The Comprehensive List of Talks, Writings, & Resources for 2023
Putting the year's work in one place...and reflecting on it...
As we wind down the year and recently did my last talk for 2023, I thought it would be ideal to pull together all the materials from these talks both to share out resources for the readers (all the new ones over the last 2 months and those who have followed me elsewhere such as my By Any Other Nerd blog or elsewhere) and to have it all in one centralized place for folks interested in learning and exploring more about generative AI and education.
2023 was such a strange year for me; I went from maybe 2-3 talks a year about a variety of different but interrelated topics (hybrid flexible teaching and learning, open pedagogy, digital service learning, etc) to over 20 talks, a handful of publications, panels, and podcasts nearly all on generative AI and education. If I look back at this time last year, I was just starting to play with ChatGPT and getting into a discussion with Autumm Caines about what it might mean if a student used it in a class and how to best approach it.
I’m still reconciling the rise in my profile which included being interviewed by CNN.com and being name-dropped in Forbes. I’m of different minds from still making sense of it to trying to walk the walk about this work to continuing to improve my practices in this work to balancing the sense of awe about these changes and opportunities and so many more feels and thoughts. Of course, there’s also some personal realization that this is in part the result of 15 years of weaving a tapestry. Then, of course, there’s recognizing that so much of this is part of the wonderful, delightful, and fantastic friends and colleagues who have engaged, supported, and shared my work for others to discover.
Writings
Cross-Campus Approaches to Building a Generative AI Policy by Esther Brandon, Lance Eaton Dana Gavin, & Allison Papini. EDUCAUSE Review.
10 Ways Technology Leaders Can Step Up and In to the Generative AI Discussion in Higher Ed by Lance Eaton and Stan Waddell. EDUCAUSE Review.
How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process by Anna Mills, Maha Bali, & Lance Eaton. Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching
3 Questions for Lance Eaton of College Unbound. Inside Higher Ed.
3 Questions for Lance Eaton on AI-Narrated University Press Audiobooks. Inside Higher Ed.
Obviously, I write a lot—it’s why I have both this Substack and my By Any Other Nerd blog. But I had some great opportunities to be in conversation with folks who were excited to write together and put ideas out into the world. These collaborations are so enriching both in the exchange of ideas and the learning from others’ writing approaches.
I marvel at how much a small group of folks can do within a 30-minute window of concentrated and quiet writing together via Zoom. I’ve been doing it for years with my friend and colleague, Danielle Leek, but this year showed me that it’s not just us that can make it happen.
This is also the year that I figured out when to do much of this writing. With the collaborations, the pockets of 30 minutes a week has been perfect. But for my own writing (that isn’t dissertating), I’ve settled into a daily time that feels perfect for me. Most mornings, I naturally wake up a little before 5am or my cat wakes me up. I grab some coffee and start with some journaling before switching over to writing on a computer. This is my first hour of the day and I’m never at a loss of what to write. Whether it’s the quiet of the night transitioning to morning, the freshness of sleep, or priming the mind with a bit of journaling, I feel so ready and focused in this time.
Presentations & Workshops
NERCOMP Webinar (February)
RICDA (February)
NERCOMP Workshop (March)
Post University (April)
Harvard Dental School (May)
North Shore Community College (June)
MCO (June)
Husson University (August)
Brightpoint Community College (August)
Endicott College (September)
Presentation #1 (For Faculty)
Presentation #2 (For Students)
Northeastern U Career Center (September)
BU Social Work (October)
Imagining America (October)
NSCC (October)
Career Counselors Consortium (October)
Georgia Tech (October)
RI Accountant Professors (November)
AI & Education Conference (November)
Poland Universities (November)
Post University (November)
UCONN (December)
RICDA (December)
As I said, this year was explosive in terms of the talks and workshops that I did and these don’t include the ones I said no to. I’m still trying to find ways to balance what I say yes to and no to and how to make the frequency less chaotic. Given my background and work in higher education, I want to be accessible to institutions that I have relationships with as well as those that I have deep care for. For instance, it’s really hard for me to say no to community colleges because so much of my work and heart sits in those spaces. Yet, to balance that out financially and time commitment, I find it hard to say no to places that are more resourced and going to pay me fully for what is often 15-25 hours of work.
Along those lines, I am hoping over the next month to develop a better framework for myself and those interested in having me engage with their staff, faculty, community, etc. It still feels strange and weird to identify clearly what my services are “worth.” Not because I don’t think they’re worth anything but because I want to have some flexibility so as not to box out some of those opportunities at places mentioned above.
What I’m thinking about most around all of this is how to continue to improve and iterate in these conversations and workshops. I can see real change from the first talk I did for NERCOMP in February and the last one for RIDCA. My slides are more consistent, clearer, and simpler. My engagement with the participants is also much more intentional and active (though could be more consistent throughout). I realized that as I got more comfortable with the audience and the content, the less I needed to rely on the text and talking and could lean more into back and forth. This has proven very effective for making it more digestible and meaningful for folks.
What hasn’t change and will probably only vary in degree is the message of trying to validate and support the emotional complexity of whatever the topic is. I think this is something that I stumbled upon through the help of dialogue with different folks including my best friend and colleague, Kara Kaufman. The need to speak to the emotional space that folks find themselves in. I do think there’s a humanizing element to my work that I bring that helps me work with folks around generative AI as well as other topics that I work on.
Going into the next year, I want to lean more into balancing talking and interacting with participants to keep them engaged and contributing to the space. I also want to give more space for activities where they can practice and play and share. At my last talk, RICDA, Sabrina Woods and I had a great conversation afterward where she offered some solid ideas about how to better disperse the conversations and activities throughout. So that’s what’s next.
My other goal for next year is to make the talks available after the fact more consistently. Early on, after I did the talk for an organization or group, I recorded it separately and put it on my YouTube channel. I haven’t been able to keep up unfortunately. Though I’ve made slide decks and annotated slide decks available with Creative Commons licenses so that others can more freely access and used them. But I think the videos also provided a little more depth and dynamic energy that is lost with just the slide decks and the text.
Finally, as indicated in the section above and below, I want to do more of this work that is conversational or collaborative.
Other Conversations
Demystifying Instructional Design Podcast (February)
NERCOMP Leadership Ecosystem (April)
Open Education Global Live (July)
AI X Education Conference Panel (August)
Future Trends Forum (August)
ShiftED Podcast (August)
AI For Education (September)
EDUCAUSE Panelist (October)
EDUCAUSE Poster session (October)
EDUCAUSE QuickTalk (December)
The presentations and workshops were delightful to be in conversation with so many folks but the nature of them could sometimes be limiting; either folks still taking in the ideas or the conversation being more one-to-one (they ask a question; I answer them). Yet, some of my favorite events of the year were the ones where I was in conversations with others—either panels, podcasts, or public conversations. These were rich opportunities to contribute, learn, extend, and reconsider things in conversations with others.
I wish and look to next year in hopes of having more of these opportunities because if the writing collaborations have taught me anything, it’s that the work, ideas, and insights are better when there are more of us scheming, crafting, and delivering.
Final Thoughts…for Now
This year, I leaned in deeply to thinking about generative AI. In much of it, I tried to balance the hype, the concerns, the (actual) possibilities, the sameness, the differences, and the practical. It’s still strange to be a voice in this space around AI and Education—mostly because much of what I’m saying, doing, thinking, writing is similar to the other understandings, lessons, and thoughts I have on other technology. All of this makes me wonder if I need to draw back bigger to do some more work at the meta-level of technology and draw more direct lines between this specific technology and technologies in general. There’s definitely something there for me to explore and consider more of.
I have a suspicion that next year, there will be less demand for this as folks wrap their head around things or more internal support is created. If that’s the case, I’m fine with that; I still want to use this substack to prove resources, ideas, and conversations that others can benefit. In fact, I am hoping next year, it won’t be just me contributing to this but others who may contribute pieces or be interviewed for this work.
Thanks to all the folks who have signed up and been along with me on this journey. I appreciate all your comments, sharing with others, and engagement with my content.
AI+Edu=Simplified by Lance Eaton is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
