide. A recent survey by study.com found that nearly 90 percent of students admitted to using OpenAI’s chatbot in some home-related capacity, and more than 25 percent of teachers have already caught a student cheating using the chatbot.

The propensity for students to use ChatGPT to cheat has raised concern amongst educators and even prompted several school districts, ranging from New York City Public Schools to the Los Angeles Unified School District, to issue a ban of the chatbot. However, cheating with ChatGPT is just a symptom of a larger problem in education: a focus on rote memorization and regurgitation of information.

The cheating-related concerns are warranted, but many appear to overlook a key point: students opting to cheat on homework, essays, or exams is not a new phenomenon. Companies like Chegg have become multi-billion dollar platforms, which is mainly attributable to students seeking on-demand access to textbook and exam answers. Before ChatGPT was publicly available, the International Center for Academic Integrity found that 95 percent of high schoolers participated in some form of cheating.

This begs a two-fold question: why do students cheat in the first place, and why is it so easy to cheat? For both, the simple answer traces back to the current approach to curriculum and assessment.

As the latest results from the National Assessment of Academic Progress (NAEP) make clear, we have a long way to go to ensure that our students are achieving at grade level in reading and mathematics.

Yet, we don’t just want to address the gaps in students’ learning—we want to make sure each one of our students grows and advances.

At Baker Charter Schools, we’re a K–12 public charter school with students all over Oregon. Online tutoring gives our students access to the critical academic support they need, even outside traditional school hours. By making this support available to all our students, we’re not only closing opportunity gaps but helping students reach their full potential.

The benefits of high-impact tutoring can’t be ignored—for all student groups. Recent research shows that tutoring is one of the most effective ways to increase academic achievement, including among students from lower socio-economic households—one of the groups disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, while the pandemic shined a light on tutoring as an academic intervention, it’s important that we recognize tutoring is a crucial strategy for student advancement regardless of a student’s abilities.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Metropolitan Soundview High School had no art program when Cheriece White took a job there 10 years ago.

So she created her own.

The art and technology teacher initially designed a curriculum around digital storytelling and then transformed it into a multimedia art curriculum that included iMovie, storyboarding, illustration, children’s books, and front-end web design. The students gravitated to the web design part, wanting to know more about designing websites for their own business ideas. That prompted White to shift again, developing a curriculum on social media design and content creation.

“With how social media, graphic design, and technology are growing into every aspect of normal living, it is super important to have students practice these skills for their own benefit,” she said. “They are going to engage in social media and technology anyway, so why not teach them how to make money from it through design?”

White not only sees visual arts and graphic art as “great emotional outlets for kids this age to express themselves in a healthier and positive way.” She also wants her art course to provide a “tangible” way for them to become young entrepreneurs.

She wants her students to be college- and career-ready, as well as “small business ready.”

She’s hopeful that it’s working. Former students have gone on to create a cupcake company, a dog-walking business, a baseball clinic, and an Etsy digital download business. A group of current students who already have their own clothing brand recently told her how their social media following increased significantly after applying some techniques they learned in class.

Different students at different schools have different needs. When we analyzed student achievement data from multiple measures and through the lens of student groups, we saw an immediate need to provide additional reading intervention to help students recover from the effects of the pandemic. Yet, due to staffing shortages, we knew we could not provide the level of personalized support each student needed.

Thanks to a data-driven approach to tutoring, we have been able to help our students increase their growth and confidence in reading. In fact, in the fall of 2022, our students who participated in tutoring showed greater growth on the Renaissance Star Reading assessment than students who did not participate.

Here are five strategies we have implemented to create an effective high-impact tutoring program.

1. Use data to design an intentional program.

In 2022, we partnered with Littera Education to design and deliver a tutoring program that would work within our Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. Working closely with Littera’s Design Services Team, we were able to transform our data analysis practices and evidence into actionable insights. This helped us determine which students would benefit from extra support and the best times to schedule tutoring sessions to impact achievement.

Throughout my career as a science educator in Colorado, Washington, and now in Florida, I’ve collaborated with many tremendous educators to solve the challenge of engaging students in science. Over time and through trial and error, we’ve learned the importance of engaging students in relevant content that is meaningful to them, engaging them in monitoring their own learning, or engaging them through strategies that make learning accessible.

However, I believe the most important factor in achieving a high level of student engagement in science is providing opportunities for students to participate in active learning experiences. As the K-12 science coordinator in a medium-sized school district in Central Florida, it is a critical part of my team’s work to find and create these opportunities and share them with teachers across the district.

There are five examples of these active learning experiences that stand out as effective strategies to achieve student engagement through relevancy, self-monitoring of learning, and accessible learning for every student:

• Finding current content that students care about or could care about
• Sharing high-interest images or videos paired with an instructional strategy that helps students process their learning
• Allowing students to explore interactives with guiding questions
• Giving students the opportunity to show what they know through different ways
• Chunking experiences so students achieve bursts of achievement and feel successful, not overwhelmed

After decades of working with educational technology, I’ve come to the realization that technology will have its greatest impact in the classroom when educators allow learners to use digital technology as a self-directed learning tool. This means not just providing students with laptops and online resources, but ensuring they have the necessary skills to find, validate, apply, and curate the vast amount of information now available to them.

More importantly, they must be given control of when and how these digital tools are used. Think about how adults use their smartphones; they use them whenever they need to. No one is dictating when they can use it, how they can use it, or where they can use it–why don’t we allow learners to do the same?

Imagine a classroom where students have unfettered access to digital tools and resources whenever needed. That would be a very different classroom than the ones I’ve experienced, but one that would be able to support the digital learners in our classrooms today.

This realization is based on years of implementing various educational technology initiatives, and the recognition of the similarity between the impact mechanical technology had on the Industrial Age and how digital technology has impacted the Information Age. When mechanized technology was introduced, it was primarily used to replace repetitive and rote physical tasks. It took a while for people to be comfortable with mechanized automation, but once they were, it created growth and advances in manufacturing that were previously unattainable.

Similarly, today’s digital tools can be used to replace repetitive and rote mental tasks. In other words, digital technology has automated memorization.  In a typical classroom, students learn content through processes that rely heavily on a variety of rote and repetitive activities. These activities not only help students learn the content, but also allow them to develop memorization skills.

Educational institutions in the United States have long promoted and prided themselves on their campus grounds, endowments, opportunities, and student achievements. Student life and athletics are also powerful messages and motivators for applicants, and can be the deciding factor when students are choosing between multiple institutions. Comprehensive esports programs effectively combine these two ideas, offering modern education and skills necessary to enter a growing industry while creating a new competitive team for the school to promote.

As a result of growing esports popularity and institutions’ recognition of its educational value, esports competitions have made their way into the hearts and minds of students and youths across the country. An increasing number of schools are launching esports clubs and competition teams as extracurricular activities that appeal to a broad range of students and can excite fans and viewers all over the world.

Esports Takes on Traditional Sports

For institutions of learning, particularly schools that compete for student enrollment, having an established esports program or team can help them stand out the same way a good football or volleyball team can attract both student athletes and fans. Knowing that only 54 percent of youths participate in traditional sports in a given year, educators and school officials have come to appreciate the surging popularity of gaming among young people raised in a fully-connected society, as well as the opportunity to relate various courses and educational disciplines to careers in gaming and digital media.

As of the 2022 school year, 175 colleges and universities have joined the National Association of College Esports (NACE), which officially recognizes varsity esports programs, up from just seven at its founding in 2016. Many of the member schools became involved in esports through student-run clubs that eventually joined organized leagues and merited investments in equipment or space to enable competitive play.

Some colleges have even begun offering full scholarships to talented players, with Harrisburg University being the first to award full rides to an entire 16-person esports team in 2018. The team won ESPN’s inaugural Collegiate esports Championship in May 2019.

A larger number of member schools have launched partial scholarship programs, awarding anywhere from $500 to $8,000 to individuals. These benefits draw applicants from all over the world, with a competitive application process that often involves visiting the campus for a tryout. To streamline and popularize the process for students, some schools now issue recruiting forms specific to esports where applicants can detail their experience, share their public social profiles and submit highlight reels for consideration.

As the competition heats up and attracts ever-larger investments and public attention, the number of participating schools is likely to continue growing, with more four-year, two-year and even vocational institutions joining the fray.

Starting from Scratch

In order for fledgling esports programs to deliver meaningful experiences for students, they must first evaluate and consider whether their existing computer gear and infrastructure are sufficient to perform at a competitive level. The games played in competitions typically require up-to-date gaming PCs with powerful graphics cards, while high-quality monitors and peripherals can greatly boost player effectiveness thanks to higher picture quality and brightness, better contrast, clearer communication with teammates and highly responsive input devices.

While artificial intelligence (AI) has been a relatively silent partner in higher education’s early warning systems, personalized learning platforms, and more for some time now, we might fairly say that ChatGPT is the big boom heard ‘round the university. The AI chatbot is taking many of us by surprise and startling more of us to attention, not in small measure by its charming, eager extroversion: it “talks” to us. What’s happening here? Is ChatGPT a threat? What happens next?

Diffusion of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has been quite the busybot, going to business school, law school, the office, Congress, and more. We are experiencing the unfolding of Rogers’ (1962) innovation diffusion in real time. Since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in research preview on November 30, 2022, we’ve been busy ourselves, curating links and disseminating our treasuries to each other. We’re also creating artifacts such as the Advancements in AI Timeline developed by the Center for eLearning Initiatives at Penn State Behrend. The twin goals of all of our awareness-building activities are to hasten the development of our individual and collective opinions about whether ChatGPT is aide or adversary and to decide our next steps accordingly.

The truth is that the AI is a flawed facsimile of human intelligence, but depending on the task before it, it can be a remarkably capable one. For that reason, we’ve been putting it to fledgling use. The danger lies in the risk of distilling our efforts into empty “best practices” rather than informed recommendations because we’re building the empirical evidence as we fly. Not everyone is aware that Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIEd) is a decades-old field of study. (The term artificial intelligence was coined in 1955 by Dartmouth Professor of Mathematics John McCarthy, and the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education published its inaugural issue in 1989.) The historically limited capabilities of the field’s principal subject of study may have contributed to what could be characterized as its stunted growth, until most recently.

Now as the big boom continues to echo, we’ll begin to subject our theories to empirical examination, and as practical evidence mounts, we’ll then be better equipped to confirm whether we’ve decided correctly.

An “Objective” View

ChatGPT’s name refers to one type of neural network machine-learning model, but many different AI models “generate” new information as they respond to a prompt. The word generate is often found in lists of suggested verbs that many find useful for crafting learning objectives. Such lists are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, a framework originally designed and later revised and updated to provide a common vocabulary for educational assessment. Interestingly, the highest level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy is to create. Under create on verb lists, generate typically appears as one of many possible ways to demonstrate creation. Both verbs have Latin roots; both impart a sense of bringing something into being that did not previously exist. However, generate conveys a cause-and-effect, even mechanistic, process while create is evocative of a sense of growth, of development, of invention, of imagination, of the extraordinary.