Welcome to Tech Drop, Lab's monthly newsletter curated by the Information Systems team. This month's newsletter includes a reminder about AI sessions, tips on macOS Sequoia, Google and Canva and some insights from IS on upcoming changes to Duo, WiFi and travel during spring break. If you’re interested in highlighting tech that you’re using in class - send a message to Yosef Tewolde. Tech Drop newsletters are archived in our Faculty and Staff Knowledge Base.
Student Technology Use Insights
We know that students can be seemingly glued to their devices but what are they actually doing with the technology? The 2025 Student Insight Survey, from The Social Institute, provides a glimpse into how students are using technology. The largest survey of it’s kind, with over 50,000 student responses, this represents a great window into the student view of tech. A couple of notable data points form the report are below:
- The biggest challenge students who use social media face is spending too much time on it
- The majority of students get their first smartphone at 11 years old
- Youtube is the most popular app for students in grades 3-8, while social media apps take over for high school students
- 40% of 10th graders report rarely check the privacy settings on social media accounts
Learn more and read the full report here.
AI Resources
Teaching in the Generative AI Landscape course now available to instructors in Canvas
*excerpt from the Academic Technology Solutions newsletter . Use your CNET ID to register for the course.
Academic Technology Solutions, the Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning (CCTL), and the Library have collaborated to provide faculty and instructors with a unified resource with key information and ideas to support them in thinking through the teaching and learning implications of generative artificial intelligence (GAI). This open-enrollment, self-paced Canvas site, based on the annual program Teaching in the Generative AI Landscape, provides resources such as a technical overview of GAI, a pedagogical deep dive with examples from UChicago instructors, academic integrity guidance from the Office of College Community Standards (OCCS), and more.
Harvard Graduate School of Education - Generative AI in Student-Directed Projects: Advice and Inspiration
Looking for inspiration on how to incorporate AI into your teaching? HGSE has released a resource that offers a variety of strategies for thinking about how to use AI in the classroom. They note that these strategies are to “to support students' learning, not subvert their creativity and voice.” Find out more on their page at: https://creativecomputing.gse.harvard.edu/genai/
Creating a Custom Chatbot (MyGPT)
Do you have repeated tasks that could use a little automation? Want to coach a chatbot on how to reply in your writing style? Are you often seeking a second opinion on how student work fits within a rubric? A Phoenix AI MyGPT could be the solution for you.
Our upcoming AI speakerOne of our amazing AI speakers, Michael Hernandez, wrote an article Creating Custom Chatbots to Promote Thoughtful Engagement with Your Discipline. Although our students do not have access to PhoenixAI the custom chatbot could allow for opportunities for you to model personalized learning materials for our students.
Why Create a Custom Chatbot?
To supplement the basic PhoenixAI, ITS has now added MyGPT, a feature that allows users to create customized GAI tools. Customizing your own chatbots offers a couple of key benefits:
- Repeatability: Once you create a MyGPT you can utilize it and it’s base prompt over and over again without having to provide initial instructions. MyGPT’s can also be shared with others at the University.
- Base Prompts: By writing a customized set of directions for the chatbot, you provide the AI with a base prompt and up to 100 unstructured text documents for reference. These could be from your textbook, dept rubrics, examples of high/low quality work, etc.. All of this information helps the AI focus on what type of outputs you want.can promote thoughtful use that supports learning–and tell the AI tool to avoid providing outputs that could potentially short-circuit learning by simply dispensing answers.
- Curated Resources: MyGPTs can reference factual, high-quality sources the user curates and uploads, helping to reduce the risk of inaccurate outputs, while allowing the user to interact with that body of knowledge through a fluent interface.
Read the article : Creating Custom Chatbots to Promote Thoughtful Engagement with Your Discipline
AI Speaker Series
The AI and Learning Committee is wrapping up our speaker series this week. Find recordings from earlier sessions below and a link to Thursday’s Zoom below.
Ying Xu, Assistant Professor of Education - Harvard Graduate School of Education
Sarah Levine, Assistant Professor - Stanford Graduate School of Education
Michael Hernandez, Instructional Designer - University of Chicago Academic Technology Services
Michael's work sits at the intersection of Universal Design for Learning and the application of new technologies like AI. Michael has spent much of his career seeking new ways to support student learning and success, often with the help of technology. He is a former English instructor at DePaul University and now works with UChicago faculty on getting the most out of technology as part of instruction. He is eager to share emerging best practice around the application of UDL to AI, strategies for supporting learners with varied needs, and research on critical thinking and AI.
March 6th, 3:45pm
Zoom Link: https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/93786414384?pwd=oFR2lzSqdeomBwCMgmPtWksuZu3x1g.1&from=addon
Mac Insights
Reminder: macOS Sequoia is available. For more information on macOS Sequoia - you can explore here: macOS Sequoia
Screen Mirroring
If you have recently moved to MacOS Sequoia you will notice that screen mirroring will look slightly different. Apple also added a choice that wasn’t as easily available: now, if you connect to a display via an HDMI cable or wirelessly over Airplay you may receive a pop-up asking how you want the display to work. Your choices will be ‘Entire Screen’ (mirrored), ‘Extended Display’, or you can choose to share a specific window.
Check out the video here: Using Airplay in MacOS Sequoia
Google Insights
Google Arts and Culture
Google has continued to expand their Arts and Cultures website. If you’re looking for authentic cultural experiences, museums, arts collections from diverse periods and styles that can be used to develop visual literacy and critical thinking skills you may want to consider using it as an option. They have also added a few Google Experiments that are worth checking out including walking tours of historical landmarks via Google Street view and Google Illuminate, an AI experiment that creates podcast-style audio summaries from academic research papers. It's designed to make complex information easier to digest.
Canva Insights
Screen Recording in Canva
Have you been looking for a way to screen record that allows for easy editing? Canva has been a useful feature for providing editable and semi-professional videos.
Interested in using Canva’s AI features in the classroom? Check out this self paced Canva course that will help users become more confident in Canva’s AI features. Canva AI certification in 60 minutes.
Notes from IS
Looking to get in touch with IS? Our support address is support@ucls.zendesk.com
Reminders:
DUO - Two Factor Authentication
UChicago IT Services Identity & Access Management is beginning their project to remove the phone call and text message passcode options for two-factor authentication.
The university is planning to notify all individuals who have used either of these options over the past 90 days and continuing until the phone and text message passcode options close on May 1, 2025.
We would suggest using the Duo Push option or Biometric identifiers on your device ( Face ID on your Apple or Android device ) or Touch ID on your Mac.
You may find additional information here: Two Factor Authentication Options.
UChicago Secure is being Retired
As of March 18, 2025, UChicago-Secure Wi-Fi network will be retired by the University. Faculty, staff and students will need to transition to Eduroam. To connect to eduroam - you will need to sign in with your CNET ID and password. Please visit go.uchicago.edu/eduroam complete registration on the eduroam network.
Latest Phishing Scams
Be aware of the Phishing scams and find the latest scams that have been reported: Latest Phishing Scams
You may report or verify Phishing scams by sending to security@uchicago.edu.
Travel Tips for Spring Break
As you begin your much needed Spring Break vacation - please be aware of travel tips when using university resources.
Travel Tips and Travel Tips and Technology
Best,
IS Team
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