Leo McCann

Out today: my review of Ed Gillett's book 'Party Lines' in ephemera. I argue the book is a great contribution to our histories of dance music, but is his interpretation too bleak?

ephemerajournal.org/contribution...

Preparing students for a world shaped by artificial intelligence | Letters Letters: Readers respond to a letter which said that AI is undermining learning at universities

Some useful responses to our letter below: thanks for your thoughts.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Preparing students for a world shaped by artificial intelligence | Letters Letters: Readers respond to a letter which said that AI is undermining learning at universities

Some interesting and thoughtful responses to our letter - thank you. The situation regarding GenAI and assessments and learning is clearly very troubling. We need serious consideration of this, probably at a national level.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"Print to PDF" gets a lot of usage

Just had an unexpected royalty payment from Sage, from books published about ten years ago. I'm guessing this is from licensing my books to #GenAI 'training' without asking permission? Is this normal? What do authors make of this?

For anyone interest in leadership in all its forms, this webinar is happening later today. Our guest speaker is Jaqui Lindridge, Chief Paramedic Officer at South East Coast Ambulance Service.

Please feel free to attend / share the flyer!

Indeed, a very weird article. Also it ignores that this government has no interest in protecting universities. Labour's priority is to play to potential and actual Reform voters, so we can forget about anything that might help universities (as supposed bastions of 'woke').

Attica! Attica!

The Impact Of AI Tools On The Next Decade Of Education Innovation Education technology is more of a commitment to shaping a future where every learner has the tools to succeed.

Claims of the novelty of AI and its potential for innovation in education always make me wince a bit because really it continues a bunch of long-running tendencies in the sector. It’s an *intensifier* rather than an innovation. Some examples… www.forbes.com/councils/for...

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Letter Letter: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness

A whole series of important and accurate points. Marking undergraduate work in the last 12 months or so has been extremely challenging. There is very widespread student misuse of AI. Students are being constantly prompted to use it by tech companies and media.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Letter Letter: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness

GenAI is already failing students horribly in higher education. Its effects in schools could be yet more serious.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How to use ChatGPT at university without cheating: ‘Now it’s more like a study partner’ The ubiquitous AI tool has a divisive effect on educators with some seeing it a boon and others a menace. So what should you know about where to draw the line between check and cheat?

Vacuous, generic and scattershot advice for incoming 1st years on the use of AI at university. Especially liking 'Chin recommends giving it class notes and asking it to generate practice exam questions.' Surely we can't be the only programme that supplies students with past & practice exams?

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Letter Letter: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian share.google/HwT4lS2JrDuu...

Maybe it's time to go and make yourself a nice cup of tea? Your sentiment score might move up into the high 0.1s.

I can imagine. Sometimes the LLMs throw out these weird, erroneous, ghost academic references. Kind of 'best guess mashups', along the lines of the kind of stuff specific academics write, but inaccurate and nonexistent. Meantime the real sources do exist, and are easy to find, download and read.

I still have a 10inch laptop running XP. Disabled the network card, obvs. Good for writing when you need zero interruptions. Word works really well on it.

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Letter Letter: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness

Some more thoughts on this from myself and a colleague at York. I'm increasingly thinking that we need some kind of national policy change to confront these issues.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities | Letter Letter: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness

Thinking of using #ChatGPT for 'help' with assessments? Think again. #university #AI

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

So, they are going for some kind of holding company model? Two large organisations 'managed' by a distance. I don't know the details, but I'm not sure how this helps anyone. Seems like British Leyland 1970s approach.

Inside the nerve centre of HAL9000?

Interested in #leadership, especially in public sector / health / emergency services? Please join us at the 'Journal of Paramedic Practice' leadership webinar on 23 September, 6-7pm BST. It's a friendly, interactive environment for the exchange of ideas and experience - all welcome!

"I'm defecting to the Soviet Union."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

For all of the educators trying to deal with AI, I did a deep dive in early June and these are the four articles I decided to assign to my students.

1. This is the longest of the bunch, but so wonderfully comprehensive.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

Strike

Strike

📍 Bradford UCU are on strike again today against vicious cuts that would axe 300+ jobs and close key courses.

✊ Send solidarity - give them a visit, a like, or a share today to show your support.

As thousands more teenagers scramble for university places, I have to ask – why? | Simon Jenkins Student debt increasing, graduate salaries dropping, high-skilled jobs thin on the ground – higher education in the UK is a mess, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Clearly much is amiss in UK universities. But this article is mean spirited and inaccurate on many points.

AAUP AHD open letter This is an open letter from members of the University of Chicago community to the university administration. It is sponsored by UChicago AAUP, but you do not need to be a member to sign (though we enc...

U Chicago AAUP fights back docs.google.com/document/d/1...

FTSE 100 bosses rake in a record £550m haul The number of significant shareholder protests has more than doubled so far this year compared with a year ago, with 11 FTSE 100 companies seeing revolts of more than 20 per cent.

FTSE 100 CEOs netted £550m in pay packets, 11% hike.

Shareholder revolts make no difference, execs collect up to 1,112 average worker pay. Corporations are private fiefdoms of execs.

Workers in same companies relying on food banks and charity.

Worker real average pay stuck at 2008 level.

The federal government’s $1B dollar demand is designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to devastate UCLA and its critical mission. #StandUpForUC to defend America’s greatest public university system and support this life-saving work. ucal.us/standupforuc

Was that part of 'The Warwick Tone of Voice?' Interesting to see if the managerial branding police will ever fall foul of the new 'free speech on campus' laws. Somehow I doubt it.