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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 15

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

It also kills me seeing students use genAI for personal things like narrative essays and evaluations. The machine doesn't know you. It probably shouldn't know you either, and not in the least because your data is almost certainly being collected by these corporations.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

GenAI doesn't understand that, and students don't understand that genAI doesn't understand that. The rapidly accelerating inclusion of genAI in higher ed hurts both students and teachers so, so much within and outside of classrooms. It's stressful and terrifying how readily people have accepted it.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

True learning, which genAI is (at least currently) incapable of, involves applying examples and clarifying key points beyond mere definitions. That part of the learning process strengthens writing, sure, but it's also where writing transfers into real life experience.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

Anyway, it kills me seeing students using genAI for things from their perspectives, like narratives and evaluations. The machine doesn't know you. If it did, that would be even more terrifying.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

It was something I had seen via tutoring long before genAI entered the academic mainstream. It's worse now. GenAI has merely given students yet another avenue through which to forego joy and curiosity and wonderment, and genAI does so with the most lifeless, empty rhetoric it can.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

Something we lose in language arts/reading/English classes by stressing things like grammar, standardized testing, AP exams, etc. is the joy and curiosity and wonderment of trying new ideas and experimenting with style and thought because failure is punished instead of treated as a stepping stone.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Sep 14

You're going to do great!

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 19

Relevant also to conversations around servicing the AI industry/workplaces turning toward AI by teaching toward "AI literacy" in humanities classrooms.

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 18

My job as a professor is not to create a serviceable worker. My job is to help foster thoughtful citizens or community members.

If that sounds fanciful it’s bc corporate interests have spent decades framing how we talk about education so they don’t take the heat for immiserating labor conditions.

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Aug 18

Do not accept the premise that education is to blame for abysmal jobs outcomes.

“The fantasy economy's framing of economic inequality… focuses exclusively on education…deflects attention away from decades of public policies and changing business practices that have…contributed to stagnating wages”

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 15

Once again screaming about AI, but now focusing on the environmental impacts. Specifically, who is most hurt by such impacts? And who suffers the most in the academic structures that are set up now? And who stands to benefit the most in either situation? These things aren't coincidences.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 14

Can't wait for someone to accuse me of being divisive by using an historical document to teach concepts of rhetoric in my composition courses...

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Reposted by Sam

Liz Renner @lrrenner.bsky.social · Aug 12

This is maybe the worst part about being an educator in the AI era.

AI companies are *stealing your time* by making you work around it/find it/adjudicate it. Time that, 4 years ago, you would have used to improve your materials, or stay up-to-date on some area of research.

Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · Aug 12

“Educators now spend a significant amount of their time detecting AI-generated work and seeking ways to assess whether students are developing essential skills.”

Yes. Everywhere.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 8

One of the most exciting things about college teaching is that I can a) continue unlearning so many unhealthy biases and habits around education and grading and b) practice that in the classroom with my students!

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 3

Anyway, I know a lot of people who are much more experienced than me in the world of academia will disagree. That's fine. The use of AI in these instances is debatable. What's *NOT* debatable, however, is that generative AI is destroying the environment and stealing the work of others.

Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 3

[...] its use encourages people who *aren't* trained/learned to use it irresponsibly. It encourages people to cut corners and avoid the "hard" work of planning a project, reading sources and organizing data, and so on. But these steps are still part of the process (regardless of discipline).

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Aug 3

The rise in attitudes like "Let's show students how to use AI since it's here to stay" is moderately concerning for academia and severely concerning for society at large. Discouraging students'/learners' willingness to experiment, fail, and develop critical thinking is disastrous in all disciplines.

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jul 9

Call me an extremist, but I think using AI for "simple" things like correcting grammar is still a terrible use of AI in a learning context (i.e. for a composition class) because it still removes learning opportunities. (And also grammar is not black and white.)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 26

Gen AI corporations that steal and rip off published works to train their AI are winning lawsuits brought by these works' authors. We should be terrified of the impacts these acts are having on creative publications and the continued growth of AI. It doesn't stop there.

Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 23

I am begging teachers to stop using/allowing/encouraging generative AI in courses (especially lower level) where students are still developing their own HUMAN critical thinking skills and applying their own HUMAN touch to work that is meant to be HUMAN. (Plus, Gen AI is not good at this stuff.)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 20

I lost my beloved furbaby on June 20, 2020. It has been difficult navigating the world without her, but every year, I choose to celebrate the joy she brought me--and still brings me. Here's to another year amid the stars. 💜

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 11

The article does go on to add in the second paragraph that an officer did this (active voice), but it's not the first thing you see. That matters. There is a time and place for passive voice--active voice is not the only "correct" way to write (compose). It's important to discuss context! (5/5)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 11

Anyway, for those of you teaching writing in some capacity, consider this AP article! (apnews.com/article/immi...) How does passive voice change the meaning, intention, tone of a sentence/paragraph? In this case, whether the author did it on purpose or not, it changes the situation's reality. (4/5)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 11

Even when things are captured ON VIDEO or there's DOCUMENTED WRITTEN EVIDENCE of events, news outlets tend to go for the passive voice and dance around the issue. It was a problem even before this administration, but it has certainly gotten worse. And that does a disservice to everyone. (3/5)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 11

"But reporters are supposed to be unbiased!" First of all, a bullshit take. Second of all, actively diminishing the reality of what happened is not unbiased. What would be unbiased? Stating clearly what happened: a police officer willingly and knowingly shot a news reporter. It was on video. (2/5)

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Sam @searchingforsam.bsky.social · Jun 11

The Associated Press using the passive voice to cover an American police officer shooting an Australian reporter (with a rubber bullet) and diminishing the reality of what happened is a perfect example of how not to report things that are happening. (1/5)

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