Paul Allison

“What we’re missing in most classes isn’t rules; it’s education about how AI can enhance our learning rather than replace it.” Let’s listen.

“Generative AI should not be banned outright, nor should it be embraced without thought. What we really need is guidance, resources, and practice in how to utilize it wisely.” This is the most sensible (from experience) nuanced treatment of AI that I have read. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Though it's a stretch for me to understand the metrics in this study, ever since I started reading, I keep returning to these ideas. Their "setup provides explicit estimates of uncertainty and benchmarks AI model by quantifying the synergy they provide to human interaction." doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Maybe AI Was Never a Tool Using artificial intelligence "responsibly" assumes it is just another tool—it isn't.

John Nosta unpacks the AI tool metaphor here: “This is the quiet revolution we’re living through. This is technology moving from external utility to internal participation.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-... #eduskyAI

Even if you can't read ahead of time:
Join us on TTT: Let's read and annotate "From Monsters to Mazes" together on Wednesday evening, October 1st at 8E/7C/6M/5P in Kumospace.com/youthvoices
#eduskyAI
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Two Ways to join the conversation:
Anytime, anywhere: Read and annotate the paper with us here: From Monsters to Mazes: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of AI Between Frankenstein and Kafka writingpartners.net/documents/85...
#eduskyAI
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I want to invite you to a conversation about AI through the lens of fiction. Gideon Dishon, the author of "From Monsters to Mazes" writingpartners.net/documents/85... in the abstract: "...fictional texts, can shape our shared imagination of possible and probable futures." #eduskyAI
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We are reading and annotating together.
We would love to see your marginalia on
From Monsters to Mazes: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of AI Between Frankenstein and Kafka
writingpartners.net/documents/85...
before we meet on Wednesday evening, October 1, at 8E/7C/6M/5P in Kumospace.com/youthvoices.

Why social annotation:“Intelligence—whether human or artificial—is inherently interactive, contextual, and collaborative. Sophisticated thinking rarely occurs in isolation; it emerges instead through dialogue, feedback, refinement, and the integration of diverse perspectives.” osf.io/preprints/ps...

YouTube video by Paul Allison TTT 09.24.2025 How many educators does it take to create an AI assistant?

“What we really need are nuanced approaches that center human agency and experience about how new technologies complicate and alter our habits and skills.” Three cheers for nuance! youtu.be/Fgxf_EJnYEU?...

Human Agency in the Age of AI When AI stands at the ready to do our work—and our thinking—for us, human agency is what keeps us drivers, not passengers, of the mind.

“AI can… be the ultimate training partner, a sparring partner for the mind that forces us to level up. The essential challenge is to keep agency at the center of the interaction and to make sure we are directing the conversation rather than outsourcing it.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

We invite you to meet Dr. Rachel Horst www.rachelhorst.ca with us on Wed. evening, September 17 at 8E/7C/6M/5P. We'll be meeting in Kumospace.com/youthvoices. www.kumospace.com/youthvoices?...
Join us to engage in a collaborative inquiry that seeks to move beyond binary thinking about AI.
#eduskyAI

YouTube video by Paul Allison TTT 09.10.2025 We explore the use of AI in aiding students with writing college admissions essays

In this conversation Chris Sloan shares insights on how students in his AP English classes interact with AI-generated feedback, emphasizing the importance of students maintaining agency over their writing. youtu.be/JT9wH-Z5ChY #eduskyAI

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I don’t think our values are so different. I think we are finding ways to use AI that are consistent with the values you are clear about in your writing. The AI can be used to amplify those values about the power of meaningful communication in real world interactions.

Great. Please listen to the students. That is how we are learning the power of AI to enhance their learning.

What do you mean here? Are you saying that the human feedback from peers and students is somehow a simulation because it is in a classroom?

There are no rubrics involved with this feedback. Do you want to learn more about how we design them?

Have you talked with students who deeply care about their writing about how they experience using AI assistants alongside peer feedback & teacher response to spark their creativity, write for real audiences, and deepen their criticality? I have, and I see their passion for writing like never before.

Matt, can you please explain?

I wonder if you read the comments. I would love to talk with you more about what students are learning. I’m not sure how to share what many of us are seeing when the conversation ends up with people only seeing what supports their positions on AI. I will describe the joy students experience!

I am not sure what “kind of feedback” you see here. Could you please be more precise about which parts of one of these examples you might object to. What do you see as facile surface level? I would appreciate more explanation.

Every day we see young writers using AI Writing Partners to spark or challenge themselves to their next creative moves. The teachers involved in this project have carefully designed these AI assistants with an amalgam of composition theory and our own experience. Three examples from this afternoon:

One possible set of referents here: Training wheels feel like the red lines under my text when I write with Grammarly (and such) on, constantly hectoring me to reconsider. If that's the AI that is being resisted, I'm with you. But what if AI is a balance bike, a partner that guides my playful joy!

As I was trying to understand the referents to the training wheels metaphor, it struck me that this is a pretty anachronistic comparison. Parents have moved on from training wheels woom.com/en_US/why-tr.... Balance bikes seem to be the way to learn how to ride. www.globenewswire.com/news-release...

Demanding that we take a side:

“Importantly, critical washing — encouraging AI use while being ‘aware of the risks’ — must be avoided: [R]eflecting on the harms of AI is not itself harm reduction. It may even contribute to rationalizing, normalizing, and enabling harm.”
zenodo.org/records/1706...

Okay, can one read with and against this?

philarchive.org/archive/GUEATU

Here’s another angle to consider: Will limiting access to “virtual interactions” while in school lead youth who are more prone to loneliness to “exert faster decisions to seek rewards”—behaviors that may bring more alcohol and drug use and sexual activity? www.nature.com/articles/s44...

#eduskyAI

More AI metaphors
“AI can extend our perception, but it must never become our compass. A lens clarifies what we see. A compass tells us where to go. The first enhances thought. The second replaces it, and true north may be a curiously human-centric direction.”
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Just getting up to speed with Dr. Rachel Horst: open.spotify.com/episode/48ym...

www.linkedin.com/posts/rachel...