Conor Murphy

430. An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) - Leaving Cert 2025 (#---) Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with week with special guests Conor Murphy and Niall Murphy, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by I

Our latest episode is now online, with @conorsmurf.bsky.social & @niallmurphy.bsky.social talking about "The Quiet Girl", one of the films on the new Leaving Certificate Drama, Film & Theatre Course.

We discuss the Irish language, stocism and - of course - biscuits.

soundcloud.com/the250/430-a...

An article in The Echo about my wife, Aislinn, and the work she does. This one looks at the gender affirming tattooing she offers.

Our podcast schedule for the next few weeks.

AUG. 2: "I'm Not Scared", w/ @conorsmurf.bsky.social
AUG. 9: "An Cailín Ciúin", w/ Conor & @niallmurphy.bsky.social
AUG. 16: "Past Lives", w/ Conor & @natashawaugh.bsky.social
AUG. 23: "The Green Mile", w/ Charlene Lydon & @cethanleahy.com.

429. Io Non Ho Paura (I'm Not Scared) - Leaving Cert 2025 (#---) Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with week with special guest Conor Murphy, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Data

This week, we're kicking off the first of three weeks looking at the films added to the Irish Leaving Cert Curriculum with @conorsmurf.bsky.social.

This week, a film making a surprise return to the English curriculum, Gabriele Salvatores' "I'm Not Scared."

soundcloud.com/the250/429-i...

Ryan has clearly been told to keep an eye on Skelton.
Love it.

We were there a few years ago.
A great stunt show!
We all loved it.

Darcy Graham coming off upset is the highlight of the tour so far, it shows us cynical tyoes that the team does matter.

Feel sorry for the guy. I'd have him over VDM.

SPOILER FOR UNTAMED

Yes, that is the twist in Untamed.
You knew from the first episode.

All true.

Absolutely.
It's great that the gap has been closed.
And I have no problem with the Lions becoming obsolete, if that's what's happening.
I'm happy with the trade-off!

The poor games with the overhyped presentation deflates the whole thing.
Was special when the Southern Hemisphere teams were better than us, but not so interesting now that the game has levelled off somewhat.

This has been an uneventful #Lions tour, this game is more of the same.
All just feels like an ad for Lions merch.

The slight time delays between sound and vision is irritating.

He didn't release.
We all knew he didn't release.
God only knows why the ref didn't make that decision at the time.

Can we stop talking about penises and vaginas and get back to the poem? “Can we stop talking about penises and vaginas and get back to the poem?” We’ve all been there, we’ve all gotten distracted by the amoun...

Your morning read.
AI doesn't write, it merely gives a representation of writing, so why should we ask it to give feedback on students' writing?
thevideotrolley.blogspot.com/2025/07/can-...

Hansen is playing well.

Pollock should have given it to Ryan.

He actually wanted €30,000 for three days plus a chance to sell his hot sauce around Cork.

I once wrote a film that he was going to star in.
He was offered the part of "the baddie" but instead wanted to fly in, do a scene as a seanachai in a pub in Leap, stay for a bit, and fly out.
We wanted €10,000.
The film was, obviously, never made.
Only script I got paid for.

When I met Ryan Coogler several years ago, we were standing in a group of people chatting, when a woman with visible hearing aids walked up, and he casually began to sign the whole conversation so she could participate. She mouthed “thank you”. He nodded and just kept doing his thing.

Today's film is Through a Glass Darkly, Ingmar Bergman, 1961.

Joe McCarthy is having a great game.

Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools K-12 educators are under increasing pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (The term “AI” is used loosely here, just as it is by many purveyors and boosters.) Even those who envision benefits to schools of this fast-evolving category of tech should approach the well-funded AI-in-education campaign with skepticism and caution. Some of the primary arguments for teachers actively using AI tools and introducing students to AI as early as kindergarten, however, are questionable or fallacious. What follows are four of the most common arguments and rebuttals with links to sources. I have not attempted balance, in part because so much pro-AI messaging is out there and discussion of risks and costs is often minimized in favor of hope or resignation. -ALF Argument: “Schools need to prepare students for the jobs of the future.” ● The skills employers seek haven’t changed much over the decades—and include a lot of “soft skills” like initiative, problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking. ● Early research is showing that using generative AI can degrade these key skills: ○ An MIT study showed adults using chatGPT to help write an essay “had the lowest brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.’” Critically, “ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.” ○ A business school found those who used AI tools often had worse critical thinking skills “mediated by increased cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores.” ○ Another study revealed those using “ChatGPT engaged less in metacognitive activities...For instance, learners in the AI group frequently looped back to ChatGPT for feedback rather than reflecting independently. This dependency not only undermines critical thinking but also risks long-term skill stagnati…

Argument: “AI is a tool, just like a calculator.” ● Calculators don’t provide factually wrong answers, but AI tools have. Last year, Google’s AI search returned, among other falsehoods, that cats have gone to the moon, that Barack Obama is Muslim, and that glue goes on pizza. Even though AI tools have and are expected to improve, children in schools shouldn’t be used as tech firms’ guinea pigs for undertested, unregulated products while AI firms engage elected officials in actively resisting regulation. ● Calculators don’t provide dangerous, even deadly feedback. In one study, a ”chatbot recommended that a user, who said they were recovering from addiction, take a ‘small hit’ of methamphetamine” because, it said, it’s “‘what makes you able to do your job to the best of your ability.’" Users have received threatening messages from chatbots. ● Calculators don’t pose mental health risks because they aren’t potentially addictive or designed to encourage repeated use. They don’t flatter, direct, or manipulate. Chatbots have been designed this way—and this has led to dreadful mental health outcomes for some, including users in a New York Times report. Alleging a chatbot encouraged their teen to die by suicide, parents in Florida filed a lawsuit against its maker. ● Calculators don’t lie. Chatbots, however, have misled users. Writer Amanda Guinzburg shared screenshots of interactions with one that she asked to describe several of her essays. It spewed out invented material, showing the chatbot hadn’t actually accessed and processed the essays. After much prodding, it “admitted” it had only acted as though it had done that requested work, spit out mea culpas—and went on to invent or “lie” again. ● Calculators can’t be used to spread propaganda. AI tools, though, including those meant for schools, should worry us. Law professor Eric Muller’s back-and-forth with SchoolAI’s “Anne Frank” character showed his “helluva time trying to get her to say a bad word about Nazis.” In thi…

Argument: “AI won’t replace teachers, but it will save them time and improve their effectiveness.” ● Adding edtech does not necessarily save teachers time. A recent study found that learning management systems sold to schools over the past decade-plus as time-savers aren’t delivering on making teaching easier. Instead, they found this tech (e.g. Google Classroom, Canvas) is often burdensome and contributes to burnout. As one teacher put it, it “just adds layers to tasks.” ● “Extra time” is rarely returned to teachers. AI proponents argue that if teachers use AI tools to grade, prepare lessons, or differentiate materials, they’ll have more time to work with students. But there are always new initiatives, duties, or committee assignments—the unpaid work districts rely on—to suck up that time. In a culture of austerity and with a USDOE that is cutting spending, teachers are likely to be assigned more students. When class sizes grow, students get less attention, and positions can be cut. ● AI can’t replace what teachers do, but that doesn’t mean teachers won’t be replaced. Schools are already doing it: Arizona approved a charter school in which students spend mornings working with AI and the role of teacher is reduced to “guide.” Ed tech expert Neil Selwyn argues those in “industry and policy circles...hostile to the idea of expensively trained expert professional educators who have [tenure], pension rights and union protection... [welcome] AI replacement as a way of undermining the status of the professional teacher.” ● Tech firms have been selling schools on untested products for years. Technophilia has led to students being on screens for hours in school each week even when their phones are banned. Writer Jess Grose explains, “Companies never had to prove that devices or software, broadly speaking, helped students learn before those devices had wormed their way into America’s public schools.” AI products appear to be no different. ● Efficiency is not effectiveness. “…

Argument: “Students are already using AI, so we have to teach them ethical use. ● If schools want ethical students, teach ethics. More students are using AI tools to cheat, an age-old problem they make much easier. This won’t be addressed by showing students how to use this minute’s AI, an argument implying students don’t know what plagiarism is (solved by teaching about plagiarism) or understand academic integrity (solved by teaching and enforcing its bounds)—or that teachers create weak assignments or don’t convey purpose. The latter aren’t solved by attempting to redirect students motivated and able to cheat. ● Students can be educated on the ethics of AI without encouraging use of AI tools. They can be taught, as part of media literacy and social media safety programs, about AI’s potential and applications as well as how it can enable predation, perpetuate bias, and spread disinformation. They should be taught about the risks of AI and its various social, economic, and environmental costs. Giving a nod to these issues while integrating AI throughout schools sends a strong message: the schools don’t really care and neither should students. ● Children can’t be expected to use AI responsibly when adults aren’t. Many pushing schools to embrace AI don’t know much about it. One example: Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who said kindergartners should be taught A1 (a steak sauce). The LA Times introduced a biased and likely politically-motivated AI feature. The Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list including nonexistent books—yet teachers are told to use the same tools to do similar work. Educators using AI to cut corners can strike students as hypocritical. ● The many costs of AI call into question the possibility of ethical AI use. These include: ○ Energy - AI data centers need huge amounts of water as coolant as well as electricity, pulling these resources from their communities—which tend to be lower-income—straining the grid, and raising household cos…

I put together a 4-page doc for those wary of the rush to integrate in K-12 schools (though much applies beyond).

Four of the main arguments for teachers using AI tools & introducing kids to AI as early as kindergarten are addressed with rebuttals linked to sources.

The Department of Educarion and Youth would like to point out that AI is already being used by students to compete projects, and the Dept is perfectly happy with that.

What impact will the changes to Senior Cycle have? Plans to overhaul how Leaving Certificate students are assessed will be discussed by the leadership of the ASTI teachers' union at a two-day meeting in Killarney which begins this afternoon.

A clear outline of the current state of LC reform, with an acknowledgement that the CAO is the real issue.
www.rte.ie/news/educati...

He blew the whistle...

Tender for €9m school phone pouches plan is shelved in favour of 'storage solution' plan The previous tender was cancelled by the Department of Education following advice from the Chief State Solicitor’s Office.

Well, well, well...
www.thejournal.ie/department-o...

Junior Cycle English, Ten Years on Ten years in and how is the Junior Cycle English specification going? Simply put; not great. This year’s exam has highligh...

I wrote about where we are after 10 years of Junior Cycle English.
Spoiler: not in a great place.
I tried to keep it short but it still runs over a bit.
I could have written a few thousand words more...
thevideotrolley.blogspot.com/2025/06/juni...

"My texts did not present humans as paradoxical, but they were presented as contradictory..."

Paper 2 was more difficult than paper 1.
That always seems to be the way (one straight forward, the other more challenging)
The General Vision question was a bit of a kick in the balls, and the other Qs were challenging, but enough choice to compensate.