michaeltbacon - Network

The Gourds covering a classic Doc Watson tune. The jangly mando on this always gets me.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR_GfUTBSBk

The Gourds covering a classic Doc Watson tune. The jangly mando on this always gets me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR_GfUTBSBk

I'm really kind of bummed about Hiveworks Comics shutting down its printing, and by extension, what seems to be an exodus of web comics...

I'm really kind of bummed about Hiveworks Comics shutting down its printing, and by extension, what seems to be an exodus of web comics from the site. I get the business reasons for both the shutdown and the exodus, but it's been a great place to go find new and interesting web comics. I found some of my absolute favorites just because they were on Hiveworks.

The world is not good but I have a pot of beans cooking so that's good.

The world is not good but I have a pot of beans cooking so that's good.

I feel like there's a scientific explanation for "academic brain" hiding in here somewhere.Like in plain...

I feel like there's a scientific explanation for "academic brain" hiding in here somewhere.

Like in plain sight.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/may/14/52-hour-week-work-brain

A few profile changes for plausible deniability reasons. NBD.

A few profile changes for plausible deniability reasons. NBD.

Saying that the current atmospheric river hitting the SE US is kinda weird isn't news, but I can say that sitting on the screen porch on...

Saying that the current atmospheric river hitting the SE US is kinda weird isn't news, but I can say that sitting on the screen porch on the east side of our house, with a nearly 12 inch overhang, and still getting spattered with rain is not a normal thing around here.

Aside from tropical storms, we don't get a lot of precipitation that moves into the area from the southeast.

That REI vote should be a rebuke to getting too cynical about co-ops. Yes, C-suites can try to compromise them. But even a co-op like REI...

That REI vote should be a rebuke to getting too cynical about co-ops. Yes, C-suites can try to compromise them. But even a co-op like REI where member power has been sharply curtailed, it's possible to make a strong statement and interrupt normal business.

Personal coda: And FFS hire me to to teach your students technology and pay me something that's at least in shouting distance of what I...

Personal coda: And FFS hire me to to teach your students technology and pay me something that's at least in shouting distance of what I can make as a tech worker. I'll teach your students. I'll deal with ChatGPT. Quit asking me to "publish or perish" or to accept poverty wages to do so.

Seriously. Hire me, I'm actually really good at this. I'm better at this than I am at anything else, but I do expect to be paid for my expertise.

tl;dr: You want to fix the issues with LLMs in education, actually put value on what your instructors do. Prioritize pedagogy over...

tl;dr: You want to fix the issues with LLMs in education, actually put value on what your instructors do. Prioritize pedagogy over credential printing and prestige competitions. Give instructors the freedom and the support to do a wider range of pedagogical models that can respond to this.

All of which we should have been doing in the first place!

So yeah, LLMs have (even further) broken the current model of the academy. And yes, LLMs suck. But no, this didn't start with LLMs....

So yeah, LLMs have (even further) broken the current model of the academy. And yes, LLMs suck. But no, this didn't start with LLMs. They're just making an already bad situation worse.

The rampant use of gig-ification and tech-ification (ugh) to extract value from higher education while driving the costs of the intellectual...

The rampant use of gig-ification and tech-ification (ugh) to extract value from higher education while driving the costs of the intellectual labor lower and lower are what's REALLY biting here. The academy is throwing overworked, underpaid laborers as instructors at students. Is it any wonder students are throwing automated replies back at the canned prompts?

But yes, there is a very serious problem going on here, and it's not that specific to LLMs.Good teachers with time to teach well can...

But yes, there is a very serious problem going on here, and it's not that specific to LLMs.

Good teachers with time to teach well can easily surmount these issues with tech.

Wait, what? Don't we have those?

No we don't. We have adjuncts, overworked grad students, and research professors teaching out of obligation rather than intent.

Ah ha!

(The answer here is of course, "maybe!" I'm not going to reduce the functionality of education to employment, or even to...

(The answer here is of course, "maybe!" I'm not going to reduce the functionality of education to employment, or even to enjoyment. But if that's something you want to teach your students to do, you should at least have an argument ready for *why* they should bother doing that rather than getting an LLM to fulfill the course requirement. That can go a long way!)

So there's restricting access to technology when doing examinations, whether written or oral. That's one response. It can...

So there's restricting access to technology when doing examinations, whether written or oral. That's one response. It can work.

Another is to think about why it's important for students to be able to write an essay on Jane Austen in the first place.

Teaching writing is important. But how important? And why? What kind of writing? Is there going to be any reason—professional or personal—why extracting three themes from P&P in essay form will be something they ever want to know how to do?

There's a lot of ways to respond to this. None of them are terribly easy. But none of this has ever been easy.I nearly failed my first...

There's a lot of ways to respond to this. None of them are terribly easy. But none of this has ever been easy.

I nearly failed my first linear algebra exam, because I'd been doing all the homework using Mathematica, and even though I knew how to invert a matrix by hand, I was too unpracticed at it to do it quickly. So I blew all the time I had stumbling through it.

That was a good exam. It showed me limits of the automated tool.

Those are possible.

Concerns about cheating meant that I had to write out my 7th grade major paper (it was TEN PAGES!!!) by hand, when my handwriting was...

Concerns about cheating meant that I had to write out my 7th grade major paper (it was TEN PAGES!!!) by hand, when my handwriting was terrible, rather than do it quickly in WordPerfect 4.2 and print it on our dot matrix printer. The logic was that it was too easy to fake it.

Thankfully that logic was dead, dead, dead by the time I got to high school. But of course cheating was easier when you didn't have to hand write it.

For one thing, yes, generative LLMs have probably ruined forever the 3 page essay about themes in Pride and Prejudice. Considering that an...

For one thing, yes, generative LLMs have probably ruined forever the 3 page essay about themes in Pride and Prejudice. Considering that an internet full of Austen-papers-for-hire had already done a lot of the work on that, let's at least ask, what is the pedagogical reason for making students write an essay?

Are there ways to replicate those reasons elsewhere?

Okay, I confess to be a little dismayed at the reactions on my feed to the NY Magazine "AI is ruining education" article or...

Okay, I confess to be a little dismayed at the reactions on my feed to the NY Magazine "AI is ruining education" article or whatever it's called.

I'm not going to deny that generative models are a big challenge to pedagogy. Nor am I going to dismiss that professors are struggling with it.

But "technology is ruining thinking" takes are as old as the printing press. What's actually happening here? Can we be at least a bit critical of the ancient and easy take on this?

Defector horning in on my academic space here. (I kid, of course, always happy to see someone else see this.)Collective ownership builds...

Defector horning in on my academic space here. (I kid, of course, always happy to see someone else see this.)

Collective ownership builds community. Yes, it preserves assets for people to use, but the community building is often even more important in the long run.

https://defector.com/any-halfway-decent-person-can-join-and-own-irelands-oldest-gym?giftLink=16689e2454a332e057a7be94abdf5f54&utm_campaign=defector&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Yay for three good court wins. Rumeysa Ozturk, Allison Riggs, and the EFF all getting good wins in court this morning.

Yay for three good court wins. Rumeysa Ozturk, Allison Riggs, and the EFF all getting good wins in court this morning.