College of Education and Human Development

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

George Veletsianos

  • Pronouns: he/him/his

  • Professor of Learning Technologies, Bonnie Westby Huebner Chair in Education and Technology

  • Office Hours

    My office hours are flexible to accommodate student needs and schedules. Please email me at georgev@umn.edu with two days and windows of time that work best for your schedule (e.g., Monday 1-4pm; Tuesday 9-11am), and I will identify meeting time that works best.

George Veletsianos

Areas of interest

Online learning, the role and impact of technology on the future of education, education futures, speculative education, student and faculty experiences with educational technology, emerging technologies, AI in education, the role and impacts of technology on education.

Degrees

PhD. University of Minnesota, Learning Technologies

Biography

I am a Professor in the Learning Technologies program and hold the Bonnie Westby Huebner Chair in Education and Technology. Prior to my current position I held the Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology (2013-2023) and the Commonwealth of Learning Chair in Flexible Education (2019-2022). 

I have been designing, developing, and evaluating online, blended, and digital learning environments for nearly 20 years. My research aims to understand the roles, impacts, and limitations of technology on education, as well as the experiences of students and educators in online and technology-rich settings. I apply this frame to both established and new/emerging technologies, and I'm drawn to educational innovation, both its potentials and its limits. For example, in the past I examined teaching, learning, and participation with AI, social media, MOOCs, open education, and flexible learning. I am incredibly interested in visions of the future of education . My research agenda focuses on three areas: (1) design, development, and evaluation of online and blended learning environments, (2) the study of learning experiences and participation in emerging online environments, and (3) learning futures.

What students can expect from me?

I am dedicated to collaborating with my students in projects of mutual interest. I provide students with opportunities to learn via experiential mentoring focused on supporting their professional development and involving them in authentic research activities. For example, students have been involved in developing research proposals for funding agencies, designing and developing online learning and training, co-writing publications, presenting at conferences, and designing and developing educational software.

Selected Awards/Recognition 

Editor Award for Best Article of 2020, CJLT- Canadian Journal of Learning Technology.  https://cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/27944 

Honorary appointment,  AI-ALOE, National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education. Research Fellow, 2024

Top downloaded article during its first 12 months of publication, March, 2023. Article published in BJET: Never-ending repetitiveness, sadness, loss, and “juggling with a blindfold on:” Lived experiences of Canadian college and university faculty members during the COVID-19 pandemic https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjet.13065  

Top Ten “Good Reads” for 2022. January, 2023. Selected as one of top ten open access articles of 2022 by the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University, for the article Impossible dreaming: On speculative education fiction and hopeful learning futures. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-022-00348-7   

Associations/Memberships

  • AECT, Association for Educational Communications and Technology
  • AERA, American Educational Research Association
  • CDLRA, Canadian Digital Learning Research Association
  • Editorial board member: Journal of Computing in Higher Education
  • Editorial board member: Journal of Open, Distance, and Digital Education
  • Editorial board member:  Distance Education Journal
  • Founding Member: Open/Tech in Education, Society, & Scholarship Association (OTESSA), Canada 
  • Founding Member: Center for Open Education Research, Oldenburg University, Germany

News Stories

Veletsianos, G. (2024). Education innovation needs more than algorithms. The Minnesota Star Tribune. Retrieved on Dec 23, 2024 from https://www.startribune.com/education-innovation-needs-more-than-algorithms/601198597 
 
Veletsianos, G. (2024). 5 questions schools and universities should ask before they purchase AI tech products. The Conversation. Retrieved on Apr 15, 2024 from https://theconversation.com/5-questions-schools-and-universities-should-ask-before-they-purchase-ai-tech-products-226900 
 
Veletsianos, G. (2023). Making ChatGPT detectors part of our education system prioritizes surveillance over trust. The Globe & Mail. Retrieved on April 25, 2023 from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-making-chatgpt-detectors-part-of-our-education-system-prioritizes/ 

Veletsianos, G., Kimmons, R., & Bondah, H. (2023). ChatGPT and Higher Education: Initial Prevalence and Areas of Interest. Educause Review, https://er.educause.edu/articles/2023/3/chatgpt-and-higher-education-initial-prevalence-and-areas-of-interest 

Veletsianos, G., Barbour, M., & Moore, S. (2022). Why it’s wrong to blame online learning for causing mental health issues during COVID-19. The Conversation. Retrieved on Nov 7, 2022 from https://theconversation.com/why-its-wrong-to-blame-online-learning-for-causing-mental-health-issues-during-covid-19-191493 

Veletsianos, G. (2022). We need to get online learning right before the next crisis hits. The Globe & Mail. Retrieved on Oct 11, 2022 from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-need-to-get-online-learning-right-before-the-next-crisis-hits/ 

Veletsianos, G. (2020). The 7 elements of a good online course. The Conversation. Retrieved on Jun 11, 2020 from https://theconversation.com/the-7-elements-of-a-good-online-course-139736 

Kimmons, R., Veletsianos, G., & VanLeeuwen, C. (2020). What (Some) Faculty Are Saying about the Switch to Remote Teaching and Learning. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved on May 14, 2020 from https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/5/what-some-faculty-are-saying-about-the-shift-to-remote-teaching-and-learning 

Veletsianos, G. & Kimmons, R. (2020). What (Some) Students Are Saying about the Switch to Remote Teaching and Learning. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved on April 6, 2020 from https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/4/what-some-students-are-saying-about-the-switch-to-remote-teaching-and-learning 

Publications

Selected publications appear below, and the most up-to-date list is available on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Esx8Dw8AAAAJ&hl=en 

Veletsianos, G. (2020). Learning Online: The Student Experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/73824 

Veletsianos, G. (2016). Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning: Foundations and Applications. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press. https://www.aupress.ca/books/120258-emergence-and-innovation-in-digital-learning/ 

Childs, E., Veletsianos, G., Donahue, A., Leary, T., McLeod, K., & Scott, A. M. (2023). One speculative future for education: Who is it "good" for and why? In Czerniewicz, L. & Cronin, C. (Eds), Higher Education for Good: Teaching and Learning Future (pp. 317-334). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0363.13 

Veletsianos, G., Johnson, N., & Houlden, S. (2024). How do Canadian Faculty Members Imagine Future Teaching and Learning Modalities? Educational Technology Research & Development, 72(3), 1851 – 1868. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10350-4 

Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2014). On the “university of the future”: A critical analysis of cohort-based course platform Maven. Learning, Media, & Technology, 49(3), 401-413. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2023.2164862 

Veletsianos, G., Houlden, S., & Johnson, N. (2024). Is Artificial Intelligence in education an object or a subject? Evidence from a story completion exercise on learner-AI interactions. Tech Trends, 68, 411–422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-024-00942-5

Houlden, S. & Veletsianos, G. (2023). Impossible dreaming: On speculative education fiction and hopeful learning futures. Postdigital Science and Education, 5, 605-622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00348-7 

Veletsianos, G., & Johnson, N. (2023). Canadian Faculty Members’ Hopes and Anxieties about the Near-future of Higher Education. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 48(3), 1-23. https://cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/28319 

VanLeeuwen, C.A., Veletsianos, G., Belikov, O. Johnson, N. (2021). Never-ending repetitiveness, sadness, loss, and “juggling with a blindfold on:” Lived experiences of Canadian college and university faculty members during the COVID-19 pandemic. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(4), 1306-1322. http://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13065 

Veletsianos, G., Reich, J., & Pasquini, L. (2016). The Life Between Big Data Log Events: Learners’ Strategies to Overcome Challenges in MOOCs? AERA Open, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858416657002 

Classes taught

CI 5330 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education 

CI 5321 Foundations of Distance Education

CI 8391: Learning Technologies Seminar