HeyJaredThe Signal (formerly the EdTech Connect Podcast)
Reaching 4 on the Apple Podcast Education Category, The Signal is the leading podcast for higher education professionals who want to stay ahead of the curve.Join host Jeff Dillon as he explores the innovative people and technology shaping the future of academia.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 18, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest episodes
Ep. 105 -Michael Leggs: The Essay Was Never Evidence of Thinking (opens the original)
Read excerpt
What if the real crisis AI has exposed in higher education isn't student dishonesty, but the fact that we've been treating final papers as evidence of thinking—when AI can now simulate that thinking in seconds? In this episode, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Michael Leggs, who has taught English at St. Paul College for 21 years and is the founder of Smartlby, an AI‑powered revision tutor designed to help students strengthen their writing through guided reflection—without writing for them. Micha
Ep. 104 - Raffi DerSimonian: Ikigai and purpose driven paths (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Jeff talks to Raffi DerSimonian, VP and Chief Strategy Officer at ERI, a digital agency that has been building for colleges and universities since 2005. Raffi came up on the institutional side—alumni relations at Becker College, then marketing and communications at Maine College of Art—before moving to the agency side. He brings a rare combination: deep empathy for campus dynamics and a strategist's eye for what actually moves the needle. Raffi shares the story behind ikiGuide.ai, a tool that ta
Ep. 103 - Jenny Petty: The Alignment Gap That's Bankrupting Higher Ed Marketing (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Jeff Dillon talks to Jenny Petty, Vice President of Industry Relations and Advisory Services at Simpson Scarborough, who has spent over a decade inside higher ed—most recently as VP of Marketing Communications at the University of Montana, where she helped reverse a decade‑long enrollment decline. Jenny brings a rare combination of private‑sector marketing experience (including growing a Facebook community from under 200 to over 1 million at IGT, working with brands like Dolly Parton and Family
Ep. 102 - John Fees: The Insurance Founder Who Says His Own Company Shouldn't Have to Exist (opens the original)
Read excerpt
What if the best measure of an insurance company's success isn't how many claims it denies, but how many it pays—and how many of those students re-enroll? In this episode, host Jeff Dillon sits down with John Fees, co-founder and CEO of GradGuard, a fintech company that has protected more than two million students across 750 colleges and universities. John brings a rare perspective: he's a founder who built his first company in higher ed in 1999, sold companies to Viacom and JP Morgan Chase, and
Ep. 101 - Jeff Wilser: How One Chatbot Cut Summer Melt in Half (opens the original)
Read excerpt
In a world drowning in AI hype, how do you separate what's actually useful from what's just shiny? And what happens when the people building AI can't even agree on where it's going? Jeff Dillon sits down with Jeff Wilser, a journalist-turned-AI-strategist who has written for The New York Times, Wired, and GQ, hosted the AI Curious podcast (named by Inc. as one of the best ways to get AI savvy), and spoken at Davos. Jeff brings a reporter's instinct for cutting through noise and a storyteller's a
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.
See coverage about The Signal (formerly the EdTech Connect Podcast)