Reviewing proposals for a conference, and you can really spot a lot of the software-generated text because it just goes on and on and barely says anything. I'm so frustrated having to deal with this from grown adults. Why do they deserve my time/feedback when they didn't even write it?

Giving up on writing and having software generate text instead doesn't seem like a great solution to the problem of writer's block. You may as well just say, "Don't write."

Reminds me of Grace Hopper on parallels between automobiles and computers: "When we built [automobile infrastructure]...we forgot transportation as a whole. We've done a lousy job of managing transportation as a whole."

Student: "Do we have to do the challenge problems?" Me: "No, but you might feel left out, because a lot of people are doing them." Student: "That's okay, I have JOMO." Me: ... "Joy of missing out?" Student: *grins* #EduSky

This is the first time I've ever had a real line at a polling place! I didn't realize it'd be so busy on an off year.

Quantum is the new AI...

How messed up does a school have to be for IXL to cancel its contract? At what point does an ed tech company look at what you're doing to kids and say "Yikes, I'm out"? The liability concerns must be off the charts. www.wired.com/story/ai-tea...

So many horrific things in here. The one that stands out the most is the little girl who'd been losing weight from stress and reported being told by adults at school that she couldn't have her snack until she'd meet her learning metrics. Heartbreaking.

These powerful people want this to become the model not just for private schools but for public schools. The push toward AI in K-12 has to be understood as the desire to dehumanize education in every sense of the word and to turn children into grunts ready to sacrifice themselves in the workplace.

Just saw that @csteachersorg.bsky.social has changed their presenter guidelines such that representatives from companies or non-profits aren't eligible for the normal submission process and must pay-to-play. I've got mixed feelings about this. (1/2) #CSed #TeamCompSci #EdTech

Vibe vacationing.

Tomorrow is the deadline to register to vote in the California November election.   Register or confirm your voter registration today:

Impacts of technology on cognition in general, with some nice analysis of #EdTech "It’s only software developers and drug dealers who call people users."

Got kindly warned by a colleague today that my position on computing technologies being 'cultural artifacts that reflect and reinforce cultural values' was dangerously left, and I should be careful. At least that's the most 'left' thing I've said at faculty meetings. It's standards-based... #CSed

The fact that it’s billionaires telling educators and students this is a tool that empowers and democratizes should be more than enough to make you skeptical. Young people already have tools they need support developing and using—their minds, bodies, and voices.

I'm so befuddled by people who do this to summarize academic papers. There's an abstract right there at the beginning.

Why are the people who are doing this even teachers? If you don't think it's worthwhile to engage with student work, why choose this profession?

A student today: "Are we going to learn how to do that thing where the computer makes code and then you fix it? I think it's...vibe?" #CSed #AIinEdu

so what will it look like when the industry implodes and researchers cannot help but conclude that this stuff is junk; but simultaneously, states are still keenly paying for it, subsidizing and underwriting it, and even changing laws and regulations to make space for it?

In related news, I'm developing a course on the impacts of smoking. I'm concerned about the health impacts, and I want to teach students how to smoke responsibly, in a way that supports better respiratory health.

Had my students choose a recent news article on a data center and list the positive and negative impacts on the local community. Student: "sediment in the water, running out of water, expensive water..." Me: "What about the positive impacts?" Student: "Um... none, really?"

I still think the best thing about "Stargate" is that it's named after a movie in which the government was so excited to leverage some newly discovered tech, and then it just led them to an environmentally devastated world in which humans were enslaved and literacy was outlawed. So fitting.

To fight a monster, you have to fund a monster...

young people today will never know what it was like when computers just… did what you told them to do. never randomly changed shit without permission. never locked you out of your game console for updates. fuckin sucks.

What popped out at me was that the role of the adults in the room is to enforce compliance, using a token economy. Where is the love of learning? If kids are having so much fun learning, why does the school need to "pay" them to do it? This approach actively harms motivation to learn. #EduSky

Now *this* is how to do reporting on the latest for-profit edtech-AI snake oil outfit to promise hyperaccelerated learning through fully surveillant clasrooms and teacherless schooling all the way to big investor injections of capital and raids on families' incomes sfstandard.com/2025/09/19/a...

Love this. It's our responsibility as educators to support and nurture this basic desire in our kids, and protect them from influences that would try to extinguish it. Kids deserve the freedom to be creative and curious. #Edusky

One of my students was excited about drawing a character for a video game that he's developing. When he opened up the app to do it, front and center was a text box for prompting a software generated image. It took several clicks before he was able to draw it for himself. Why discourage creativity?

This makes me think that all those people saying "use AI as a thought partner" probably actually hate real collaboration.

So many of the half-baked AI implementations are happening in professional arenas that have been hollowed out by extraction and divestment. No journalist needs a writing aid unless they’re being paid too little to write too much, no teacher needs a commenting tool unless they’re overextended.

A good segment segment of the "doing it right" camp has no inkling of what it might feel like to listen to "civil discourse" that questions your full humanity, or even your right to exist.

This reminds me of the tobacco companies pushing the narrative that smoking cigarettes was a way for women to flout gender norms as a form of feminism/women's lib.

How about a well-resourced education system?

New today in The Important Work: high school teacher Clayton Kistner draws inspiration from @bcmerchant.bsky.social's Blood in the Machine and argues that in the classroom, there is no middle ground when it comes to AI. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/i-am-a-pro...

chatgpt is much like an improv comedy group 1) you are the audience, giving it prompts 2) it produces things roughly shaped like your prompt 3) it is trained to respond with Yes, And 4) it has the factual accuracy of improv 5) it does not understand comedy

AI-in-education boosters: "Stop focusing on the cheating problem, with proper guardrails we can use AI to enhance learning." Google: "F** that! Kids, just scan your problem and we'll provide the answer!" This popped up when I was investigating a concept related to quadratic equations, btw.

Why are all these educators being tricked into thinking that they have to look to technologists to see the future? It's right there, in your classroom! You're literally shaping the future, every day. #EduSky

This is why I have a deep suspicion of the "AI literacy" workshops being floated to profs by schools mainlining AI. Ed tech has co-opted "AI literacy" to mean "learn how to use our products" rather than "learn how AI works."

"Parents could use genetic data to decide which school would suit them best." Imagine being so adverse to getting to know your children that you turn to a genetics test to do it for you.

Given how popular Comic San is with teachers, I'm kind of feeling obliged to use this one in my CS class. #CSEd #TeamCompSci

I've been working for many months on this article on Silicon Valley's under-the-radar role in bringing AI into schools across the US. I really hope you'll read it — here's a gift link — but I'll tell you some of the highlights in this thread. (1/x)

Joseph Weizenbaum said “The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it. But in fact there are actors”

This ed tech product frequently teaches you things that are wrong, but don't worry. It's not a bug; it's a feature!

Happy Labor Day! And thank you, organized labor, for this long weekend, and for every weekend.

I bet $160,000 - $255,000 that they hire a PM from a tech company for this.

I do not want to be an "efficient" teacher. I want to be a teacher who is given enough time to do her job properly, a teacher who can provide students with the time and interpersonal connection they need to develop as humans.

Can "AI" replace teachers? AFT sure seems to think so. Imagine how "simple" your work will be when your union implicitly approves of a robot doing your job. #EduSky

One of my students identified 'community' as a value relating to CS, saying that there's a wide variety of people who do CS and they form a small community that's spanned over time and I just 😍. #CSed #TeamCompSci

How are we going to rebuild this country?