"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
I just finished reading Yuval Noah Harari’s book (2024) Nexus (and Audrey Watters would definitely like the cover!). Harari challenged both optimistic and pessimistic views of AI’s impact on society, arguing that treating information technology as either purely beneficial or destructive misses the unprecedented nature of our current moment. Through historical analysis from Stone Age… Read more Are We Still the United States?
There have been some interesting posts in my feeds recently regarding the intersection of AI and the future of teaching and learning. Lance Eaton had a post last month on Jailbreaks and Teaching and Learning. He reminded us about the limitations of these tools to actually understand. He stated something to his AI agent that… Read more Teaching and Artificial Intelligence
It has been quite a week in America, with basically half the voting public happy that Trump was re-elected and half (my half) wondering how a convicted felon could possibly be elected. I thought Robert Reich provided an insightful reflection in “The Lesson.” Reich dismissed several conventional interpretations of Trump’s victory over Harris, including claims about… Read more Economics and AI in Post Election America
Over the past five months, I have been exploring GenAI and co-working with these platforms in my blogging. Most of my posts have been pretty upbeat regarding partnering with GenAI for teaching and learning. Some recent posts by people I respect have me reconsidering my rosy scenarios…though not tossing them out altogether. I think the… Read more What is Effective Use of GenAI in Teaching?
My weekly EDUCAUSE newsletter listed a 2023 article by Florence Martin and Albert Ritzhaupt entitled “IDEAS Framework for Teaching Online.” I remember reading it last year. The IDEAS (Inclusion, Design, Engagement, Evaluation, Assessment, and Support) Framework is a suggested comprehensive guide for online teaching and learning. It was developed based on extensive research and expert… Read more Some Ideas about IDEAS
My wife and I were house sitting and dog sitting the past two weeks, so a break from blogging. However, today I read an excellent post by Dr. Philippa Hardman entitled “The Post-AI Instructional Designer.” Several points struck me. Hardman explored the evolving relationship between instructional designers (IDs) and AI, contrasting two models: the Delegation… Read more Nice Take on Post AI Instructional Designer
Gary Ackerman had a post this week in which he took another look at his understanding of TCPK, introduced by Mishra and Koehler in 2006. This framework explored the combinations of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, with the sweet spot being TCPK – Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. I have been blogging about TCPK since 2008,… Read more TCPK and GenAI
A few weeks ago, Educause published an article by Dale Pike, Brooke McGowin, Aaron Bond, Larry Cox II and Daron Williams entitled “Framing Generative AI in Education with the GenAI Intent and Orientation Model.” The article discussed the potential of generative AI (GenAI) in education and introduced the above framework to help understand and implement… Read more Enhancing the GenAI Intent and Orientation Model
I was visiting family last week (and so no blogging), and a LOT has happened while I was gone – Bryan Alexander is already remarking on the departure of Biden from the presidential race… I try and stay non-political in this blog, so I will not dive in to this issue. My focus in this… Read more Humanism and AI
Now that I am retired, it has been interesting to look back at my early 2008 posts. One post was “Only Thing To Fear” where I discussed the challenge of teaching a Masters class in edtech when all of my students worked in schools that blocked access to many of the websites we were exploring…including… Read more Fear of AI