This morning, while reading this response on Threads on my new, consolidated account, I found myself wondering, “How many resources does Perplexity, or Claude or ChatGPT, consume when I ask a simple question, like, ‘What’s the scientific consensus on XYZ?” And, should I even …
Texas’ Teacher Org, ATPE Data Breach
This is crazy, shocking, even if data breaches are the new inevitable normal:
More than 400,000 have data leaked in cyberattack on Texas education organization, ATPE
…the incident affected 426,280 people — including members of the organization, employees and their dependents. …Social Security …
3-2-1: Need to Teach on a Global Hot Topic #ClimateChange #science #ShowYourStripes
New survey info shared today (with me) via the National Center for Science Education, Inc. email:
“Eight in ten (80 percent) of people globally called on schools in their country to teach more about climate change, while just 6 percent of people globally said schools should teach less about …
Embracing The Experience in the Face of AI Ease
This piece about AI in education is one I find myself agreeing with. Whether you call it “friction” or “productive struggle,” there IS value in the experience of learning slow.
Consider these quotes:
The question has left me wondering if in our pursuit of reducing the time it takes to do things, …
AI in Education and Environment
This was an interesting article that dealt with more than AI’s impact on the environment. See included table for what other topics. For now, I found this the most compelling.
Impact on Environment AI is reliant on a chain of extractive processes that are resource-intensive and with deleterious …
Print over Tech
This ought to make edtech advocates pause on pushing ebooks into children’s hands…as an avid reader, anecdotally, I can say there is a difference if I don’t take notes by hand in notebook. I prefer nonfiction in print, fiction in digital.
AI Summary A study examined how middle-school students …
Concealed Handguns in TN Schools
What do you think? More guns in schools or not? My opinion is simple.
Given the choice of being unarmed and facing an active shooter, it would be better to be armed. But most active shooters arrive well-armed with assault rifles. Would a pistol be sufficient?
Tennessee Passes Bill to Allow Teachers …
Anthropic AI Agents
Over at The Verge, Kylie Robison writes:
Anthropic is releasing a new feature for its AI chatbot Claude that will let anyone create an email assistant, a bot to purchase shoes, or other personalized solutions. It’s called “tool use” (or the nerdier “function calling”), and it hooks up to any …
Thinking, Fast and Slow
I love Abir Haddoud’s post about the book, so I am reposting it from social media (LinkedIn) below:
Quote I’ve read “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman twice.
It has profoundly changed the way I perceive decision-making and human behaviour.
Here are some …
Teacher Use of AI for Grading
I loved this response to an educator’s question about AI use by teachers vs students. It is concise, to the point:
You have a sound rationale for discouraging your students from using A.I. to draft their essays. As with many other skills, writing well and thinking clearly will improve through …
Revisiting Rusty Rivers and Streams #ClimateChange
Source: Projected changes in the water cycle. Source: USGCRP 2009
Ugh. This had almost slipped from my mind until I read this article:
Mountain rivers in the US state of Colorado are going rusty and the warming climate is to blame, according to research. An increase in toxic heavy metals has also …
Flow Chart: Should I Go or Stay? #Mermaid
This was the Mermaid code that Perplexity.ai generated for me, introducing me to Mermaid:
Code Displayed In Image Above graph TD
A[Do you have any prior commitments on the day of the event?] -->|Yes| B[Can you reschedule or delegate those commitments?]
A -->|No| C[Do you want to support your …
Joplin App for Notes and Mermaid for Diagrams and Flowcharts
After struggling with Dropbox as my sync home for Joplin App notes, I finally plunked down the 3.99 euros needed to cover the cost of Joplin Cloud. All the problems, of course, went away and I’m now synching my Joplin notes without long delays or headaches. It’s astonishing to me how …
3-2-1 Brain Science and Effective Teaching
Interesting article, What Brain Science Says about Teaching Teens via EdSurge, on teenage brains. More details on effective teaching appear afterwards.
Here’s an AI generated 3-2-1 summary:
Summary of Key Ideas from the Article 3 Facts:
Adolescent Brain Development: The article highlights that the …
AI: Going Nuclear for Energy
building water- and energy-hungry datacenters to fuel the AI boom comes at the expense of our already overburdened planet. . .the AI industry may require an energy breakthrough in fusion or another technology
Read more via Futurism
MyNotes: Writing by Hand
The verdict is in…again?
it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.
That’s a good thing for our brains. Not so much for the edtech industry which counts on selling devices to schools.
My Notes Writing by hand…improves memory and recall of words, …
3-2-1: Four Day School Week
I heard or read about this topic in news earlier this week. I was hopeful because 4-day work weeks are great in my own experience.
But, yikes! This research on the topic was not what I was hoping for schools. That feeling aside, it’s good to see more research on this.
It should discourage schools …
AI Leads to Lower Academic Performance, Procrastination, Memory Loss
Is it time to stop pushing AI in schools? Research study:
excessive use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT can lead to procrastination, memory loss, and lower academic performance, according to a recent study that asked, “Is it harmful or helpful?” “Over-reliance on external sources, including …
Climate Disaster Coming
This is a tough read about a harsh future ahead:
“The enormity of the problem is not well understood,” said Ralph Sims, at Massey University in New Zealand. “So there will be environmental refugees by the millions, extreme weather events escalating, food and water shortages, before the majority …
Prelude to AI Thinkers
From my perspective, these were the best insights from a brilliant article. The article is Our Students’ Future in an AI-World is Debatable.
The more I read these, the more I see a roadmap for becoming an AI Thinker, a topic I will have to explore in another blog entry. As I read I read the key …
Writing and Thinking Connection
The struggle of turning inchoate thought into readable sentences and paragraphs is a powerful exercise for the brain. It’s how you get better at thinking. It is thinking.
via Slashdot
Panama 🇵🇦 Faces Water Shortage
Yikes, climate change impacts Panama’s water supply. This in turn impacts the Panama Canal, and transporting food and other trade items.
A solution needs to be found lest global trade, which has become more unstable this year, gets even more so. Trade volumes through the Panama Canal have fallen …
Iterative Mindset
What an interesting idea…
Iteration is the antidote to the performance mindset’s toxic grip. Instead of fixating on rigid goals, I have discovered the Iterative Mindset, a research-backed antidote to performative goals that encourages us to embrace failure as a natural part of the learning process. …
Writing by Hand
Reach for paper and pen…
a paper published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests, concluding that “whenever handwriting movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated, resulting in the formation of more complex neural network connectivity.” source
Evidence vs Certainty and The Constitution of Knowledge
As I’ve shared in the past, one of the reasons I started Another Think Coming was how often I found myself revisiting old ideas that were no longer accurate or reflective of new information.
You wake up one morning and the preponderance of the evidence has forced you to reconsider what you …