Conference for Higher Education Research (CHER) - Hong Kong 2023

 

Tänään ollaan Hong Kongissa, Lingnanin yliopistolla juttelemassa tekoälyn hyödyntämisestä opetuksessa. 

Today we are in Hong Kong, at Lingnan University, talking about the use of artificial intelligence in teaching.

...Ja Jetlagissa.

...And in Jetlag.

Tämä konferenssi on myös melkoinen scholar reunion, tutkijoiden kohtauspiste, sillä tällä kertaa mukana väikkäriopiskelijani Antti Ruonalan lisäksi ovat myös Prof. Henri Pirkkalainen ja Henri Jalo, Tampereen yliopistosta, Tore Hoel Oslo Metropolitan universitystä (ja Zhuhai'sta!) sekä unkarilainen JYU kollegani, Kristof Fenyvesi, joka myös piti keynote puheen liittyen kestävän kehityksen teemoihin. 

This conference is also quite a Scholar reunion, 

a meeting point for researchers, because this time, 

in addition to my fellow student Antti Ruonala, there are also 

Prof. Henri Pirkkalainen and Henri Jalo, from Tampere University, 

Tore Hoel from Oslo Metropolitan University (and Zhuhai!) 

and my Hungarian JYU colleague, Kristof Fenyvesi, 

who also gave a keynote speech related to the themes of sustainable development.

 

 Generatiivisen tekoälyn sovellukset puhuttavat panelisteja ja esitysten pitäjiä täällä tänään. Kristof nosti myös tekoälyn sähkön käyttövaikutukset ja siihen liittyvät mielenkiintoiset kysymykset:

 Applications of generative artificial intelligence are talking to panelists 

and presenters here today. Kristof also raised the electricity use effects of 

artificial intelligence and the related interesting questions:

- Nyt jo tiedetään, että ChatGPT vie valtavasti tietokonevirtaa: Miten tulevaisuuden tekoäly saadaan kuluttajien arkeen mukaan, jos vain osa maailmasta kykenee maksamaan tarpeeksi tekoälyn vaatimasta sähköstä... Eriarvoistuminen lisääntyy maailmassa. 

- Now it is already known that ChatGPT consumes a huge amount of computer power: 

How can the artificial intelligence of the future be included in the everyday life 

of consumers, if only part of the world is able to pay enough for the electricity 

required by artificial intelligence... Inequality is increasing in the world.

Kysymys siitä, miten voisimme hyödyntää tekoälyä ilmastonmuutoksen pysäyttämiseen ja kestävään kehitykseen on edelleen kesken. Emme voi tietää millaisten robottien kanssa tulemme elämään 3, 5 tai 10 vuoden kuluttua.

The question of how we could use artificial intelligence to stop climate change and promote sustainable development is still open. We cannot know what kind of robots we will be living with in 3, 5 or 10 years.
Tore and I also met 10 years ago at a Chinese conference, that time in Shanghai.

Toren kanssa tapasimme 10v sitten myös kiinalaisessa konferenssissa, sillä kertaa Shanghaissa. Tänään pystymme toteamaan, että 10v aikana maailma on muuttunut niin, että länkkäritutkija pystyy melko helposti kääntämään ja lukemaan kiinalaisia tieteellisiä artikkeleja mm. Deepl -tekoälysovellusten avulla.

Maailma on siis muuttunut jo sen myötä, miten tekoäly meitä auttaa. Voimme vain arvailla, mitä se tulee olemaan tulevaisuudessa.

 Today, we can state that the world has changed in 10 years in such a way that a link researcher can quite easily translate and read Chinese scientific articles, e.g. With the help of Deepl AI applications.
So the world has already changed with how artificial intelligence helps us. We can only guess what it will be in the future.
The question will also be - will we meet again in China in 10 years...

Kysymys lienee myös - tapaammeko uudestaan Kiinassa 10 vuoden päästä... 

 

Inclusion for Higher Education - A4A Final Conference in Romania

This morning I am in Bucharest, Romania, where the conference is talking of access and inclusion in Higher education. I have been working in EU Erasmus+ funded project ”Access4All”.

Audience had come internationally and all over Romania

Today is the time for the final conference of this project, looking at the results that we have achieved.

Access4All created tools for Higher Education Institutes to self-evaluate their access and inclusion strategies and policies and to raise discussion on these issues.


The toolkit includes:

• Institution self-assessment tool
• Pyramid model to develop inclusion strategies and
• A bank of good practises

These tools are all available online for free use of any higher education institute.

For the conference today, Prof. Luise Morley from University Of Sussex talked of the rather unresearched topic of Roma in Higher Education. In her key note speech on the inclusion of the Roma, she raised some of the key issues which Are true with many underrepresented groups:

Some groups do not have visible signs for belonging to this group - they Are so called ”invisible” underrepresented groups. Often those persons also want to remain invisible, as many predjudicis Are directed toward them from the majority. But how can ”help/attention” be directed to them unless we know who they are..?

The audience raised their voice at the Q&A session pointing out that more attention should be directed toward self-esteem of people in these groups. If they feel that they Are accepted as they are, they no longer will remain invisible and therefore also the awareness of their group will increase in the society.

Saana Mehtälä presents JYU Good practises of Inclusion

Personally I reflect these issues through my personal experience: AS a mother of an autistic child, I see often that some families do not want to get their children diagnosed. Sometimes the reason is that based on a this ”stamp” in the forehead of the child makes them feel shame or they believe that the child will be bullied for being ”different”. However, the stamps also result into different aids, help and benefits for dealing with the situation. My son for example gets theraphy for his learning challenges and the family gets various support to help him at home. So for us, it has definitely been more useful to be out in the open rather than invisible.

Yes, it sometimes it takes courage to do so: People do not always know many things about underrepresentative groups like the autistic... and like Luisa mentioned in her keynote - the discussion can often be rather negative. People feel sorry for you to be different... but this is not the full picture. There Are many positive sides of diversity - these aspects Are just rarely raised into public discussion. Minorities tend to have a bad reputation. This is something we can change: do we just focus on the problems and hard ships or do we see the richness of diversity of people in our world?

/Summary in Finnish:

Tänään Access4All -projektin loppukonferenssissa Bukarestissa. A4A-projekti kehitti viimeisen kolmen vuoden aikana korkeakoulujen inkluusion kehittämiseen tarkoitetun työkalupalkin, joka löytyy verkosta täältä. Tänään Bucharestissa esittelemässä Jyväskylän Yliopiston inkluusiopolitiikkaan liittyviä kokemuksia: mitä toimia meillä on tehty ja miten nämä ovat toimineet opiskelijoille ja henkilökunnalle..?