VU EdTech Day 2024

Sessions programme

• Walk-in - 08:45

  Location: Lobby 4th floor

• Welcome and Keynote - 9:00-9:45

  Opening by Silvester Draaijer, Programme manager VU Education Lab and Keynote by Prof. Felienne Hermans

  Location: NU Building, Theater 7

• Session round 1 - 10:00-11:15

  1. Personal Tutor Bots - Stephen Coetzee (Dept. of Accounting, University of Pretoria) - Hybrid session
  In this session, prof. Stephen Coetzee demonstrated two Chatbots he is developing and researching. The Health Profession Education bot and the Accounting Education bot. These bots integrate a number of functions of LLM’s to help students learn and master general and specialized topics. He presented preliminary results of his research and there was room for discussion. You can try out the HPE bot here. 

  Location: NU Building, Theater 7 and online
  Language: English

  2. Panopto: VU Amsterdam's new educational video platform - Erik Boon (VU CTL)
  In this session we got to know the new versatile online video hosting and sharing system for teaching and learning. What will it mean for your teaching! You could also learn about the transfer of the ‘old’ Kaltura and MediaSite systems to the new system. 

  Location: NU 2A-65 (32)

  3. Motivate students to come prepared to class using smart tools - Charlotte Meijer, Thao Duong (VU CTL)
  How can you motivate students to come to class prepared? Tools have been developed especially for this purpose. Not only are students more prepared, but you also have insight into who is prepared, what students already do and don’t understand, and you can make studying more interactive and active for your students. During this session, we discussed the tools FeedbackFruits Interactive Document, Interactive Video and Perusall.  

  Location: NU 2A-55 (15)

  View the presentation

  4. Grow your student's AI Information literacy for responsible and effective learning - Kim Dibbets (University Library)
  In this session we learned about the current state of AI for finding, representing and working with scientific literature and how to incorporate it in your teaching with students. 

  Location: NU 1A-25 (15)
  Language: Dutch

  View the presentation

• Session round 2 - 11:30-12:45

  1. Evidence based feedback on student work with AI - Stephen Coetzee (Dept. of Accounting, University of Pretoria) - Hybrid session

  In this session Stephen Coetzee demonstrated GPTs to provide evidence based feedback on student work. He will present preliminary results of his research and there is room for discussion. If you have a paid OpenAI/ ChatGPT account you could try out the feedback GPTs. Do not use actual student materials though! 

   MedEd: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-9pvnQsPBF-meded-feedback-guide  

   AccEd: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-alY5v5hTX-accounting-feedback-guide  

  Location: Theater 7 and online
  Language: English

  
  2. Develop your students’ communication skills with Avatar AI bots - Wybren Bosma (Meta-skills), and Esther Schagen (FSS)
  Connecting avatars to generative AI produces flexible and realistic interaction scenarios. They might be ideal to support a number learning situations to train and improve of communication skills. In this session, one or two Avatar bots of the company meta-skills were demonstrated. The underlying philosophy, mechanisms and the impact on teaching and learning were discussed. You can try out one Avatar bot to talk to a student who always comes late at meetings. 

  Location: NU 2A-59 (15)

  View the presentation

  3. Next level Mentimeter - Charlotte Meijer, Sharoma Gokoel (VU CTL)
  Would you like all your students to participate during your classes? With Mentimeter, you can easily involve all your students. This way, you take the first steps towards creating a safe learning climate in which all students dare to participate. Mentimeter is a tool that most of us know by now, but usually only the simplest functions are used. But there are many more functions that make it much more fun to participate. During this session, you could experience these functions for yourself and learn how to use them. 

  Location: NU 2A-65 (32)

  View the Mentimeter from this workshop

  4.WeVideo: The online editor for your student video project - Erik Boon, Student-assistant (VU CTL)
  An increasing number of courses require students to produce a knowledge clip or video as a final product. Students need easy to use and powerful, software to edit their video’s. Student can use KdenLive for this purpose, but the VU Education Lab is experimenting with the online platform WeVideo: a powerful online program that does not require the students to have expensive computer hardware to run. 

  In this session we demonstrated this software and the first experiences of students. 

  Location: NU 1A-25 (15)

• Lunch - 12:45-13:45

  Location: Lobby 4th floor Wing A

• Session round 3 - 13:45-15:00

  1. Learn to manage a crisis with ChatGPT - Jost Sieweke (SBE) 
  Using the example of a live crisis leadership simulation, Jost Sieweke of SBE showed how teachers can create experiential-learning opportunities with limited resources by exploiting the power of various AI tools. AI tools enable the simulation to adapt to different scenarios on the spot. 

  Location: NU 2A-65 (32)
  Language: English

  2. Advanced uses of generative AI for content generation – Nienke Stumpel (VU CTL) 
  Everyone who's already familiar with general ChatGPT use and prompting but wanted to know what lies after the horizon was invited to this session. An overview was presented of generating images or video's and use OpenAI in other apps using your ChatGPT account, handy tools to aid in day-to-day tasks. This session dived into generation of lesson materials and other AI tools to help design courses. 

  Location: NU 2A-59 (15)

  View the Padlet for an overview of AI tools
  

  3. Fruits or Weeds? Examining the affordances and challenges of Automated Feedback tools - Danny Scholten (BETA)
  FeedbackFruits is used extensively for teaching and learning at VU Amsterdam. The latest additions involve automated feedback functionalities. First, to provide formative feedback on written products before they are handed in. Second, functionalities to improve the quality of peer feedback by students. You could join Danny Scholten for a demonstration of the capabilities of these tools and an in-depth discussion on how and whether AI fits into the role of feedback practices in our education programs. 

  Location: NU 2A-55 (15)

  View the presentation

  4. Extended Reality: explore the possibilities for your teaching - Linde Voorend (UB) en Tess Dekker (FBMS)
  Developments in the field of extended reality (XR) offer growing possibilities for educational applications. XR can be implemented at various levels: from simple XR elements on the computer to complete virtual environments. In this session, a team of experts shared successful applications of XR at VU Amsterdam, possibilities for your own application, and the infrastructure available for teachers. You could bring your own ideas and get practical tools to get started. 

  Location: NU 1A-25 (15)

  View the presentation

• Session round 4 - 15:15-16:30

  1. Educational Game design with ChatGPT - Dr. Francesco Balocco, Ella Hafermalz (SBE)
  Franscesco Balloco designs an interactive simulation with ChatGPT for management/IT consultancy cases. Generative AI is used to synthesize the kind of materials that professionals encounter in an organisation e.g. emails, direct message chains, reports. The students draw on these materials in responding to a range of questions throughout the course. During this session Franscesco Balloco demonstrated his current materials and talked about the affordances of using ChatGPT for this purpose. 

  Location: NU 1A-25 (15)
  Language: English

  View the presentation

  2. Making knowledge clips with AI Avatars - Stephan Eltink, Erik Boon (VU CTL) and Sandjai Bhulai (BETA)
  Knowledge video clips are a powerful tool to convey the essential learning information to your students. The VU Education Lab is experimenting with AI generated Avatar knowledge clips. In this session we showed what preparatory measures are needed and how knowledge clips than can be generated. In any language. The advantages and dis-advantages of AI generated clips as compared to traditional recorded knowledge clips and the practical use(s) for teachers were discussed.

  Location: NU 2A-59 (15)

  3. Canvas Student Friendly - Isaac van Gent (CTL)
  A well-structured and organized Canvas course is essential. During this workshop, we looked at the do's and don'ts around Canvas that over a thousand VU students have indicated they agree with. We gave 6 practical tips that you can apply immediately to make your Canvas course as student-friendly as possible. You were also able to work on your Canvascourse yourself to apply the tips immediately under guidance of our experts. Of course, there was also plenty of time to ask all your Canvas questions. 

  Location: NU 2A-53 (14)

  View the presentation

  4. VU Reading lists: make literature accessible the easy way - Robin Straaijer (University Library)
  Explore the possibilities for your course. The new VU Reading list functionality allows for an easy way for teachers to build collections of literature across multiple platforms and allow for optimal way for students to access the course literature. In this session, Robin Straaijer demonstrated the system and discussed the functionalities and use cases. 

  Location: NU 2A-55 (15)

  View the presentation