Shows
imperfect offerings podcastTalking with Katie Conrad about AI and human rightsSome time ago I invited Katie (Kathryn) Conrad onto a discussion panel in the Generative Dialogues series, and while this covered some essential ground in AI pedagogies, I felt there was a lot more of her work to dig into. So I was delighted she agreed to come onto Imperfect Offerings for a deeper dive, particularly into her Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights in Education.Katie is a Professor of English at Kansas University and co-director of the AI & Digital Literacy project, in partnership with the National Humanities Center, as well as Associate Editor of...2025-04-1459 min
imperfect offerings podcastAudrey Watters on AI realismAudrey Watters returns to the pod for a chat about ‘AI realism’, and how we are all trudging up the long, weary slope of the AI adoption curve whether we believe in the promises or not. What will we find when we reach the ‘plateau of productivity’? Less work and more smarts so we can spend our infinite leisure time in cultural pursuits? Or a slightly more datafied version of the workplace we started from? Is it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of AI hype? Are young people vibing with it? And what is ‘vibe...2025-03-231h 04
imperfect offerings podcastRemi Kalir on student writingRemi Kalir is Associate Director of Faculty Development and Applied Research at Duke University and Associate Director of the University’s CARADITE Centre, where many wise ideas about student writing and reading are developed. Since ChatGPT first emerged, he has been working alongside students to understand the role Generative AI has and could have in their practice. He is also the author of two books on annotation as a way of linking student reading and writing, and empowering students in relation to academic texts. He finds annotation to be a ‘participatory act [that] marks public memory, struggles for justice, and...2025-03-2055 min
imperfect offerings podcastAlistair Alexander on unsustainable AIIn the first of several interviews about the impact of generative AI on planetary resources, I talk to Alistair Alexander, an academic and climate activist based in Berlin. He has all the facts about about the power and water costs of the data centres being rolled out ‘for AI’. But he also asks us to think more widely about the costs of computation, and of embedding the logics of scale into every aspect of economic and social life. I found this a fascinating conversation that should make every organisation with an IT budget ask itself some hard questions. Like: is t...2025-03-0458 min
Pondering AIThe Nature of Learning with Helen BeethamHelen Beetham isn’t waiting for an AI upgrade as she considers what higher education is for, why learning is ostensibly ripe for AI, and how to diversify our course. Helen and Kimberly discuss the purpose of higher education; the current two tribe moment; systemic effects of AI; rethinking learning; GenAI affordances; the expertise paradox; productive developmental challenges; converging on an educational norm; teachers as data laborers; the data-driven personalization myth; US edtech and instrumental pedagogy; the fantasy of AI’s teacherly behavior; students as actors in their learning; critical digital literacy; a story of future education; AI read...2025-02-1945 min
imperfect offerings podcastAudrey Watters on AI state captureAs Enterprise AI goes full state capture and as Elon Musk’s freshmen engineers get their hands on all the data of the US federal government, Helen and Audrey team up again to ask: was this always going to be the end game? We look at AI’s 75-year-old relationship with white nationalism, eugenics and military violence, and we ask whether AI as a ‘general’ technology could ever escape these associations. Audrey anticipates a new era of edtech investment that will drive venture capital and data architectures even deeper into public education. While Helen muses on the AI Action Plan of...2025-02-0856 min
imperfect offerings podcastAudrey Watters on eugenics and robber baronsAs we sink further into the pit that is the Musk/Trump presidency, who better to survey the hellscape on the way down than Audrey Watters, ed tech’s sharpest and toughest commentator? If you don’t know Audrey’s work, you really should. You’ll find her Second Breakfast newsletter in the shownotes, along with a link for her book, Teaching Machines, and plenty more that came up in our discussion. It’s the first imperfect x breakfast cross-over on the pod, and I hope it won’t be the last.Audrey’s newsletter, Second Breakfast: https://2ndbre...2025-02-031h 04
imperfect offerings podcastEamon Costello on human wisdomIn this episode I talk with Eamon Costello, writer and thinker and educator, editor of a special issue on Metaphors of AI, and host of an upcoming symposium Education After the Algorithm - where he and I will be speaking in the real. Here we dive into topics from metaphor to metadata, from the AI business case to its increasingly compulsive interfaces, and from the wisdom of story to why AI tries so hard to be sexy. I hope you enjoy the twists and turns as much as I did.Please like, subscribe and share....2025-01-2352 min
imperfect offerings podcastCatherine Cronin and Laura Czerniwicz on HE for goodIn this episode I meet with the editors of Higher Education for Good to discuss how generative AI may be changing the prospects for an equitable and socially-just system of higher education. I ask how they were able to bring an ethic of care to the work of editing, in an academic publishing landscape that values speed, scale and reach. We look at the particular challenges of producing an audio version of the book, and explore the politics of the different options, from AI voices to personal voice-prints to reading aloud. This turns out to be a powerful lens...2025-01-1657 min
imperfect offerings podcastDan MacQuillan on decomputingIn this episode I talk to Dan MacQuillan, Lecturer in Creative Computing at Goldsmiths, and author of Resisting AI: an Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence. I read this in 2022, as soon as it was published, and it remains for me one of the most vivid, provocative and relevant critiques of ‘artificial intelligence’ as a project. Here, Dan speaks about the continuities between today’s machine learning models and earlier projects of categorising and disciplining people. We discuss how education is implicated in these architectures and how educators might resist. Dan has been a star of podcasts with tens of thousa...2025-01-091h 19
The Learning Development ProjectHelen Beetham: designing for a hopeful futureShow notes
We might see predominantly our own little slice of the higher education sector but something we all have in common is a concern with the knowledge ecology and how we think with students about their learning. For this, writing matters. Writing is a way of thinking and being; it is a form of dialogue, and conversation matters too - with each other, and with our students. By writing long-form essays on her Substack, Helen has found a lightening of voice and a closer connection to an audience. For her, writing is a commitment to writing...2023-09-261h 04
Beyond the Technology: The education 4.0 podcast40. Demonstrating digital transformation - beyond blended - post-pandemic curriculum and learning designIn this podcast episode, Elizabeth Newall welcomes Helen Beetham and Sheila MacNeill, who discuss rethinking learning and curriculum design in higher education. Helen Beetham, a researcher in digital education and Sheila MacNeill, an independent consultant with experience in curriculum design talk about the importance of rethinking learning and curriculum design in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to adapt to new challenges. The conversation explores the evolution of curriculum design pre and post pandemic, emphasising a shift towards a more holistic approach. They introduce the concept of "beyond blended," which focuses on...2023-09-0540 minBeyond the Technology: The education 4.0 podcast40. Demonstrating digital transformation - beyond blended - post-pandemic curriculum and learning designIn this podcast episode, Elizabeth Newall welcomes Helen Beetham and Sheila MacNeill, who discuss rethinking learning and curriculum design in higher education. Helen Beetham, a researcher in digital education and Sheila MacNeill, an independent consultant with experience in curriculum design talk about the importance of rethinking learning and curriculum design in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to adapt to new challenges. The conversation explores the evolution of curriculum design pre and post pandemic, emphasising a shift towards a more holistic approach. They introduce the concept of "beyond blended," which focuses on...2023-09-0540 minBeyond the Technology: The education 4.0 podcastReviewing learning and curriculum designSarah Knight chats with consultants Helen Beetham and Sheila MacNeill about their recent review of learning and curriculum design in higher education. We chat with Helen and Sheila about the findings from their review, which included a desk-based literature review, a survey of over 155 professionals and 20 interviews with staff from within higher education. Alongside this, they also share examples of how universities are evolving their learning and curriculum design practices, and discuss how we can integrate things that worked well during the pandemic.2022-09-0651 minBeyond the Technology: The education 4.0 podcastReviewing learning and curriculum designSarah Knight chats with consultants Helen Beetham and Sheila MacNeill about their recent review of learning and curriculum design in higher education. We chat with Helen and Sheila about the findings from their review, which included a desk-based literature review, a survey of over 155 professionals and 20 interviews with staff from within higher education. Alongside this, they also share examples of how universities are evolving their learning and curriculum design practices, and discuss how we can integrate things that worked well during the pandemic.2022-09-0651 min
Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle UniversityDigital learning activities, new technologies, and online safe spaces with special guest Helen BeethamHello and welcome to episode three of the Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University podcast.
In this episode Suzanne Hardy from the Learning and Teaching Development Service here at Newcastle University speaks with education consultant, writer, researcher, and commentator Helen Beetham.2021-07-2127 min
How to Get Full Audiobook in Mysteries & Thrillers, EspionageThe Stratton Story by Elizabeth Cadell | Free AudiobookListen to full audiobooks for free on :https://hotaudiobook.com/freeTitle: The Stratton Story
Author: Elizabeth Cadell
Narrator: Helen Taylor
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-14-17
Publisher: The Friendly Air Publishing
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Cozy Mysteries
Summary:
The memory of her late husband's slow and painful death is fresh in Anita Stratton's mind when she finds herself confronted with the high-voltage glare of national publicity when her first novel rockets into the best-seller lists. The furor she arouses leaves her publishers, the staid and respectable firm of Beetham Brothers, as bewildered as she herself...2017-07-156h 06
JISC On Air (via iTunes)Developing digital literacies for working in a digital worldEpisode 7: Developing digital literacies for working in a digital world (Duration: 15:48)
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In the seventh episode of our online radio programmes – JISC On Air – we are exploring how colleges and universities are developing digital literacies for working in a digital world. This is the second part of a two-part series, focusing on digital literacies. Part one is available here.
With an estimated 90% of UK jobs requiring some level of IT competency, the notion...2012-05-2300 minJISC On Air (via iTunes)Digital Literacy – delivering the agenda within colleges and universitiesEpisode 6: Delivering Digital Literacy- delivering the agenda within colleges and universities (Duration: 21:34)
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In the sixth episode of our online radio programmes – JISC On Air – we are exploring how universities and colleges can help teaching staff, researchers, support and administrative staff to develop their digital literacies – those capabilities which prepare an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society. In part two of the show, we will be looking at how digital litera...2012-04-2400 minJISC On Air (via iTunes)Improving Student RetentionEpisode 3: Meeting students needs to improve retention (Duration: 18:17)
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In the third of a new series of online radio programmes – JISC On Air – we explore how digital technologies are helping universities and colleges to better meet students’ requirements and improve retention.
In this show, Kim Catcheside speaks with Richard Francis, Head of e-learning at Oxford Brookes University and Ellen Lessner, e-Learning Coordinator at Abingdon and Witney College about how their institutions are better...2011-03-2300 min