hi chat I need your help writing an essay
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I'm getting geared up to start an "I'm retired now" thread, just as soon as I finish grading this last batch of papers, so I no longer have as much skin in the game. (Of course, we all have skin in the game when current events seem poised to make the people who will run the world when we're in our twilight years as ignorant as possible, but I digress.).
Anyway. I have seen some AI work cross my desk, and I've probably been fooled by some, but it's a heavier lift for AI to generate a convincing creative assignment, especially one that convincingly imitates the naivete of a nineteen-year-old's first attempt at fiction. Nevertheless, if I weren't retiring, I would be considering steps like having them do in-class assignments by hand in blue books. They would be miserable to grade, since everybody's handwriting has declined in recent decades, including mine, but they would show that I meant business. I would set the grading scale so that you couldn't pass without writing something in class that was at least plausible.
There may already be software out there, but if there isn't, some entrepreneur needs to develop some word processing app that temporarily "takes over" the computer. While it's active, you can't access the internet or anything stored on your computer. It should be able to monitored by the instructor, who would see that you had been logged into that app and nothing else for the duration of the class period until you turned in your work. I would name it Blue Book. This would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
@Mary-Anna said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
An old fashioned typewriter or work processor at every desk? Seriously - wouldn’t be hard to have something like that set up for student desks in the classroom that was not connected to the internet. We had computer labs in college that we did assignments on.
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@Mary-Anna said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
I'm getting geared up to start an "I'm retired now" thread, just as soon as I finish grading this last batch of papers, so I no longer have as much skin in the game. (Of course, we all have skin in the game when current events seem poised to make the people who will run the world when we're in our twilight years as ignorant as possible, but I digress.).
Anyway. I have seen some AI work cross my desk, and I've probably been fooled by some, but it's a heavier lift for AI to generate a convincing creative assignment, especially one that convincingly imitates the naivete of a nineteen-year-old's first attempt at fiction. Nevertheless, if I weren't retiring, I would be considering steps like having them do in-class assignments by hand in blue books. They would be miserable to grade, since everybody's handwriting has declined in recent decades, including mine, but they would show that I meant business. I would set the grading scale so that you couldn't pass without writing something in class that was at least plausible.
There may already be software out there, but if there isn't, some entrepreneur needs to develop some word processing app that temporarily "takes over" the computer. While it's active, you can't access the internet or anything stored on your computer. It should be able to monitored by the instructor, who would see that you had been logged into that app and nothing else for the duration of the class period until you turned in your work. I would name it Blue Book. This would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
Hey, wanna work on something? I'm thinking of writing an essay on how AI is a technological "improvement" that will raise the cost of higher education ... if you want to preserve its quality. I've got a lot of the argument nailed down. I need to dig deeper into the evidence, and I lack your kind of academic perspective.
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@Mary-Anna said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
An old fashioned typewriter or work processor at every desk? Seriously - wouldn’t be hard to have something like that set up for student desks in the classroom that was not connected to the internet. We had computer labs in college that we did assignments on.
@Jodi said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
@Mary-Anna said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
An old fashioned typewriter or work processor at every desk? Seriously - wouldn’t be hard to have something like that set up for student desks in the classroom that was not connected to the internet. We had computer labs in college that we did assignments on.
I think it may come to that, Jodi.
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@Mary-Anna said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
would allow students to type their work and relieve the poor instructor from the need to read their handwriting.
An old fashioned typewriter or work processor at every desk? Seriously - wouldn’t be hard to have something like that set up for student desks in the classroom that was not connected to the internet. We had computer labs in college that we did assignments on.
@Jodi said in hi chat I need your help writing an essay:
An old fashioned typewriter or work processor at every desk? Seriously - wouldn’t be hard to have something like that set up for student desks in the classroom that was not connected to the internet. We had computer labs in college that we did assignments on.
I wish we had something like this. But logistically, it would be very hard (and expensive and time-consuming) to put it into practice, partly because of the way classrooms have changed and partly because of the scale that would be needed, for example, at state schools like mine that have 40,000 or more students. Especially because we already have a classroom shortage and taking rooms offline to change them would be disruptive.
If there were a reliable way to do it with students' own computers, that would be the easiest way.
Actually, using a lockdown browser, conducting the assessment within the LMS, making everyone sit with their screens facing the proctor.... it might work.... I might try it, this last round of handwritten exams was so horrible, it's its own motivation!
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@Piano-Dad and @Mary-Anna I have lots of thoughts on this subject (both with regard to traditional content courses and with regard to foreign language courses) if you'd like an additional person. (I'm also signed up for a genAI pilot here next AY and prepping a study to do in my language class in the fall regarding using voice AI for language learning)
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Mary Anna and SK, I don't have back channel emails for either of you.
If you're willing, let me write up what I have, which will not be a complete argument. I'll send it to you and then idea-bouncing can commence.
@Piano-Dad
You can find me at maryannaevans at the y-place. -
Scary essay in today's NYTimes about AI.
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Got it. I'm out in the beautiful mountains of Virginia at present. Back home tomorrow. I'll hop on it then.
@Piano-Dad I’ll send you a PM with my email.
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Just think, today's students will be perfectly prepared to work in today's Health and Human Services Department.
