Learning in New Jersey at NJEdge Spring 2026

On April 16, 2026, I returned to my roots at NJEDge Con Spring 2026. Hosted at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ, the event was a great opportunity to reconnect with the higher education community. After nearly a decade away, it was refreshing to see that while the faces were familiar, the technology had moved at light speed.

The breakout sessions were interesting, enlightening, and most importantly, timely. Here are the key takeaways from the event:

As Seen on TV: Using Television Best Practices in Video Lectures

• Presented by John Baldino, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning / Assistant Professor, Lackawanna College

With over two decades of experience in the television industry, John Baldino knows what it takes to grab people’s attention. He explained that people’s attention spans have shortened over the years. He proved it by comparing the first 45 seconds of the timeless TV classic The Golden Girls with a more modern sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. While the classic show ran its opening credits before diving into an episode’s story, the sitcom begins by setting up a situation to grab your attention and get a laugh. Only then does the show roll its opening credits.

According to Baldino, the same principles apply to creating your video lectures. Your learners’ attention spans are short, so stick to the following to get them hooked (and to increase the odds that they’ll watch your whole video):

• The 5-Second Rule: You have five seconds to capture attention. Start your video with a teaser or provocative question before diving into your main content.
• The 2-Minute Myth: Baldino suggests two-minute videos that make no more than three points. Anything longer or containing too much information increases the risk of losing your learners’ attention.

There’s a good chance that your content can’t be adequately covered in fewer than 120 seconds, and that’s okay! Baldino suggests creating additional two-minute videos and teasing future content in the sequence at the end of each of your segments. Creating a playlist of your videos makes it easier for viewers to go right to the next one.

Once I understood the format (Attention grabber > Key information > Summary and teaser), I started seeing it everywhere. The format works, but are two-minute videos realistic? For a traditional hour-long lecture, that would mean you’d need to create 30 two-minute videos!

Thirty microlearning videos would take a substantial amount of effort, but there’s a compromise we can make. While two minutes might feel too short, an hour feels like too long. So perhaps 10-15 minute chunks can work. This gives learners an opportunity to rest, perhaps complete some supplemental learning activities, grab a coffee or take a walk, and then come back more refreshed to view the next 10-15 minute chunk.

Takeaway: Consider the length of your videos. Try to chunk your content to make it more digestible for your learners, and consider the structure of your videos as well. Use those first few seconds to grab viewers’ attention, make your points, and tease the next video segment.

GET MORE RELEVANT HIGHER ED INSIGHTS | [EBOOK] ‘How 5 Trending Technologies Are Defining the Future of Higher Education’

From Clicks to Strategy: Using Data to Drive Institutional Decision-Making

• Presented by Aaron Colaiacomo, Sr. Instructional Technologist, Providence College

In this session, Aaron Colaiacomo explained how he integrated AI and manual tagging to identify people or departments who needed instructional LMS support. For example, he found one individual faculty member who submitted over 100+ support tickets. By combining that support information with other institutional data, he gained additional insights.

As he walked through his presentation, I kept thinking: Where is this data being stored? How are you aggregating all of this information? And importantly, who should have access to it? These questions emphasized a point that today’s learning leaders need to know: the LMS is just one component of a broader ecosystem that needs to include a data strategy.

Takeaway: In higher education institutions, as in most businesses, the LMS is often just one component of a broader ecosystem. But not all LMS vendors make your data easily accessible. Does your LMS give you access to your own data via APIs or other methods? Can you easily export it to a data warehouse or Learning Record Store (LRS) such as Watershed? And do you have flexible reporting options that allow you to manage permissions and schedule reports on a regular basis? Without access to your own data and flexible reporting options, you will never achieve the level of insights you need to progress your company forward.

Building the Plane While Flying It: Lessons From Launching an AI Faculty Institute

Presented by:

• Joseph Baker, Professor, Department of Chemistry, The College of New Jersey
• Judi Cook, Executive Director, CETL, The College of New Jersey
• Ellen Farr, Director of Online Learning, CETL, The College of New Jersey
• Rebecca Hunter, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, The College of New Jersey
• John Oliver, Information Literacy Librarian, The College of New Jersey
• Andrea Salgian, Professor, Department of Computer Science, The College of New Jersey

This session focused on an institutional directive to drive faculty AI literacy across the university. The team created a six-module course delivered over five weeks, with each week taking about four to six hours to complete. Faculty completed the course in cohorts, with the team facilitating discussion forums and overall monitoring the course. Faculty members who completed the course successfully earned a stipend. The course was very successful, with 55 full-time faculty members completing the course and offering generally positive feedback overall.

Takeaway: The College of New Jersey, like many higher education institutions, recognizes the need to get its faculty and students trained on AI. But what stood out about this initiative was the institutional support in the form of monetary compensation, especially when many universities are so budget-constrained. That small investment now can fuel so many more ideas and future innovation from those faculty. If your institution is trying to get AI off the ground, consider what training and incentives you can offer your employees to change their habits and innovate.

KEEP READING | ‘What’s the Real ROI of AI in Your LMS? How Open LMS Drives Top Results’

Academic Feedback Intelligent Assistant

• Presented by Mariola Pogacnik, Director, Slalom, Inc. and Jennie Wong, Director, Slalom, Inc.

In this session, Pogacnik and Wong presented a case study from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The school was undergoing the classic challenge of too many students with too few instructors and teaching assistants. They created an AI tool that could provide feedback to students within their LMS by reviewing the assignment description itself (which was already in the LMS), plus an exemplar of a high-quality student submission.

Comparing the exemplar against each student’s submission, the tool pre-populated the feedback area with areas where the student did well and areas where they could improve. The faculty member could then review the feedback, make edits, and publish it to the student.

Grading and written feedback are one of the most time-consuming parts of teaching. It takes significant time and effort to read through 30 or more papers, weigh them against the rubric, and provide substantive feedback to each student. Another thing to consider is timing—Jennie made the great point that there can be a big difference between the feedback you provide in the first paper you grade and the feedback you provide in the last paper you grade (which I also agree with).

This tool allows students to get more equitable, consistent, and substantive feedback, while also saving time for instructors who can simply review and tweak the feedback already generated.

Takeaway: This functionality is relatively new, but there are many LMS platforms that offer similar features. Be sure to consider the privacy policies of these AI platforms, and ensure your intellectual property is protected and won’t be used to train any Large Language Models (LLMs). Open LMS offers flexibility to choose which AI platform you want to use, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and DeepSeek. With this flexibility, you have the option to use a provider you might already be familiar with.

Final Thoughts

NJEDge 2026 made one thing clear: Higher education is no longer just about delivering content; it’s about managing the experience through better video, better data, and smarter AI integration.

It was a fantastic day of networking and learning in Ewing. I’m already looking forward to the next one. Stay tuned for more wrap-ups!