Best of EduTech Asia 2025

EduTech Asia 2025 is in Singapore 4 TO 6 November. The preliminary agenda is now out. Here are my selections from the Higher Education stream:

Pre-Conference Workshops: 4 November 2025

10:00 Revolutionise learning with competency-based design thinking

14:00 Blended learning 2.0! Designing a community of inquiry to enhance student learning

Conference Day 1: 5 November 2025

11:00 Panel: Can AI and data create a more personalised learning approach?

11:45 Fireside chat: The rise of the AI tutoring technology

14:10 Case study presentation: Enhancing teaching experiences through Nanyang Polytechnic’s competency-based learning approach

Redefining the Australian Degree

Greetings from the Professional Standards Board of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), meeting in Adelaide. I jokingly told some academic colleagues that I was at a meeting to redesign the Australian degree. This is a slight exaggeration. Professional bodies, such as ACS, set accreditation standards. Universities and other educational bodies can choose to be accredited, but to do so must meet the requirements. As a result what professional standards are set influences what is in degrees. A current, and ongoing issue, is the balance between practical skills for immediate use, and what will be needed over a career. Another is how to improve, and formally recognise, learning which takes place outside the institution. 

Some other issues are AI Adoption, and Digital Skills (such as DigComp 2.0). Also hanging over everything is cyber security.

ps: In terms of how moden meetings are run, while all the broad are physically present, we still have video conferencing running, for some staff giving presentations from offices in other cities. Even though I am in the room, I found it useful to join the video conference (with no sound), so I can see presentations up close on my laptop. 

AI Generated Instructions

Speaking at the Australian Computer Society Canberra Branch this evening, Harry Hoang from Tailored Accounts Trude, asked his staff to use two AI systems to write a step by step process to apply for a complicated government tax deduction. Both provided an accurate useful guide. He emphasized these systems did not need the back and forth of Chat GPT: one request gave a useful answer. Genspark and Felo AI were the AI tools mentioned.