your legacy lives on at UOW @drdrehistorian.bsky.social

caught up with a PhD friend last night to chat about what we're working on and we talked for two hours. It's so nice to feel like a historian again

when gerry brownlee lost ilam in 2020 I thought that would be the best election moment of my life. thanks to the good voters of Dickson QLD for proving me wrong 🙏

if anyone has some 🔥🔥🔥 memes about thesis writing please drop them here, I'm on a mission to make some honours students chuckle

Disappointed to have resigned my NTEU membership this morning. I don't know if it's just at UOW or statewide that the NTEU only represents academic staff in practice, but the complete silence and apathy from the union in the face of this devastating professional staff restructure is very telling.

filed under a seemingly endless list of "stuff i never saved from UC IT accounts because I figured if I ever needed it again I could email Chris and it would be a good excuse for a yarn": course outlines for every course I tutored on

first discussion post topic for my grad cert is a "memorable learning experience" either positive or negative. fondly remembering the time a classmate told our lecturer very late in the semester that he wasn't leaving the room until he'd given us a question for the final essay

previous post deleted because some rando reposted it and i would like to know: who raised you

as one of the cited learning advisors, can confirm these tips are wonderful and really appreciate Lucy's generosity in sharing!

After months of chipping away at student guidelines for Gen AI use I've worked out what I think is an effective framing: risks of GenAI which relate to the user (academic misconduct, hallucinations, cognitive offloading) and the costs, which relate to the social and environmental impacts

EXTENDED CFP! We've had a great deal of interest in our conference at University of Melbourne in December, and seen lots of panel and paper proposals come through, but we want more! Ignore the deadline on website, we'll accept submissions up to 28 Feb. conference.anzamems....

absolutely delightful scene to stumble across on my lunch break

just had a lovely meeting with a team from the library about an upcoming shared workshop on research skills for Honours students and its just really nice to work with other people who are passionate about this cohort

switched to Duck Duck Go for my mobile browser to avoid AI slop and look what they've done 🫠🫠🫠

Want to do a fully funded PhD on medieval English historiography? Well do I have an opportunity for you! See the attached ad and get in touch ASAP if you're interested (and please share widely).

There is something nefarious about how hard and fast people are pushing AI in education. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn’t bode well when corporations, not student need, set the pace with which we adopt new technologies.

went to our local community pool this arvo. it is open 6am-7pm daily from September to April and it is completely free

sometimes I see student-facing guidance on using AI that make me question if the higher education sector has given up on research integrity entirely

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Historian: Obviously, this has to be attributed to the loss of sources.

yeah sorry Curtin but travelling interstate for a toga party is not high on my list of priorities

was reminded today that in undergrad, I was the only student to enrol in second semester Greek at 300-level and so I had an hour a week of one-on-one classes

The millennial experience is growing up with the internet, and watching it go from a free, open, democratic, and eclectic ecosystem to a wasteland of five websites controlled by billionaires, and now seeing it quickly fill up with AI-generated slop. I want our World Wide Web back.

communication technology peaked with MSN messenger and it was all downhill from there

feels like a rite of passage of living in Australia to experience the biggest thunderstorm of my life, in the dark bc the lightning took out the power, next to a shaky and drooly dog

“But I am wholly convinced that if a technology undermines my students’ humanity, that technology isn’t ethical to use, for any reason. And I believe generative AI undermines my students’ humanity.“ #EduSky

i would not wish the pain of losing a beloved supervisor on anyone but it's such a specific and isolating form of grief that the way it manifests makes me feel straight up insane

I've been reading Webworm for a few years but wasn't in a financial position to support it until last year. David's journalism is insightful, always interesting, and speaks truth to power - would recommend

went for a swim in the ocean pool at north Wollongong and its the closest I've come in six months to believing there's a pathway out of depression

been in touch with the owners of one of Artemis's littermates and this afternoon they came down for a visit ❤️❤️

made trifle this morning which meant breakfast was leftover sponge, jam and custard. the feasting Begins

ohhh this is a GOOD framing of academic integrity

picked a really lovely task to do for the final full work day of the year: reading Honours theses in different disciplines to prep for our pilot Academic Skills for Honours Students programme next year

a long read but an absolutely worthwhile one

A lot of good points in this article, concluding with what to me is at the heart of every crisis in the sector: the refusal to recognise that teaching and learning is communal, relational, and necessarily human www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"I no longer want to reduce the study of “the mystery of the mind and heart” to a list of utilitarian co-benefits, because to do so is to help construct the university as a place inimical to love." Beautiful essay in The Spinoff about the value of humanities: thespinoff.co.nz/books/14-12-...

Artemis was very happy to receive the post this afternoon 💕 especially since the postie always gives her treats

very telling response from our interim VC about the two no confidence votes received by the newly appointed VC in his current role and whether this was taken into account: "All VCs receive no confidence votes. I've had no confidence votes!"

EXACTLY...because writing is thinking. If you outsource the former you're outsourcing the latter.

This is what's so baffling about so many suggestions for AI in the humanities classroom: they mistake the product for the point. Writing outlines and essays is important not because you need to make outlines and essays but because that's how you learn to think with/through complex ideas.

i have an 'aspirational' version of my academic CV where I put, in red font, all the things I've started but haven't finished, and I can't decide if it's an effective motivational tool or a form of masochism

I’m not sure how a university can convince anyone it’s seriously committed to environmental sustainability while simultaneously trying to insert generative AI into everything.

reached that point in December where instead of eating "real food" during the day I just graze on a workplace-provided assortment of sweet treats and feel predictably terrible as a result

What is the carbon cost of using an AI bot? The companies stopped disclosing it in 2022. In the latest installment in our series on the climate costs of AI, we estimate a year of ChatGPT use may emit the same amount of CO2 as driving 2 million miles. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yekA...

latest tattoo - roses in the style of the ones on the Canterbury Roll

back in Ōtautahi for a brief visit 💕

In the past day I’ve heard two people who really should know better say they asked ChatGPT for factual info. ChatGPT is not a search engine. It is predictive text based on other people’s stolen writing; its whole job is to make stuff up. Please do not ask it for facts. Tell a friend.

working from home alone is truly a double edged sword because on the one hand, I have 700 words of an article on academic literacy in the age of AI but on the other, I baked 8 white chocolate and macadamia cookies and I'm going to eat them all this afternoon

love this piece!