Online Learning in the Second Half John Nash & Jason Johnston

In this episode, John and Jason talk IN PERSON, reflecting on year one of their podcast. Keeping with the theme, they also find a few rabbit holes to chase, consider developments in AI, and talk about educational and ethical considerations around AI-generated music and video. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Hard Fork Podcast
SORA OpenAI Video
Alibaba EMO Video Demo (Jason’s LinkedIn post)
Suno.ai
Support Human Artists! Gangstagrass
Mr. Beast on Youtube (not that he needs any more clicks)
The makeup brush holder John keeps his pens in
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
1 Year Anniversary Special
[00:00:00] Jason: Would you happen to have a pen I could borrow? Yeah.
[00:00:02] John: Felt blue, black.
[00:00:04] Jason: That is amazing. I've just this moment, I just noticed your incredible, your - you've got like a pen store.
[00:00:10] John: These are makeup brush holders.
[00:00:12] Jason: Oh really? Okay. Black, please.
[00:00:15] John: ballpoint, flare
[00:00:17] Jason: pen, Flare. Perfect.
[00:00:19] John: yeah
[00:00:19] Jason: And would you happen to have any sticky notes? That's incredible. You are really set up here. That is something else.
[00:00:24] John: I dream that someone, no one visits me. I'm set up for a full-on brainstorming session with a gigantic. Five feet by three-foot whiteboard and 500 colored sticky notes.
[00:00:34] Jason: Sticky notes galore.
[00:00:35] John: Yeah, I'm ready to change things if anybody wants to come over.
[00:00:38] John: I'm John Nash here in the same room with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:43] Jason: Hey John, hey everyone, and this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.
[00:00:48] John: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still a lot that quite isn't there. How are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:01:02] Jason: How about we create a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:06] John: How about we do that? How about we create a podcast, do it for a year, and then talk about what that year was like?
[00:01:11] Jason: that sounds great! Happy anniversary, John!
[00:01:13] John: Happy anniversary, Jason.
[00:01:15] Jason: I should have brought you something.
I didn't. I'm sorry. How about we go out to lunch and we and we celebrate?
[00:01:20] John: yeah, and maybe we can get a demo of the Apple Vision.
[00:01:23] Jason: Oh, that'd be cool. Yeah. There's a little place right there where we can grab some lunch and maybe go over to the Apple store. See what's going on.
[00:01:30] John: Yeah,
[00:01:31] Jason: That would be thematic. A lot of this podcast has been a number of things. One, talking about online learning, but also talking about the new tech and how it might affect online learning in the last year.
[00:01:41] John: Yeah. We are EdTech nerds also.
[00:01:43] Jason: We are, we tend to nerd out on a few of these things.
Today on my way over here, because I had to drive to this podcast today.
I didn't do this podcast in my pajamas.
[00:01:54] John: Horrors. And you drove yourself.
You had to operate a machine to get here.
[00:01:59] Jason: But it gave me, afforded me a little bit of time in the car to listen to a podcast. I listened to our first episode. It was kind of nostalgic,
[00:02:06] John: you weren't tuning in to our first episode just out of some kind of vanity thing Oh, I love listening to me.
[00:02:12] Jason: No, it was not because I like the sound of my own voice. Although after doing a podcast for a year, you get used to it.

In this episode, John and Jason talk to Karen Watté, the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at Oregon State University’s Ecampus about their free tools for AI guidance in higher education and how to humanize online education. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Oregon State University - eCampus AI Tools: https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/ )
Michelle Miller’s Newsletter: Teaching from the Same Side https://michellemillerphd.substack.com/p/r3-117-september-15-2023-reflection
OSU eCampus Readiness Playbook https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/artificial-intelligence-tools/readiness-playbook/
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
 
[00:00:01] Jason Johnston: I picture everyone in Oregon in Log cabins and so on. Is that correct?
[00:00:04] Karen Watté: no, not at all.
[00:00:06] Jason Johnston: What?
[00:00:07] Karen Watté: I always say tell our candidates who are coming, I say, we have the best of both worlds. You're an hour from some beautiful ski areas, you're an hour from the coast. And boy, if you wanna see the desert, you just head on a little bit further. And we've got the high desert. So, we've got something of every, for everyone here. I've lived other places too and I come back, and I say, oh, this is, this has got it all.
[00:00:31] Jason Johnston: I grew up in Canada, and sometimes we would talk to people about the igloos that we lived in and having to check our dog sleds at the border and those kinds of things. Sometimes they believed us, sometimes they didn't.
[00:00:44] Karen Watté: Yeah.
[00:00:45] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:48] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:53] John Nash: we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation that we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great and some of it is, but there's still a lot that really isn't. So, Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:01:08] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:13] John Nash: I love that idea. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:01:16] Jason Johnston: I am really excited to be talking today with Karen Watté. She's the Senior Director of Course Development and Training at the Ecampus Oregon State University. Welcome, Karen. How are you?
[00:01:28] Karen Watté: I'm good. Thank you.
[00:01:29] Jason Johnston: We, connected at OLC, Online Learning Consortium conference as part of their leadership day that they do ahead of time, and it was very fortuitous, I think, because we had just come through this summer where everybody was scrambling around AI, trying to figure out what to do, and while we were, trying to come up with some ideas and so on all of a sudden Oregon State had a full-fledged website built out with resources and stuff like that.
And we're like, this is amazing. Over here at University of Tennessee and it was really well done. So, we got chatting about that at OLC and then we got chatting about being on the podcast. So, thanks for joining us. Cause I'm really excited about talking with you today.
[00:02:10] Karen Watté: Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. Glad to be here.
[00:02:12] Jason Johnston: Tell us a little bit about what you do at Oregon State and your role there.
[00:02:17] Karen Watté: Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm the Senior Director of Course Development and Training with eCampus, and at Oregon State, eCampus is a centralized distance education unit, so we're serving al

In this episode, John and Jason talk about the ethics of AI, including how ethics are formed and a few scenarios like if it’s ethical to use Midjourney. Listen in to find out who says no! See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
Article: Harvard Business Review Ethics in the Age of AI Series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
Article: It's Not Like a Calculator, so What Is the Relationship between Learners and Generative Artificial Intelligence?
Jason’s FAFSA Assistant GPT
”Right Choices: Ethics of AI in Education” - John hosts Jason in an episode of the School Leadership + Generative AI series
John’s School Leader AI Bootcamp
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
Podcast Episode on AI Ethics - January 29, 2024
False Start
[00:00:00] John Nash: Should we do the intro?
[00:00:01] Jason Johnston: Yeah, let's do the intro.
[00:00:03] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:06] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning Podcast. The Online Learning Podcast. Let's try it again.
[00:00:12] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:14] Jason Johnston: That reminded me of do you ever watch The Office? My name is Kevin, because that's my name. My name is Kevin, because that's my name. So this is the Online Learning Podcast, the Online Learning Podcast.
Episode
[00:00:30] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:32] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the Online Learning Podcast.
[00:00:38] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last couple of years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but still a lot of it isn't. How are we going to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:00:52] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. Why don't we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:56] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:00:59] Jason Johnston: John, I've got some ethical questions for you.
[00:01:02] John Nash: You do?
[00:01:03] Jason Johnston: I've been wondering about the ethics of using AI for certain tasks. And maybe we'll get back to some specifics later on.
But how do we form our ethics to begin with when it comes to AI and using AI these days when we think about education?
[00:01:19] John Nash: I'm stealing your line from the intro. That is a great question. How do we form our ethics? I think they're formed by the values and the beliefs we bring to anything we do. You've had a longer background and thinking and considering about ethics, both in your professional life and your education life.
What do you think about in terms of what sensibilities people bring to any task?
[00:01:45] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think so. I like where you started there because sometimes people start externally. They think ethics are clear, right? We're not supposed to steal people's cars and we're not supposed to, kill people when we walk in front of them or whatever. And, but it's not that clear when it comes to certain things.
Certainly we can follow the ethics of a country or a city or institution, AI is something new. We haven't dealt with some of these questions before. And because of that, it does take some ethical reasoning. I happened to talk to a number of PhD students taking an instructional systems design course.
I was asked to come in by one of our previous guests, Dr. Anilda Romero Hall, and to talk about ethics in instructional design. And where I started with that was this question of what do we bring to the table? If we can understand what forms our

In this episode, John and Jason close off the 2023 Johns Hopkins University Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium with a live podcast recording, summarizing the day’s sessions and interacting with the audience around 6 Pillars of Humanizing Online Learning in the Second Half. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
6 Guideposts - Slide Deck (via Gamma.app)
Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium
Jana Lay-Hwa Bowden, Leonie Tickle & Kay Naumann (2021) The four pillars of tertiary student engagement and success: a holistic measurement approach, Studies in Higher Education, 46:6, 1207-1224, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2019.1672647
Peabody Institute and their “Path to Funding” guide
Advancing Diversity in AI Education and Research Symposium - Stanford
Dr. Michelle Miller Substack - Teaching from the Same Side and the idea of “same-side pedagogy”
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
[00:00:00] Introducer: Welcome everyone. It's been a great day and we have. A very fun way that we're going to be ending today.
So this is our final session. I appreciate everyone greatly for attending our inaugural excellence and online teaching symposium and we're going to be ending our session with a live recorded podcast. We have Jason Johnston and John Nash, go ahead and take it away whenever you are ready.
[00:00:33] John Nash: Hi, I'm John Nash and I'm here with Jason Johnston
[00:00:36] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:44] John Nash: Yeah, and we are doing this podcast to let you all in on a conversation we've been having and to let you be part of the conversation that we are having about online education.
Look, online learning has had its chance to be great and some of it is, but there's still quite a ways to go. What are we going to do to get to the next stage, Jason?
[00:01:05] Jason Johnston: That's a great question. How about we make a podcast and talk about it?
[00:01:10] John Nash: That sounds great. What do you want to talk about?
[00:01:13] Jason Johnston: Today I think it'd be great to continue our theme of how to humanize online learning in the second half and to do it with a number of our friends here.
So today we want to not only do a podcast, but do a session here at the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium, the first ever. Is this right, Olysha? We're on the first ever.
[00:01:36] Olysha Magruder: That's correct. This is the inaugural symposium. So you're a part of the new wave.
[00:01:43] Jason Johnston: We're so glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
And this is exciting that we're here and we're doing a live session where we are recording. And we had the auspicious and difficult task of trying to bring a little summary to this day. It's been a good day, hasn't it, John?
[00:02:01] John Nash: Yeah, it's been amazing. We've been in every session that we could attend.
We split up and took some notes along the way about what the overarching themes were and where we see some opportunity, but we're so excited to see what you all think as well and what you took away.
[00:02:17] Jason Johnston: Yeah, so here's how we are planning to proceed in the next little bit here. Our ideal as we were looking at the day is to try to give us some guidelines to talk about. We tried to pull a few quotes. We have a A little bit of an outline that will guide us, but first we thought we should probably introduce ourselves.
John, you wanna go first?
[00:02:41] John Nash: Yeah, sure. I'm John Nash.

In this episode, John and Jason have a “year in review” conversation with their podcast superfriends about why they podcast, the impact of artificial intelligence on education, the importance of human interaction in learning, and their collective efforts in forming a community of education podcasters. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)
Links and Resources:
Amanda Bickerstaff AI In Education Year 1 Timeline (on LinkedIn)
Course Stories, Season 4, Episode 2: The AI Whisperer: Faculty and Students on ChatGPT Dialogues
Planet Money Podcast: Can ChatGPT write a podcast episode? Can AI take our jobs?
Book Recommendation: A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
Request to join the Network of Education Podcasters on LinkedIn (active education podcasters only please!)
ASU Academic Dishonesty Risk Reduction Guide
ASU Online Eventbrite Webinars
Here’s a link to our original Superfriends episode:
https://www.onlinelearningpodcast.com/e/ep-10-podcast-super-friends-crossover-episode-at-olc-innovate-23/
Our Podcast Superfriends:
Josh Reppun
What School Could be
https://whatschoolcouldbe.org/
Bio: ormer chef, hotel manager and history teacher, Josh Reppun is the founder of Plexus Education, LLC, dba as Most Likely to Succeed in Hawai’i, a “movement” founded by extraordinary people dedicated to developing global public, private and charter school conversations around Ted Dintersmith’s film, Most Likely to Succeed and his book, What School Could Be. Josh is also the founder of Josh Reppun Productions. He is the host of the What School Could Be Podcast and the producer of two films: Ka Helena Aʻo: The Learning Walk and The Innovation Playlist, both about creative, imaginative and innovative educators and education leaders. Josh’s podcast, edited by the talented Evan Kurohara, with music by Michael Sloan, has now reached nearly 80,000 downloads in over 100 countries.
Course Stories (from EdPlus at ASU)
https://teachonline.asu.edu/podcast/course-stories/
Mary Loder
Mary Loder is an Online Learning Manager at EdPlus, supporting Faculty professional development and training along with managing special projects in a variety of disciplines. She is also co-creator and co-host of Course Stories, a podcast where an array of course design stories are told alongside other designers and faculty from Arizona State University.
Ricardo Leon
Ricardo Leon is a Media Developer Sr for EdPlus and is a co-creator and co-host of Course Stories. He has developed a number of other podcasts and various other forms of instructional media.
Tom Pantazes
ODLI On Air
Tom Pantazes, Ed.D. is an Instructional Designer with the Teaching & Learning Center at West Chester University who loves helping instructors integrate technology and robust learning pedagogy. His research interests include digital instructional video, extended reality, content interactivity, and simulations. If he is not cheering on Philly sports teams, camping or building Legos, you can catch him as a cohost of the ODLI on Air podcast.
Specific Episodes:
Generative AI in teaching
Ram Poll gauging student opinions
Lee Skallerup Bessette on LinkedIn
All the Things ADHD Podcast
https://allthethingsadhd.com/
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
EP 22 - Podcast Super Friends II
Intro
[00:00:00] Jason Johnston: Questions? Anyone?
[00:00:02] John Nash: They're podcasters. They don't talk.
[00:00:06] Ricardo Leon: We listen.
[00:00:07] Mary Loder: That's right, intently.
[00:00:09] Jason Johnston: That's right. It's going to be all questions, actually. The whole

In this episode, John and Jason talk about dangers and opportunities in the second half of online life, from their Online Learning Consortium (OLC) 2023 presentation and “live off the OLC floor” interviews. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com
Join Our LinkedIn Group - *Online Learning Podcast (Also feel free to connect with John and Jason at LinkedIn too)*
Links and Resources:
See slides from the full presentation here
More about OLC here
Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
Transcript
We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions!
False Start
[00:00:00] John Nash: I took a class from a professional in San Francisco for voice acting. I thought I wanted to be a voice actor. So yeah, that
[00:00:07] Jason Johnston: and here you are doing a podcast. You basically are a voice actor, except you happen to be acting like John
[00:00:13] John Nash: Like John Nash, not like Barney the dinosaur, or doing my Louis Armstrong imitation or something like that.
Start of Episode
[00:00:20] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.
[00:00:23] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is online learning in the second half, the online learning podcast.
[00:00:28] John Nash: Yeah. And we are doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two and a half years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great. And some of it is, but, a lot still isn't. And so how are we going to get to the next stage?
[00:00:43] Jason Johnston: That is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?
[00:00:47] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?
[00:00:50] Jason Johnston: So John, would you call yourself a techno? optimist or a techno pessimist? Do you think we're, all of this is winding up into a better world? Or is technology taking us down this path of doomsday and destruction?
[00:01:06] John Nash: If the left side is doomsday and destruction and the right side is optimism and happiness, I'm a cautious optimist. I'm, I think I'm a little bit to the right of a cautious optimist. I'm no Mark Andreessen who's recently come out with a tech manifesto suggesting that anybody who doesn't believe the bros in Silicon Valley can fix everything is crazy. I'm not like that at all.
I do worry about my own critical thinking around technology and how it may be exacerbating environmental problems and social problems. Because I love playing with these tools so much, I think I'm clouded a little at times, but I'm, yeah , I'm right of center on if being right is optimistic I'm over there.
[00:01:55] Jason Johnston: Yeah, I think I'm, find myself in the same space, not because I necessarily have a lot of optimism around technology. I do think it's pretty consumer driven and profit driven. And so that doesn't build in me a lot of optimism for its final outcome. However, I have an optimistic view of humanity, one that we typically work together towards our own survival when it comes down to it, and that there are a lot more good people in this world than bad people. And I think that maybe I'm an idealist and that I think the good will win out over, but not because I believe technology is going to save us by any means, but because there are a Usually enough good people that are helping to drive technology that I think we'll get to a better place.
[00:02:46] John Nash: Yes. Yes, I think that's well put. I think I'm in the same space you are because we're both educators and we surround ourselves with other educators who are interested in applying the use of technology to help learners achieve their goals. I'm not on the side of thinking "the technology we need to have in place to save the world is that which puts billionaires in space."
I'