My Relationship with AI

What is AI? 

AI is a disembodied algorithm designed to predict the next logical link in a chain. It is not a biological being with a body. Therefore, it does not feel like a person or other creature will. It has no will of its own. No desire, hunger. No fear. Nothing to drive it of its own sake. It sits dormant until prompted. 

This is at the forefront of my mind in any discussion about AI. I see it as a tool to accomplish information based tasks. I do not see it as a replacement of human thought or feeling. 

Slow Down 

However, I do feel like AI makes some tasks too quick and therefore counterproductive to long term learning. Generally, I believe deep, long-term learning takes time. A fact quickly Googled, reviewed, and put into action right away is more easily forgotten than something learned through longer means. 

For instance, say it's 30-40 years ago and the internet is not a thing. If you wanted a piece of information what do you do? Ask someone? Look it up? Either way, you're investing relatively more energy into getting that information. Either a conversation or a trip to the bookshelf or library at the least. 

If you wanted to know something, you had to really want it. So you prioritized. You may have learned fewer things overall, but the things you learned, through greater effort, you learned more deeply and held onto them longer. 

The metaphor I like for this is bread: a sourdough bread that takes over a day to proof will have a more complex flavor than a bread using commercial yeast over a few hours. 

The Works of Ferlazzo

Ferlazzo speaks to me because he gives a picture of how teachers really use AI, but haven't yet incorporated into mainstream trainings yet. It seems almost grassroots that educators as individuals are using AI in similar ways without systematic collaboration or training. 

He turns to it as not a "finished product to my standards, but a rough draft I finish crafting." Much in the same way I have come to incorporate it in my lesson planning. He also talks about changing the complexity level of texts more quickly. 

Here it feels like a compromise. Yes, I would like to do these tasks like differentiation on my own. However, given how many tasks I have, I make the compromise to use AI to do some more quickly. 

The Work of Galland & Rettingger

This last point leads into the ideas of Galland & Rettinger. Much like some of the students he talks about, I feel pressed for time and chose to "cut corners." And thus a part of the process is lost, and that complex flavor of learning is compromised. 

They suggest students need to feel like they can accomplish a task or learn to accomplish it, so they don't turn to cheating or using AI. It's tough for me to hold this against them when I have succumbed to the same impulses under a similar set of emotional circumstances. 

Prensky and Spiegel

 What do you make of the positions of Prensky and Spiegel? 

If the rising generation is made up of "digital native" technocrats, proficient masters of anything any screen running on a circuit board, why do they sometimes struggle to troubleshoot a frozen screen? Or ask to receive typing instruction?

I respect Spiegel for publishing work that got so many people talking and thinking critically about the young generation. This is not a new phenomenon.

Tension and fear over the education of the young has been in literature since at least the time of Plato. It is an ancient topic to muse over. Although I have not read the source material, from what I gather from Spiegel's critique, Prensky frames generational tension, not as an old topic, but as a manifestation of modern technology.

I get the same impression reading the article about Prensky that I got while reading Don Campbell's The Mozart Effect that claimed listening to classical music, particularly Mozart, made children smarter. His premise was based on one study that showed a link between short term spatial processing in young kids after listening to music. Most of Campbell's conclusions were based on uncorroborated assumptions. Fortunately, after reading Campbell, I read Einstein Never Used Flashcards, which directly refuted Campbell in a well substantiated and scientific way. This work advocated for more student centered approach to learning, one grounded in the notion that children are natural learners. Much like the Ted Talk by Robinson. 

Generally, I do not agree with Prensky's methodology. Nor do I agree that the young generation is operating in a distant and inaccessible linguistic and functional space. Young folk are still human and share culture beyond technology. 

Technology is a part of life, not the entirety. 

The Myth of Digital Nativism

Generally, I agree with Spiegel's critiques of Prensky's writings and the terms used in them. He does a good job of applying logical arguments to interrogate Prensky's terms. 

Particularly meaningful for me was how Spiegel points out the assumption Prensky makes about young people, that because they are "digital natives" they have an intuitive and vast knowledge of the inner workings of technology. In fact, Spiegel points out, young folks need explicit instruction to use technology, just like any skill they are ascending into. 

In my own context, students ask me, as an ELA teacher, to include lessons on typing, a skill they have identified as useful and necessary. 

My feelings overall are that these terms are generated and perpetuated by assumptions about people. They may have a place to start conversations about generational tension, but they are false in accuracy and can lead to harm if unexamined. 

AI Disclosure

I used Google Gemini to generate the image. I entered the prompt: "generate a simple, whimsical line drawing to go with this blog post. Symbolic not literal." This was followed by cut and pasting the post as a whole text. 

Introduction

 Hello members of Lesley Bogad's Summer Course! 

Welcome to this introduction! What would you like to know? Rather than using our time here together, me as writer and you as reader, in a meandering way — you, as the reader, might get more out of this relationship if we started with your curiosity. 

What would you like to know about me? What's the sort of thing you like to know about others when getting to know them? Do you try to put them into a context? What are you looking for? Then, what's the next thing you like to know? 

Please, ask questions of me, and I shall attempt a meaningful response. 

Welcome to my blog! 

Dana