Category: Response Posts

Harmony’s blog post #2

Hey Harmony—I know I’m not in your group; I just need a third person’s post to respond to and you were the random selection.

Reading your comments on the controversy surrounding the use of AI as an educational resource was really interesting—in part because your university experience has differed from my own. Like you, I never find myself using Chat GPT (or other AI aids) to complete assignments. I grew up working without it, and I rarely hit a shortage of ideas, so I just think things up and write them independently. That said, unlike you I do know of at least one person who I’m told uses it heavily—and not just as a brainstorm or comprehension aid, but as a ghostwriter. So it certainly does happen, and I can only imagine its use spreading rapidly with every new cohort of university students, for whom large language model use will be more and more second nature.

That said, I have to agree that due to this new reality, educators must find some way to adapt education to the use (maybe limited use, but use nonetheless) of such models, so they can continue to be guides and ushers into the world’s knowledge and open resources, and not merely increasingly ineffective inhibitors.

Danir’s blog post #2

Hey Danir,

I loved reading your sunny take on technological developments as enabling more and more open and accessible learning worldwide. I can be kind of a downer on technological developments myself, as they can just as easily be wielded for ill as for good, but I do have to whole-heartedly agree with you as to their benefits when it comes to online and open education. It was cool to hear a bit about your own experiences with such learning too and it prompts me to share my own. Thanks to the availability of online courses I was able, over a stretch of nine years in which I worked, switched jobs and moved multiple times, to complete enough courses to constitute one full year of university. This enabled me to transfer straight into the second year of UVic’s education program as a full-time student last year, and I’m now well on my way toward graduation. I don’t think this could have occurred another way. I would never have been prepared to enter into university in-person at the expense of the other things I had going on in my life—it just wasn’t going to happen. But my experience in online courses gradually got me back into the swing of school without requiring me to sacrifice other projects just yet. At this point, although this particular course is online, I’ve been enjoying being both in school and at school (in person), and I’m newly bullish about making it through the next two years as a full-time student.

And my experience was all mediated through fairly rudimentary use of the internet and Moodle. Possibilities for future educational experiences certainly do suggest greater accessibility and flexibility that will benefit the next generation of students everywhere.

Lindsay’s blog post #2

Hi Lindsay,

I enjoyed your post – especially the lovely black & white photos with the rounded edges. I related to what Natasha Berg was saying in that first TED talk you linked to. Not that I’m a teacher yet, but it does often strike me as a little strange to rely so comfortably on things in adult life and then assume that prohibition of those same things is what’s essential in preparing children for adulthood. On the other hand, I also agree with the importance of limiting access to things that could easily become enough of a distraction or a crutch to stunt students’ growth – and I relate this to Berg’s point about setting times for student use of AI. As an analogy, in my after school work with youth, I see some students given money to spend however they see fit, and they very regularly see fit to spend it all at the corner store, buying and eating in one go truly ungodly quantities of candy. I’m no nutritionist, but it seems to me sugar consumption at this level could easily constitute a dangerous dependence – one that would interfere with these individuals’ well-being and fulfillment down the road. Perhaps use of large language models is similar. Regardless, it does seem that their ubiquity in the adult world is a foregone conclusion, to the point that banning them completely in education will soon be not so much immoral as impossible.

Anyway, thanks for the stimulating post!