David Buck

Yup—that about sums it up. What’s more sad to admit is that the original creators of Canvas possessed an honest approach to pedagogy and learning (IMHO), but this original intent has definitely been corrupted by profit & money-driven ownership. Though imperfect, the originating vision is long gone.

My community college was one of the 1st institutions to adopt Canvas in 2012. We were very early adopters. It was pitched as a pedagogical-focused system designed to “get out of the way” of an instructor’s teaching approach. Never imagined that it now is set up to REPLACE that instructor!

Since the SAT essay became optional + scored by AI, I can't begin to tell you the number of people who have asked me why they should still teach writing, as if the only reason for kids to write is to score well on a standardized test.

Also, this reveals how much College Board impacts practice.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Today's complaint about the AI in education discourse: Too much of it is framed around a future that is going to happen to us, as opposed to seeing the future as something we may have some agency to shape. I reject the deterministic view of AI, particularly genAI. It's a tool, not our master.

The ungrading book club (organized by the indefatiguable @dbuckedu.bsky.social) is reading @biblioracle.bsky.social's fantastic book, More than Words, about exactly why we should be helping students understand the value of critical thinking and other challenging cognitive work.

Screencap from linked article, with text: "Emily M Bender, professor of linguistics at the University of Washington and co-author of a new book, The AI Con, has many reasons why she doesn’t want to use large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT. “But maybe the first one is that I’m not interested in reading something that nobody wrote,” she says. “I read because I want to understand how somebody sees something, and there’s no ‘somebody’ inside the synthetic text-extruding machines.” It’s just a collage made from lots of different people’s words, she says. Does she feel she is being “left behind”, as AI enthusiasts would say? “No, not at all. My reaction to that is, ‘Where’s everybody going?’” She laughs as if to say: nowhere good."

I appreciate this piece, but I want to correct the record on one point. I don't talk about LLMs as making "collages" but rather as making papier-mâché, and the difference matters!

>>

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

Image of a brain merged with a computer chip. Under the image are the words: More Than Words Virtual Book Club

Had a great session of the #MoreThanWords virtual book club yesterday!

A wonderful group of caring, compassionate educators hoping to guide their students through the ubiquitous sludge of GenAI.

We focused on writing as thinking, a uniquely human endeavor rather than a transactional experience.

It also helps counter the arguments related to efficiency where AI can supposedly free up teachers’ time to focus on “more essential” stuff. But the human activity being replaced by AI is exactly the essential stuff of learning! The friction of placing words on the page/screen IS the learning.

Right! @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social have done an amazing job of critically deconstructing the hype surrounding AI in very accessible ways. Their book has encouraged me to continue my #AIResistance for the sake of my students’ humanity! It supports my ethos to “do no harm,” too!

This is so ironic to me as a teacher of 1st-year writing where I encourage Ss to develop their writing voices, to make meaning w/ language, to communicate w/ other human beings. When they co-opt this freedom to a GenAI tool, we’re just using synthetic language devoid of any human intention.

Though the most basic and fundamental use of language is in face-to-face communication, once we have acquired a linguistic system, we can use it to understand linguistic artitacts even in the absence of co-situatedness, at a distance of space and even time. But we still apply the same techniques of imagining the mind behind the text, constructing a model of common ground with the author, and seeking to guess what the author might have been using the words to get their audience to understand. Language models, problematically, have no subjectivity with which to perform intersubjectivity. Despite the frequent claims of Al researchers, these models do not learn "just like children do." Simply modeling the distribution of words in text provides no access to meaning, nothing from which to deduce communicative intent. Language models thus represent nothing more than exttensive information about what sets of words are similar and what words are likely to appear in what contexts. While this isn't meaning or understanding, it is enough to produce plausible synthetic text, on just about any topic imaginable, which turns out to be quite dangerous: we encounter text that looks just like something a person might have said and reflexively interpret it, through our usual process of imagining a mind behind the text. But there is no mind there, and we need to be conscientious to let go of that imaginary mind we have constructed.

An idea from The AI Con that has really helped me answer the Q: Why do some surrender voice, agency, & trust to a GenAI tool? — the human tendency when processing language to engage w/ “the mind behind the text.” When there’s no human behind the probability/plagiarism machine, we tend to invent one!

If you’re interested, we’re doing a free virtual book club for #MoreThanWords by @biblioracle.bsky.social. Discussing writing in the age of AI. #AIResistance ⬇️

bsky.app/profile/dbuc...

Yes! I have a clear #AIResistance policy in my college comp courses. It can be done. But it takes a repurposed focus on the writing process rather than the graded product. Plus, Ss appreciate the WHY of my anti-AI stance, especially when they learn abt the environmental & labor exploitation.

This “capitulation to inevitability” is certainly real, especially when FOMO and the press for innovative “AI literacy” is constantly in teachers’ faces.

Been enjoying The AI Con by Bender & Hanna. The hype around AI serves those in power, not Ss & teachers. The VCs need a return on investment!

In my work with teachers, two beliefs about AI are becoming "common sense:"

1. AI is inevitable, resistance is futile.
2. Not including AI in a teaching + learning will hold students back in terms of career + college.

Building permission structures for #AIResistance is urgent + critical.

The Practice of Ungrading Ungrading inspects the inequities of schooling, asks hard questions of the structures of our schools, and offers a critique of the labor conditions for teachers at all levels of education.

"The work of ungrading is to push back on the culture of grades and quantitative assessment that reinforces hierarchies between students and teachers, while reducing both to a set of crude (often inscrutable) data points." www.jessestommel.com/the-practice...

More Than Words Virtual Book Club Welcome to the More Than Words virtual book club! We'll be reading & discussing John Warner's new book—More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. We'll meet on Zoom about twice a...

We are 2️⃣ weeks away from the first session of the #MoreThanWords virtual book club on June 3rd (5-6 p.m. EST)!

Join 7️⃣3️⃣ folks exploring how to center authentic writing/thinking in the age of AI.

Author @biblioracle.bsky.social will be joining us!

Register for FREE: forms.gle/AMUKNQc5egaf...

"Grades thwart basic psychological needs of students and academic motivation, while narrative evaluations and actionable feedback promote trust between instructors and students and cooperation amongst students." ⎯Chamberlin, et al., “The impact of grades on student motivation”

2011. I use this quote in a presentation called: "How Compassionate Is Our Assessment . . .or Can We Really Motivate Our Students?"

I pair it with the following quote about grades as part of oppressive systems . . .

"[No] single theory seems to adequately explain all human motivation. The fact is that human beings in general and students in particular are complex creatures with complex needs and desires." ⎯Williams & Williams, Research in Higher Education Journal

“It’s here to stay” = The capitulation to inevitability in which so many in higher ed are caught up.

I know this seems grim, but I'm here to testify that it is not hopeless, that most faculty do not feel this way and mostly just want a little help to navigate these things. I've delivered a couple dozen talks and sessions over the last 6 months & the energy to make necessary change is real.

More Than Words Virtual Book Club Welcome to the More Than Words virtual book club! We'll be reading & discussing John Warner's new book—More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. We'll meet on Zoom about twice a...

Would you like to join 6️⃣8️⃣ thoughtful people in a relaxing summer reading group?

Feel free to register for the #MoreThanWords virtual book club starting Tuesday, 6/5 from 5-6 p.m. (EST).

@biblioracle.bsky.social
(the author) plans to attend each session!

Register HERE: tinyurl.com/cfndnhf2

Bear all of this in mind when someone starts parroting in your direction all the utopian and progressive-buzzword-laden talk about AI’s potentials. I’m looking at you, fellow academics.

AI Slop Education There's a tendency to write about technological change as an "all of a sudden" occurrence – even if you try to offer some background, some precursors, some concurrent events, or a longer, broader pers...

Love yourself, love the world enough to think and learn 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/ai-slop-educ...

😁

Administrators are often the most guilty of committing a capitulation to inevitably, especially if neighboring districts are “ahead” in the AI educational arms race.

BTW, I use the AI imagery labeler bsky.app/profile/aimo... to identify AI in a user’s avatar or banner, and your profile came up clean with no identifying AI. Pretty interesting!

Right back atcha! Very cool—the likeness is just enough to be different.