"Students must learn to navigate environments where truth is not always fixed, and where the line between representation and manipulation is easily blurred."

"It’s no longer necessary to prime AI models with lengthy prompts giving extensive contextual information. In most applications it’s now possible to add extensive contextualising materials in a variety of formats, including PDFs, docs, web links, spreadsheets, and images."

The 2026 EDUCAUSE Top 10 highlights how higher education technology and data leaders can foster a collective will and support individual capabilities—two deeply connected actions that will help institutions thrive in the year ahead.

VIDEO: This episode of EDUCAUSE Exchange explores how artificial intelligence can either bridge or widen accessibility gaps in higher education, emphasizing the need for inclusive design, representation, and collaboration with disability communities to ensure equitable innovation.

"We should ask how open principles might enable entirely new forms of open learning and community based on the common good, so we can guide AI development toward serving human flourishing rather than corporate profit." #ai

"ADGIE was created to address what the researchers see to be a critical gap: instructional designers are already using tools like ChatGPT, but without a formal methodology to guide them."

"It would be a shame to abandon online learning because companies decided to release software without guardrails. Before we do that, let’s ask the companies to help." #ai

"AI is incapable of asking questions that enable the relevance and resonance of feedback. It cannot ask ‘why?’. It only produces an answer that pleases the person asking the question" #ai

"If the essay can no longer be treated as a valid demonstration of student learning, should it be abandoned in favour of assessment formats less vulnerable to AI?"

"When compared to static graphics, animations get mixed reviews as an effective learning medium. But don’t be discouraged."

"We all need to develop a realistic perspective on GenAI’s likely development. The pace of technical change (and some rather secretive corporate habits) makes this very challenging for individuals, so we need proactive and co-ordinated approaches by course/programme teams."

"A classroom transforms into a stage for an augmented reality adventure. Students point their phones at walls and floors, and suddenly fake headlines, manipulated videos and conspiracy chats appear."

"When students just accept that first comprehensive AI response, they’re short-circuiting their own discovery process." #ai

PODCAST: More college students are using AI chatbots to help them with their studies. But data recently released by an AI company shows they're aren't the only ones using the technology.

"Real digital literacy would mean teaching students why search engines return certain results, how their data is being used, what alternatives exist, and when to be skeptical of platforms that offer free services."

"Clearer instructions reduce confusion, flexible pacing supports busy professionals, and multisensory options create stronger engagement."

"As tools like ChatGPT become widespread and sophisticated, lecturers across Ireland are reassessing not just how they teach and assess students, but what it means to think, read and write in a university context." #ai

PODCAST: Neil Selwyn talks to Brad Robinson (Texas State University) about one such tool – MagicSchool AI – and the growing temptation for teachers to let GenAI do their work for them. #ai

"GenAI tools might lead to new scaling capabilities for learning experiences, but this must not come at the cost of personal relationships."

What Games Have to Teach Us About AI-Enhanced Learning buff.ly/JzsenPk

"Research from the University of Southern California Center for Generative AI and Society found that the average student who uses generative AI services does so to get a direct answer, not to learn."

"While it is probable that LLMs will soon essentially solve the domain of natural language processing, they may not be sufficient to solve the challenges of reasoning, perception, and judgment."

"But even for those students committed to doing their own work, AI poses a threat that is quieter and harder to measure: that they will go off to college and find the experience of learning far more solitary, far lonelier, than ever before."

"Treating the challenge of AI as though assessment stands alone from the rest of higher education is too narrow a frame – one that consigns us to a kind of futile authoritarianism which renders assessment practices performative and irrelevant to our and our students’ reality." #ai

"While some institutions are embracing AI, arguing that college graduates are entering a work force that increasingly expects competency, many are still grappling with how the technology can or should be used." #ai

Share your thoughts on whether educators should use AI to grade assessments. #ai

"The AI and assessment problem has put enormous pressure on institutions and teachers. Today’s students need assessment tasks to complete, as well as confidence the work they are doing matters." #ai

Have you tried using NotebookLM? If so, what do you think of its features? #ai

"This is a most comprehensive coverage of the state of open universities world-wide at the present time."

The prompt behind OpenAI's new Study Mode #ai

This 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 special issue, 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘀, 𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀, investigates how metaphors frame, challenge, and reimagine understandings of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED). #ai

"Universities that continue to chase the elusive ‘right answer’ to AI in assessment will exhaust their educators while failing their students." #ai

Authoritarian EdTech - Eamon Costello, Stephen Gow, 2025 buff.ly/8NPmc5J

"Walk into any university library, and on the screens of many students’ computers, a bright white website can be seen. The words “what can I help with?” appear before the student." #ai

𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘼𝙄 𝙞𝙣 𝙃𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨 recaptures the views of staff, students, and leaders across the Irish higher education system on the opportunities and challenges posed by artificial intelligence. buff.ly/3LSCfDl

"The AI revolution may be coming, but HE’s evolution is already here. We just need to stop looking at the horizon long enough to see what’s right in front of us."

This UNESCO anthology explores the philosophical, ethical and pedagogical dilemmas posed by disruptive influence of AI in education. buff.ly/rVZ7ftu #ai

"Designing for inclusion doesn’t require perfection. It requires thought, planning, and intention."

"There needs to be a way to ensure that students are actually learning from the AI feedback. If they are simply inputting a prompt and then turning off their brains, that is not doing them any good." #ai buff.ly/DpgEurX

"Despite the sudden appearance of ChatGPT, AI technologies have actually played an increasing role in the work of instructional design over the past decade and longer, and are likely to play an even more important one in the years ahead." #ai #instructionaldesign

"If we can make content more memorable, we can support learners more effectively and sustainably."

In this episode of EDUCAUSE Shop Talk they discuss practical strategies for guiding student and faculty AI use and literacy. buff.ly/ITVJtgW #ai

"Peer assessment not only complements educators’ feedback, but also supports authentic assessment, criteria-based evaluation, development of graduate attributes, and preparation for the workplace."

"The intense personal engagement with perspectives and cultural artifacts central to the value of the humanities is more or less bypassed when a student heavily outsources to AI the generation and expression of ideas and analysis."

"The technology is no longer just a curiosity or a way to cheat; it is a habit, as ubiquitous on campus as eating processed foods or scrolling social media."

"The strongest agreement was with the statement that AI “will not judge me,” after which came anonymity, asking questions one wouldn’t ask a professor, and being more comfortable with feedback from AI than a professor." #ai

"Now that generative AI is integrated into programs we already use—Word (Copilot), Google Docs (Gemini) and Grammarly—it’s there beckoning us like the chocolate stashed in my cupboard does around 9 p.m. every night." #ai

"The embarrassing situation made him realize, he said, that professors should approach A.I. with more caution and disclose to students when and how it is used." #ai

"AI makes a beeline for, and shines a spotlight on, the very essence of higher education." #ai

"When we ask students to do things that are neither interesting nor relevant to their personal or professional lives, they look for shortcuts." #ai