In this episode, John and Jason talk to Christelle Daceus of Johns Hopkins University chats about digital neo-colonialism and efforts to humanize online learning through training about AI and promoting inclusive practices. See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com

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Links and Resources:

• Christelle Daceus, M.Ed., is a Course Support Specialists at the Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, and the Founder and CEO of Excellence Within Reach 


• Watch for Christelle’s book chapter - Coming late 2024 on Springer Nature Press “Using Global Learning through the Collaborative Online International Learning Model to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals by Building Intercultural Competency Skills” coedited by Kelly Tzoumis and Elena Douvlou with a chapter titled “Combatting Virtual Exchange’s Predisposition to Digital Colonialism: Culturally Informed Digital Accessibility as a Tool for Achieving the UN SDGs”


• Johns Hopkins Excellence in Online Teaching Symposium
  
  • John & Jason’s 6 Guideposts - Slide Deck (via Gamma.app)
  
  
  • Christelle’s symposium video
  
  
  
  

Theme Music: Pumped by RoccoW is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License.

Transcript

We use a combination of computer-generated transcriptions and human editing. Please check with the recorded file before quoting anything. Please check with us if you have any questions or can help with any corrections!

[00:00:00 ] Jason Johnston: What'd you have for breakfast?

[00:00:01 ] Christelle Daceus: I did not have breakfast. I was thinking here that I have two dogs, so that my mornings consist of a lot of making sure they get their walk in and getting my nice kind of walk in the morning and things like that. It helps me start my day. And I spend a lot of time just hydrating, tea, I like, because I think I have a full plate, I would call it.

I like to have a really quiet morning, just like the simplest morning that I can have, depending on what my first thing is to do that day. This is my first meeting today, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna chill with the dogs, get into my emails and things like that.

[00:00:40 ] John Nash: Nice. We've been getting more into tea lately. There's wonderful woman-owned emporium near our house called White Willow and they've got a new herbalist and, we picked up a lavender earl gray tea there last night.

[00:00:53 ] Christelle Daceus: Ooh, that sounds good.

[00:00:54 ] John Nash: The little things.

I'm John Nash here with Jason Johnston.

[00:01:00 ] Jason Johnston: Hey, John. Hey, everyone. And this is Online Learning in the Second Half, the online learning podcast.

[00:01:05 ] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last two years about online education. Look, online learning's had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but there's still quite a bit that isn't. And Jason, how are we going to get to the next stage?

[00:01:20 ] Jason Johnston: That's a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:01:24 ] John Nash: That's perfect. What do you want to talk about today?

[00:01:27 ] Jason Johnston: Well, today we're probably going to hit some pretty big themes, John, and it's partly because we have connected with somebody that we first connected with at the Johns Hopkins Online Teaching Excellence Symposium.

So we have with us today, Christelle Dacius. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're really just looking forward to talking to you today.

[00:01:51 ] Christelle Daceus: too. Thank you so much.

[00:01:54 ] Jason Johnston: Well, we wanted to get started by just talking a little bit about what is it you do currently? You're connected in with JHU maybe talk about that first, but I also know that you're an entrepreneur. They have other pursuits outside of JHU as well.

[00:02:07 ] Christelle Daceus: Yeah, I am a long time educator. I've had my hands in all things education at various levels. And yeah, now I'm at J. H. U. Working for the School of Engineering, working for the Center for Learning Design and Technology. I work as a course support specialist with the instructional designers and technologists, creating Materials for courses at the School of Engineering at Helmwood making sure that they're accessible and those materials are accessible, like videos have captions and are able to be, process and materials are able to be read by screen readers. And then we also have the faculty forward Academy where we provide professional development for faculty and I have some awesome opportunities to collaborate with the school of education in their international student work group and I'll be working in some workshops for them in April, providing some work with the faculty on AI and different tools and AI and how they can incorporate into learning and a no fear approach to AI because there's a lot of anxiety there. I think for faculty. And that's my goal with that workshop is to meet them in the middle and show them that AI is here. We can't quite get rid of it, but. We can, elevate our learning and how we, work with students. And so I'm super excited for that. I also work in some research with Global Learning, so I have some international partners I'm doing like exciting things with.

And we have a book coming out in May or June with Springer Nature Press. And so that book is about global learning and how sustainability in education can be affected by the United Nations sustainable development goals. And so we just launched our book recently again at the world environmental education Congress in Abu Dhabi, just a few weeks ago, and we talked about our book and had a panel there and that was super exciting.

Very excited for that work. Obviously it was again like that natural opportunity. I was talking about earlier where it's just I'm meeting good people talking about the good work. And then we started creating some great work together, I'm really excited about that. And then, yeah, like I said, I'm an entrepreneur.

So I have a business in Baltimore City, which is an academic center that's really starting to really connect with the community and start starting to grow into a very. Well rounded program which is exciting because I'm just in maybe a few months. But, it's one of those moments where hard work is paying off even in the new pursuit, where a lot of the relationships that I've valued and forged within Baltimore and within education systems and Baltimore City schools are starting to just grow and I'm able to like really reach students.

Because just moving here, I'm actually from New Jersey, and I moved here maybe five years ago, and I've had an opportunity to contract in schools and things like that. And, Baltimore City Schools is constantly in the news for their educational needs and things like that. And because my career started in K 12, I really wanted to connect kind of the work that I do at this higher level, right?

Accessibility, advocacy, inclusive education, but bring it to a community level. And I think one of the things you guys asked me was about affecting the individual, like, how can we do that work and reach the individual and not just put out the research and all these kinds of things, which is amazing and important to have those conversations and keep pushing forward with.

Workshops and conferences and getting those ideas out there. But then I have an opportunity to not only give opportunities to other educators to bring those opportunities to students, but also really, impact the community, a community that needs it, Yeah. I also am a mom and I have a son he's four.

His name is Malcolm. He's the greatest. And yeah, I'm just a busy bee. I'm all over the place. But I love everything I do. And I think I have a good balance right now. So I'm lucky to do the things that I love.

[00:06:16 ] Jason Johnston: so we sent you some questions, but like you just. You just landed us with four pretty big things that you do. We could probably spend the entire time talking about any one of those things. So I'm going to have to show some restraint, because there's some things we would like to get to, and why we connected over this, that I think are really important.

I don't want to derail anything here, but I was really curious, and I'm sorry to our listeners, because we keep saying that we're going to stop talking about AI, and then it just keeps coming back.

[00:06:44 ] Christelle Daceus: You can, that's what I'm saying. That's the workshop. You cannot run away from AI. I'm so

sorry.

[00:06:51 ] Jason Johnston: And we love it. We like, it's really interesting to us. And all the time are like texting each other things. I actually texted my wife yesterday by accident, something I meant to text to John, and it made no sense to her whatsoever.

[00:07:05 ] John Nash: Does that make us work spouses right?

[00:07:08 ] Jason Johnston: I I think so or at least