Resharing via my blog this video I made as a contrbution to discussions we were having in my old job (feels like eons ago) under the banner of ‘freedom to learn’. I’m sharing again because we will soon be sharing a call for contributions to the ‘Freedom to Learn’ conference – save the date 5/4/24 at King’s College London – where will be exploring the following themes:

Themes: 

1. Rekindling a joy of learning: Was there ever a ‘golden age’ where learning for its own sake provided sufficient value? What role does/ could/ should ‘joy’ play in a higher education? Why is there an apparent mental health crisis amongst undergraduate students? How can we innovate for joyful learning (and teaching)?
2. Decentring grades: Realising ungrading possibilities from the micro (one class) to the meso (whole modules) through to the macro (entire programmes or even institutions). Why is there so much resistance? What are the barriers to change and how might they be overcome? To what extent can change happen given the current status quo? Do we need a grading revolution or how might we chip away?

3. Caring and compassionate pedagogies: Is content still king (or queen)? How far have we realised an endeavour to weave care and compassion into our learning designs, teaching and assessments? What else could we do? Where are the pitfalls?
4. Myth Busting the modern academy: “We’ve always done it that way!” “We’re not allowed to change!” “Employers want….” “PSRBs want….” “ Students want…” “A degree is all about employability” A lot of what we hear when discussing change is responded to with arguments like this.Why? Is tradition a strong reason to stick with convention? Are the best pedagogies those that favour economies of scale? How far do structures really impede innovation and transformation? What are you doing? What would you like to do?

Below is the automated MP3 you would get if this post was an uploaded file in KEATS- If you get time, have a listen to how this sounds, especially the tabulated sections. What issues might there be?

This post accompanies a CPD event for colleagues at King’s. In it are resources referred to in this event.  But please do read and try the linked activities for yourself even if you can’t attend! The resource is designed to raise awareness of what digital accessibility means and what a ‘by design’ approach to digital accessibility requires us to know and to do. The session is also an opportunity for us to pilot aspects of an (in-development) Accessibility Engagement Tool being worked on in a collaboration between KCL and UCL (Two of the best ‘CLs’ in fact!). The tool is being designed to help colleagues discuss their accessibility engagement and get clear direction on what they can do to further improve the accessibility of their teaching and, as far as possible in an anticipatory and planned way, rather than reactively or in response to a need that had not been anticipated. The goal is to enable colleagues to set some clear digital accessibility goals irrespective of their starting point.

Accessibility in its broadest sense is about making activities, environments, and information as useable and meaningful as possible in ways that do not exclude people. It is about empowerment, about minimising frustration and about effective anticipatory design. Digital accessibility therefore ‘provides ramps and lifts into information.’ It includes ensuring that all information we create at KCL can be seamlessly consumed by everyone that wishes to access it.

The accessibility engagement model and accompanying self-assessment tool are being designed to enable colleagues to plot their own level according to a series of questions about aspects of digital accessibility. The idea will be that through series of questions related to:

1. Values and beliefs
2. Knowledge and skills
3. Actions and behaviours

…the tool will plot an overall position as well as noting areas of developmental or resourcing need. As we have shaped this model one area that has led to much discussion, consultation and head scratching are the labels we are appending to levels. As a starting point we propose six levels of ‘maturity status’ and invite colleagues to decide which level they are currently at:

Accessibility Engagement Model

Level	Accessibility Maturity Status	Characteristics and indicative practices
0	Unwilling	Context means that this is not prioritised in current working environment given competing commitments and pressures.Time is a key point of resistance.
1	Unable	Don’t know where to start and/or in need of direction, support, and prioritisation.
2	Reluctant compliant	Awareness of accessibility principles and drivers; only adopting bare minimum when encouraged.
3	Willing compliant	Awareness of accessibility design principles; willingly adopting good basic level of accessibility.
4	Ally	Connected to wider pedagogical values; allies are vocal on behalf of students. Role model or provide case studies/ templates for others in their departments.
5	Champion and Co-creator	Activists/ innovators who work with students to understand and design more accessible approaches and resources. Potential contributors to institutional policy and strategy.

Digitally Accessible Learning Design

Whilst the online tool is still under construction, we will invite colleagues to use to respond briefly to some ‘actions / behaviours’ statements in the session. The results will be shared here after the event.

For each statement you are able to choose from 0-5 as follows

0. Not on my radar

1. Would if I knew how

2. Rarely or if required

3. Sometimes

4. Always

5. Yes! And support others

Your responses

The statements in the slides can also be seen below.

1. I use descriptive hyperlinks rather than ‘click here’ or unconcealed links
2. I ensure that visual materials are conveyed effectively to those who cannot see them using alternative text descriptions and audio descriptions
3. I ensure my documents are navigable with a structured set of headings
4. I ensure tables are easy to read and have clear heading rows
5. I can use/ enable automatic speech recognition captions in live sessons
6. I caption and/or provide transcripts for in all multimedia I create
7. I offer a range of formats for my materials e.g., PDF, html and docx
8. I signpost students to assistive technologies so that they can have more support accessing materials
9. I share electronic content with students (such as slides) ahead of teaching sessions
10. I accessibility check my documents before finalising them
11. I explain acronyms and jargon when I use them
12. I check my work for colour contrast issues

As you will note, this is not an exhaustive list as in the King’s Digital Education Accessibility Baseline but it is a series of indicative behaviours that will allow us to position ourselves and set clear developmental targets (as well as a way into enagging more thoroughly with the baseline itself).

Using starter/ free credits in HeyGen Labs, I was keen to see how well it would translate a quick (and sceptical) recording I made. I have to say, I am genuinely amazed by the output, despite the glitch in the middle of the translation. It seems as though this tool has captured people’s imaginations and a LOT of videos slowed down the processing so that it took around 4 days to receive the translation you can see in the second half of this video. It translated most of the English accurately, adjusted my mouth movements and also captured my voice cadences in the translation. The languages on offer are limited (Spanish, French, German, Hindi) for now but I can see this technology being much more than a jaw-dropping novelty! This is where we are now. It really does suggest remarkable potentials going forward and, for me, also suggests we will soon need to reconsider our understandings (and associated requirements) around studying across languages.

Is a universal translator a la Star Trek such a distant dream still?

So I’ve been telling folk Bing Chat needs to be used in Edge browser but that’s not true (or no longer true). In Chrome just now I opened it and tried the audio. I hit record, spoke the words you can see in the prompt and the output is as appears in the chat response (or as duplicated in full in the caption). The only downside is that the voiced response doesn’t acknowledge the translation languages and reads it with English enunciation. My mate Pat used to speak French as if all the words were designed to be spoken with a Brummie accent so I’m used to it. Generally though, I tend to underuse audio input but I think I will use it a lot more now. One other thing I like is that by accessing Bing Chat in Chrome it loses all the ‘helpful’ busyness on screen Microsoft seem to think I might want.

Sure, I can help you with that. Here are the translations of your sentence into French, German and Spanish:

• French: Je m’appelle Martin Compton et j’habite à Plumstead, à Londres, en Angleterre. Je travaille au King’s College London sur un projet d’IA générative.
• German: Mein Name ist Martin Compton und ich wohne in Plumstead in London, England. Ich arbeite am King’s College London an einem generativen KI-Projekt.
• Spanish: Me llamo Martin Compton y vivo en Plumstead, en Londres, Inglaterra. Estoy trabajando en el King’s College London en un proyecto de IA generativa.

I wanted to compare outputs for an activity I have used generative text AI for quite a bit- the creation of case studies and vignettes to prompt discussion or to illuminate theoretical models. I used the same prompt in Bing Chat, Google Bard and ChatGPT on a topic that is out of my usual teaching domain. Here are the results. It’s fascinating to see the differences.

First my prompt:

I am working with a group of first year undergraduates. I need 5 vignettes to prompt discussion about legal issues and the health service in the UK. Each should be a short scenario that sketches out an issue, centring a different person each time from diverse backgrounds who has some kind of issue or conflict with a doctor or in a hospital. No further details are need other than an explanation of the issue. Each should be maximum 150 words.

Bing Chat chooses ‘a patient’ as the only identifier whilst Google Bard suggests some context to the patient. ChatGPT creates a persona with a name and is much more affective in this way but does it make them more effective? I suppose it depends on the nature of the discussion I want my students to have. Both Bing Chat and Chat GPT set out the vignettes as a whole but Google Bard suggests additional guidance; in many ways reflecting (without me requesting or stating this) the approach I would take if using scenarios in a class- the gradual layering on of more information or targetted prompts to steer a discussion in a certain direction without being over-inteventionist. I asked for diverse backgrounds but there’s something disconcerting about the way ChatGPT responded to this. Perhaps it’s because one feels very close to a personal experience? I should note, Google Bard’s alternatives were closer to the ChatGPT inital response. This is just one quick comparison of output and I can’t imagine using any without some adjustments but I do think this is an area of teaching where we could save a lot of labour.

Bing Chat

Here are five vignettes that could prompt discussion about legal principles and the law in the UK in relation to medical profession:

1. A patient is admitted to a hospital for a procedure but is not given enough information about the procedure or its risks. The patient is not able to give informed consent and suffers complications as a result.
2. A patient is given a medication that has been prescribed by their doctor. The medication causes an allergic reaction that was not identified by the doctor. The patient suffers serious harm as a result.
3. A patient is diagnosed with a serious illness but is not given appropriate treatment or care by their doctor. The patient’s condition worsens as a result.
4. A patient is discharged from hospital too early and without appropriate follow-up care. The patient’s condition worsens as a result.
5. A patient is given incorrect or incomplete information about their diagnosis or treatment. The patient suffers harm as a result.

I hope this helps.

Google Bard

Sure, here are 5 vignettes that you can use to prompt discussion about legal principles and the law in the UK:

1. A young woman from a minority ethnic group is refused a termination of pregnancy by her doctor, even though she has clearly stated that she does not want to continue with the pregnancy.
2. A man from a low-income background is denied access to a new cancer treatment because it is not yet available on the NHS.
3. A patient with learning disabilities is not given the same level of information about their treatment as other patients.
4. A patient is discriminated against because of their sexual orientation when they are seeking treatment for a mental health condition.
5. A patient is injured during a medical procedure and the hospital refuses to take responsibility for their injuries.

These vignettes all raise important legal issues, such as the right to autonomy, the right to equality, and the right to be free from discrimination. They can be used to prompt discussion about how these legal principles are applied in the context of healthcare.

Here are some additional details that you can provide to your students to help them better understand the legal issues involved in each vignette:

• In the first vignette, the young woman’s right to autonomy is at stake. Autonomy is the right to make decisions about one’s own body and life. The doctor’s refusal to perform a termination of pregnancy could be seen as a violation of this right.
• In the second vignette, the man’s right to equality is at stake. Equality means that everyone should be treated fairly and without discrimination. The man’s denial of access to a new cancer treatment could be seen as a violation of this right.
• In the third vignette, the patient with learning disabilities may not be able to understand the information that is being given to them about their treatment. This could lead to them being denied treatment that they need or being given treatment that is not in their best interests.
• In the fourth vignette, the patient is being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. This is a form of discrimination that is prohibited by law.
• In the fifth vignette, the patient is being denied compensation for their injuries. This could be a violation of their right to be compensated for harm that they have suffered.

These are just a few of the legal issues that can be raised by these vignettes. By discussing these issues, your students can learn more about the law and how it applies to healthcare.

ChatGPT

Here are five vignettes designed to prompt discussion about legal principles and the law in the UK, particularly in the context of healthcare settings:

1. Vignette 1: Consent and Minors
   • Sarah, a 15-year-old girl, is pregnant and wants an abortion. Her parents are devoutly religious and strongly oppose the procedure. Sarah’s doctor is conflicted about whether to proceed without parental consent.
2. Vignette 2: Data Protection
   • Ahmed, a 40-year-old software engineer, discovers that his medical records were accessed by a hospital employee without a valid reason. The employee is a friend of Ahmed’s estranged wife, and he worries that his private information will be misused.
3. Vignette 3: Discrimination
   • Priya, a transgender woman, goes to the hospital for a routine check-up. She feels that her doctor is treating her differently and making assumptions about her health based solely on her gender identity.
4. Vignette 4: End-of-Life Decisions
   • John, an 80-year-old man with terminal cancer, wants to refuse further treatment to let nature take its course. His adult children insist that he continue treatment, believing that a new experimental drug might help. The doctor is unsure whose wishes to honor.
5. Vignette 5: Medical Negligence
   • Fiona, a 25-year-old professional dancer, goes in for a minor knee surgery but ends up with a severe infection due to improperly sterilized equipment. Her career is jeopardized, and she considers taking legal action against the hospital.

Each of these vignettes presents a unique legal issue, from consent and data protection to discrimination, end-of-life decisions, and medical negligence.