EP 39 - The Higher Ed AI Solution: Good Pedagogy with Lance Eaton

In EP 39, John and Jason discuss with Lance Eaton the threat that AI-driven "agentic browsers" pose to continue industrialized online learning models, the necessity of clear institutional policies to support instructors, and why good pedagogy remains the best solution to the “AI problem” and faculty exhaustion.

See complete notes and transcripts at www.onlinelearningpodcast.com

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Guest Bio:

Lance Eaton, Ph.D. is a writer, educator, faculty developer, instructional designer, and educational consultant based in Providence, Rhode Island. He holds degrees in History, Criminal Justice, American Studies, Public Administration, Instructional Design, and Higher Education. His writing has appeared in newspapers, trade publications, academic journals, books, and encyclopedias. With more than 15 years of experience creating online content—including blogs, a YouTube channel, and other digital projects—his work spans education, technology, and learning design. He has extensive experience working with youth, nonprofit organizations, higher education, and online communities. Connect with Lance at his website here: https://www.lanceeaton.com/ , his substack here https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/, and LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leaton01/

Resources:

• Post: Looking for ChatGPT Teaching Advice? Good Pedagogy is Nothing New, July 19, 2023 by Autumm Caines
• Lance’s appearance on AI Diatribe Podcast.
• NCFDD Workshop “The AIs Go Marching On: Finding Our Way with AI in Education” - https://members.ncfdd.org/finding-way-ai-education-webinar?submissionGuid=b1228e61-a304-42ca-a174-83c92a56a7e5

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!

Cold Open

[00:00:00] Jason: Lance you had brought up AOL - don't know if either one of you knew, but just recently, September 30th, they actually finally stopped servicing their dial up. Just September 30th, 2025.

[00:00:14] John Nash: I heard about that there were some people That were still dialing up.

[00:00:19] Jason: Yeah.

for a lot of our listeners, they don't even realize that, that we use the dial up sound in the beginning of our podcast very intentionally because we were talking about online learning in the second half, and that was an artifact of.

The first half of online learning, we would call it where people had kind of sketchy internet connections weren't able to do a lot, but it was the beginning, you know, as, as we kind of talked about, you talked about Lance starting in online education even in the early two thousands. So, so I wondered if maybe because I, I thought you guys would understand, maybe we take a moment of silence for the, the AOL dial up service.

[00:01:01] Lance Eaton: I feel like there should be a digital bugle.

[00:01:05] Jason: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Playing some digital taps.

[00:01:09] John Nash: Alright.

[00:01:09] Jason: Yep.

Intro

[00:01:10] John Nash: I'm John Nash here with Jason

[00:01:11] Jason: Hey John. Hey everyone. And this is Online Learning in the second half the Online Learning Podcast.

[00:01:17] John Nash: Yeah, we're doing this podcast to let you in on a conversation we've been having for the last three years about online education. Look, online learning has had its chance to be great, and some of it is, but some still has a way to go. So how can we get to the next stage, Jason?

[00:01:33] Jason: that is a great question. How about we do a podcast and talk about it?

[00:01:38] John Nash: I think that's a fabulous idea. What do you want to talk about today?

[00:01:40] Jason: Well, first I want to say it has been three years for the podcast, I think now. Right? But you and I have been hav