Category Archives: community

AI, AI, Everywhere

I had an interesting conversation with my sister and my father when we were together last weeked to celebrate my mother’s 88th birthday. I’m working on a blog post about the changing nature of work that I will post at some point, but as I looked for data to support my ideas, I was distracted by Pew Research Center’s collection of data related to Artificial Intelligence. In particular, two recent articles seem to conflict a bit in perspective, a sign that we are in a period of real volatility when it comes to this technology.

One article provides evidence that most Americans haven’t tried ChatGPT and aren’t concerned about its impact on their lives. The other reports on the growing public concern with AI. As for the former, I am reminded of a conversation I had with an early adopter of the first widely used virtual community, Second Life. It certainly had implications for the potential of online interactions, but you couldn’t get your real life hair cut or your real life tires replaced. Local communities were still going to be important. And, even with the rise of AI, I think that continues to be true. At some point, I suppose a robot will cut my hair or replace my tires, but for the foreseeable future, it will be flesh-and-blood Olivia and Proctor who help me with those services.

As for the latter headline, I think we should be concerned when a technology that we only sort of understand undergoes such a rapid expansion. The educators I know are learning all they can about AI, especially within their own fields of study. They are also engaging in conversations with colleagues about how to use the tools for their own productivity and with their students.

Old School Tech

I use LibraryThing to track my reading and connect with a community of readers. I joined soon after it began in late 2005. The site has grown and changed with the times–including recently adding AI search–but at its base, it uses a wiki, built on MediaWiki software (think Wikipedia), for community collaboration. Groups use it to track members as well as communal reading. And, I was reminded recently by a friend, individual users are welcome to create pages.

Turns out I had done so in 2010…and, as with many of those experiments, I wrote some text as proof of concept and then never returned. I didn’t have a purpose in mind.

Today, however, I went back and considered ways I might incorporate those wiki pages into my reading life. I started by creating a page where I could track the various series I read. Like many avid readers, I have started a variety of series, mostly mysteries, but then lost track of them, perhaps losing interest in the character or just forgetting about them as time goes on. There are a few that I do keep up with, something that is a bit easier to do by following authors and getting alerts when new books are coming. I have an analog day book where I have listed the various series but, in an effort to downsize generally, I’m moving the list to the wiki. I track my books on LT, and they have pages for the series that show which ones you have read. I was able to copy and paste those lists into the wiki page for easy editing. It also helps that I know html and wiki syntax.

I have an affinity for wikis, I think, because I was there when they started and have grown up with them, hosting a few on my own server, playing with early ones like pbwiki and wikispaces, watching Wikipedia become an international collaborative community. They can seem clunky with their old school code, but I think the stripped down format helps us focus on the important part: creating and collaborating largely through text. Again, that may seem old-fashioned in a world of multimedia, but at its heart, multimedia is text-based. Someone writes those words that are spoken, and wikis allow us to grapple with how best to put them together to express our communal knowledge and ideas.

Picking Up the Journey

Virginia Creeper Trail Trestle

I took an extended road trip to Pennsylvania to check in on my parents and spend a few days with one of my oldest friends. I was able to connect with the whole gang (dare I say coven?) of retired educators known as the OEBs* for lunch and the local library’s book group with whom I have communed over books before. The had read the same book my own group read: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner. Both groups enjoyed it. All in all, it was another chance to really sink into retirement as I had little or nothing of any responsibility since it is fall break for the universities.

Now that I am back, I am diving into a new project that has been brewing since late summer. It is new enough that I don’t want to give specifics, but the general idea is that a small college is relocating to Waverly, Virginia, my small town. Its campus will be literally across the street from me. It offers a religious studies degree and is recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. I am helping the president and the Board of Trustees work towards accreditation offered by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. In addition, I will teach a couple courses.

One of them begins next Thursday, a six-week Computer Technology course that will include students, faculty and staff. I did a pre-course introduction for a few colleagues last evening. It went well, and I woke up this morning realizing I am seemingly suddenly starting down a new path after a summer and early fall of drifting along. I have colleagues and students and a course to create. They are using Google Classroom, a tool I haven’t used before, so I am looking forward to learning new skills. I want to keep the course fairly flexible so we can be sure to meet their needs, but the focus at the beginning will be Google Workspace. From there, I want to get them into Canva and Wakelet as well.

I am excited about this new journey and will share more details as we move along. For now, I am teaching and that always makes me happy!

*OEB stands for Old English B****es. It was bestowed on the veteran English teachers by one of their younger colleagues and overhead at lunch by my old friend. Rather than being offended, my friends adopted it as their gang nickname and now meet twice a month for the OEB birthday lunch and book group. I am an honorary member and try to participate a couple times a year.

Keeping the Gaps From Getting Bigger: Randomly Connected Thoughts

I don’t know about others, but I have been having trouble mustering much energy or enthusiasm to do anything that required concentration. I’ve kept up my daily journaling (hard to break a habit of a lifetime) but putting together something for outside consumption seemed too hard. But, I do have a few public things I would like say:

Stop shaming teachers and schools for anything, especially if you were not actively involved in public schools on a daily basis prior to the virus. I have seen several pundits shaking their heads over printed instructional packets. One actually used the word “shame” to describe teachers who used them. They may not be the ideal pedagogy, but they are the lowest common denominator in a world that largely gave digital equity lip service until last week. Now, suddenly, educators are supposed to be transforming their education online despite a lack of devices, access and preparation. Schools are busy figuring out how to feed kids. Give them a break.

Read that again: schools are busy figuring out how to feeds kids. Our schools play a much larger role in the community than just teaching and learning, and we consistently underfund them, especially for the most vulnerable children and families. Ditto for public libraries.

Now is when we will discover the true gaps in our broadband access maps and surveys. If you are a teacher connecting with your students online, be sure to do an equity check now and then. Who isn’t showing up either synchronously or asynchronously? Is it because of access? What can you do to open access by using low bandwidth tools that are phone-friendly?

Just as they are feeding kids, schools are working on closing the equity gap. Schools  without 1:1 are doing what they can to get devices to kids. They are sending home mifis and keeping wifi up and running in schools parking lots. I’ve seen lots of tech coaches offering support for both their own faculty and generally for others. The Virginia Society for Technology in Education is offering just-in-time coaching in partnership with UnisonEDU.

There is so much more to consider here. Forget digital equity. I suspect many children in my low income community are being left home alone or in the care of older siblings as parents cannot afford to stop working. The library and community center where they accessed analog, digital and adult support are closed.

I have been meeting with VSTE leaders over the past week, and I am so proud of how they are leading their schools and communities. They were given little or no time or resources to prepare, but they, along with so many other educators stepped up, as they always do, because they understand that they are the first line of defense for so many of our children.

Be safe out there, my friends.

Role Models: John Fetterman

Portrait of Lieutenant Gov of PAI have followed John Fetterman’s career since 2010 when CBS Sunday Morning did a feature on his work as mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Fetterman saw something in the dying rust belt town and was willing to pursue that vision. Others came along although not everyone.  I encourage you to take time to view the clip.

Here’s the conclusion:

“I like to think if there’s nothing else that can be taken from the Braddock story, it’s that no community deserve to be abandoned, no community deserves to have their back turned on it,” he said. “And that there’s always an ability to increase or enhance the quality of life for the residents. In fact, I think it’s, if anything, it’s a moral imperative to do so.”

Fetterman is now the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania. His twitter feed is worth a follow as I think he manages to navigate the social media world pretty well for a politician. He is passionate about his beliefs and willing to support them without being reduced to name calling and bullying.

Plus, he is willing to make fun of himself along with others as he certainly doesn’t look like the typical politician:

Fetterman is a role model for me as I live in a community on the edge, not quite as bad off as Braddock but lacking essential services. We are fortunate to have a leader in our new mayor who has been working hard to attract businesses like a drug store and grocery store to the once thriving town. Her vision and enthusiasm have revived some local pride, but I see a wariness in the town residents who wonder, as Braddock did about Fetterman, about her motives and her longevity. Even active and influential people have gotten used to approaching everything from a negative, cynical viewpoint and that can be harder to overcome than the economic issues.

One of my goals for 2020 is to get back to volunteering with 4H at the local community center, something I did last year and found rewarding. It is a very small step but a hopeful one.