Listen, my critical EdTech pals: can we talk about Generative AI? Because I think we need a different kind of conversation than just “ten classroom prompts to try” or “what does this mean for academic integrity” and instead have a real talk about the ethics of the profession. It’s increasingly clear to me that Generative AI is fundamentally rotten at the core. The racism. The labour exploitation. The carbon cost. The volume of clean drinking water. The consent-free scraping. All of it. The Sudowriter stuff this week is just another example.

My thoughts on AI student assignments: AI poses a challenge to many pedagogical practices, but not an insurmountable one if we value process over product, and with writing, we *should*. The process of learning to write is lifelong, not bounded by semesters or credentials. The best way to use an AI writing tool in post-secondary is to use it in class, as a learning activity. Feed it your prompt! If your prompt is good (and by good I mean: contextual, relevant, and meaningful to your learners), the AI essay will not succeed with the assessment.

In support of faculty developers doing tech support: a thread. Once in a while, I stumble across a discussion on here that presents it as a misunderstanding of FacDev work to assist with things like how grades, etc. work in the LMS.

It's been a week. And I have spent the week reading and listening and thinking (and, yes, subtweeting and retweeting). I want to finally put down some thoughts about Course Hero and about the value of rigorous critique as we engage with educational technologies. To lay my cards on the table, I actually think IP issues are the least interesting part of the Course Hero story, though I respect the folks who are teasing that piece out. It matters in a lot of contexts. I am more interesting in the data piece and the business model.

This is my last work week of the year and I am trying to spend some of my waning mental energy on making next year suck less: a thread. People book my calendar a lot, which I actually prefer to the seventh circle of hell that is a doodle poll, but I am trying to be more intentional about blocking out time when I don't want to meet with people. My goal for 2022 is to respect my own time.

This whole thread is a fascinating exploration of how ethics function in EdTech. I am distressed that we build tools with functionality that can cause distress and then call the implementation of that distress “teacher autonomy.”

https://twitter.com/mrdeltamath/status/1444481199628558336

EdTech — of any size! — cannot extract its product from its responsibility to students. And because no technology can fix bad pedagogy, it maintains (I believe) an ethical responsibility to how it is applied in practice.

Please may we talk now about your plans for final assessments this semester? A thread. About the only universal truth I know right now is that we are all exhausted. But I really need to you to know that our students are as exhausted — more, I suspect — as we are.

Ok, you’re stressed and you have to start teaching fully-online, like, soon. Here are five things you can do in the first class to really set a good tone, establish community, and enact care. A thread! (None of these relate to content, by the way. There will be space enough and time. Or there won’t be, and you’ll drop something. In the vast majority of courses, this won’t matter a jot. Let coverage go.)

Since Groot ain’t sleeping and I’m back in my usual spot on the floor of his room, I’m going to collect some thoughts about what these last three weeks have been like in #EdTech world for me, a brand-spanking new faculty educational technologist. Me: I’m leaving my familiar job as an English professor because I want to take on a role where I have more influence on institutional culture, practice, and policy.
COVID-19:
Me: NO NOT LIKE THAT