Talking with machines

A conversation with Chris Weidenbach, an English professor at Laney College in Oakland, California, and the longtime chair of the English department. We are joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teaching, learning and using “AI.” Our conversation started with Chris’s lifelong engagement with human rights advocacy and expanding access and equity in his multi...

A conversation with Joe Lambert, an innovator of telling stories using digital technologies, educator, and co-founder of StoryCenter.org (originally the Center for Digital Storytelling), about his work in these unsettled times. We are joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teaching, learning and using “AI.” Joe reflects on his work designing ASU’s 100 Year E...

A conversation with Dr. Chris Gilliard, Co-Director of The Critical Internet Studies Institute, about his approach to writing, privacy, and “artificial intelligence.” We are joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teaching and learning, and Chris starts by explaining his stance as an “AI abolitionist.” He shares his critiques of the many aspects of “AI”: thei...

A conversation with Dr. Maha Bali about “Intentionally Equitable Hospitality” (IEH) and how this professional development journey emerged from her earlier projects Virtually Connecting and Equity Unbound. A professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo, we were joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teachin...

This episode of “Talking with machines” features a conversation with Professor Robert Brem from California State University East Bay and the College of Alameda community college. I was joined by Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander as we discussed recent challenges in higher education, the US Department of Education, and the political factions supporting change. We talked abut the structure and administ...

This episode of “Talking with machines” featured a conversation with Stephen Downes. I was joined by Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander as we discussed “Augmented Info, Ethics, and the Duty of Care.” Stephen touches on his contributions to the origins of Massive Open Online Courses and Connectivism Theory (MOOCs and cMOOCs) before sharing his ideas on completely open courses like his “Ethics, analytic...

In today’s conversation Ruben Puentedura acknowledges the limitations of “AI”, shares his research and experience with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) technologies, and talks about the affordances of home grown LLMs (Large Language Models) combined with external resources. We are joined by Bryan Alexander and Tom Haymes. Dr. Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, a consulting pr...

In today’s conversation, I’m again joined by Bryan Alexander and Tom Haymes. We started our discussion around Tom’s recent post “The AI Revolution Will Be Small.” Tom wrote “Bigger is not better in computing technology. Small tech is where the actual power has been over the last 50 years. When we democratize computing power (or power in general), we create the seeds for actual change. In doing so,...

In this premier of the Talking with machines podcast, I’m joined by Bryan Alexander and Tom Haymes. Inspired by Bryan’s recent post “Some notes on how culture is responding to generative AI”, we discuss this horizon scan where Bryan asks, “How are we responding to AI through stories, art, religion, relationships, media, and symbols?” Link: https://aiandacademia.substack.com/p/some-notes-on-how-cul...

The Western Institute for Social Research (WISR) is an accredited alternative graduate school in Berkeley, California. I created a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) using Google’s NotebookLM to collect dozens of documents and ‘chat’ about “The WISR Way” - WISR’s personalized learning method based on on the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. I generated this podcast using NotebookLM’s podcast g...

Join Mark and Joe Lambert, co-founder and director of StoryCenter.org, innovators in digital storytelling (formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling). They have been leading digital storytelling workshops that employ storymapping (GIS) and “artificial intelligence” to explore possible futures for storytelling. And perhaps a surprise guest! We’ll be using digital technologies to tell stories abo...

Using Google’s NotebookLM, I added 50 eportfolio documents from my Drive. They were mostly journal articles. I included slides from a seminar I gave and a document I generated using Calude.ai. Then I used NotebookLM’s new “Audio Overview” feature to create this “podcast”. The LLM did a pretty good job of summarizing key points, but the references, especially to the slides, are made up: BS, or, baf...

Earthquake! Talking with machines by Mark Corbett Wilson @mcorbettwilson on social media