Category Archives: Uncategorized

Image

New Practices for Year 80 – Episode 2

It has been close to 6 months since I started practicing being 80 and almost three months since I wrote Episode 1. A lot has changed, most of it good…

I submitted my resignation as Executive Director of the nonprofit I started 50 years ago – – effective Nov. 3, 2025.

 

My oldest grandson turned 21 and I went to his birthday party. He is surrounded by talented bakers!

 

I’ve walked around my town or into the countryside even though it’s often dark and rainy. I’m counting my steps and competing with myself to equal or surpass the number each day. Not by much, just a little.

 

I had a relaxed visit with my first born and his family in Washington state. Playing cards was a favorite occupation of my grandparents.

 

Most importantly, I’ve stopped filling my calendar with more appointments and tasks than I can manage in each day.

Sometimes people ask me what I’m going to do with myself now that I’m retiring. It seems like a funny question since I’ve had the privilege of doing whatever work I chose for most of my life. The difference is that I’m not going to push myself any more. I can stop trying to prove I’m worthy of the advantages I was born with.

The results are blooming already. I’m sleeping better and am less depressed. Perhaps I’m accomplishing less but I’m still feeling better about it.

Next time I’ll tell you more about the things I am doing. They’re not all wonderful. Certainly I will continue to think, write, and talk to people around the world about learning and education. I’m also darning that pile of old socks full of holes and learning to make bread in a dutch oven.

All these things require practice.

 

Leave a Comment

by | January 3, 2025 · 1:33 pm
Image

Mother and Our Three Dogs

This is my first experiment with posting my audio recordings. I made this one on my 63rd birthday during a period when I was trying to sort out how my childhood experiences have shaped my personality, character, and adult behavior.

All of us have had some trauma as we grew up. Challenges are part of life. For many of us, the small, vaguely remembered incidents may have had more influence than those lightbulb events we usually label as psychologically impactful. This is a recollection of three incidents that I rarely associate with my mental health issues of depression, fear of abandonment, and anxiety over challenging authority. Don’t get me wrong. I love animals – horses and dogs especially, cats too but not as much. My childhood home was always teaming with critters – familiar domestic pets, captured or wounded wild ones, and science experiments. Most of my memories are of gratifying interactions. But these three probably deserve some further reflection.

Click on the white triangle below to listen. It takes a few seconds for the audio to load before starting.

Bloodhound Dog with long ears on floor.

The original Liza’s ears drooped on the floor when she slept. Pepper would lie like this at the foot of Mother’s bed.

Trippy was always alert for a game or a chase, even a car.

Leave a Comment

by | November 16, 2024 · 12:02 pm
by | February 18, 2024 · 10:10 pm

ChatGPT Promises not to Make Things Up

There are lots of fun and practical  ways to use the powerful Large Language Model known as chatGPT. But when you want reliable information, watch out. This evening I asked chatGPT, version 3.5, to help me with some research on Open Educational Resources (OER). These are free or very low cost textbooks, short lessons, videos, etc. that any of us can use to learn about almost anything that is taught in schools – nursery school through professional training. I’ll show you parts of the conversation transcript in a minute. But here’s the punchline of this post:

So for any of you who are worried about whether OpenAI, (chatGPT’s corporate parent) is going to stop pretending to provide real, reliable answers to our questions, here’s their promise to cease and desist.

How did we get here? Well, one of the biggest problems with OER is that it can be very difficult to find the right instructional material for what you want to learn. Teachers and instructional designers compose these lessons, or sometimes even whole textbooks or courses, and submit them to organizations called Repositories that act like public libraries. There are many thousands of titles in Repositories waiting for you to discover and use them for free, either by downloading them to your smart phone, tablet, or computer, or by logging into the ‘cloud’ where they live and using them online. So which one is right for you? You have to search the Repository – each Repository – using a limited list of keywords, words like language (English, Spanish, Chinese), audience level (1st grade, high school, beginner, adult), or subject (biology, arithmetic, Python programming). However, each Repository’s search features are a little different. Hmmm, is this a problem chatGPT can help solve?

I started by asking for a list of repositories.

This is good and now you also know where to look for free textbooks, etc. Type one of these repository names into your search engine and start exploring.

Next I wanted to know what keywords we can use to filter the search results for each of these repositories, so I asked the machine… 

You can see from the response I got that chatGPT didn’t understand what I was asking for. All three lists were the same.

 

So I fiddled around with the way I asked for the lists and finally got something that looks about right. I had to ask for a comparison of just two repositories rather than all twenty at once.

Wow! This is just what I wanted. It looks like OER Commons and MERLOT both have 15 search parameters, they share 11 and each have 4 that they don’t share. Now maybe the machine has ‘learned’ enough to generate the lists for all 20 Repositories.

Nope, we’re not doing that. Suddenly we’re back to “commonly provided” and “parameters may vary” when what I want to know is exactly how they vary. This makes me question the responses provided about OER Commons and MERLOT. If the AI can give me accurate answers about two repositories why can’t it do 20. Isn’t the ability to do the same dull task over and over the very reason we humans want to use this technology? Here’s what happens next…

The wording on the OER Commons and MERLOT lists did not indicate these were “possible”, “typical”, or “likely”. It says these are the “unique parameters”. Is this accurate or fake information?

Hey Buddy, this is not “oversight”, this is misrepresentation. First you said, “Here’s the real stuff” when you were just blowing smoke. I won’t find out whether the information is trustworthy or not unless I already know enough to spot fake news and challenge you on it. When challenged you tell me your answer was incorrect. This disclaimer should come before the beautifully worded but untrue essay, not after. This is what make AI dangerous to the non-expert. 

When challenged, chatGPT back peddles, pretends it has human emotions, and then promises to reform its reprobate ways…

Is there any reason to believe this string of characters carries any more veracity than the ones that have come before? Who is speaking/typing/communicating here? Is there any author? Any accountability? 

 

I don’t give up easily so here’s my further challenge…

We are back to the beginning of this post. We have a public statement from Open AI:

“This response is a public statement from OpenAI, indicating a commitment to transparency and accuracy in interactions with all users. It applies to all interactions conducted by the AI model, not just those with you. Thank you for prompting this clarification, and I appreciate your understanding.”

Now it’s up to us users to hold OpenAI and all other purveyors of LLMs accountable for the statements their machines create no matter what prompts we give them.

I suspect the fine print in the user agreements we all have to commit to in advance of using chatGPT will make it impossible to take legal action against OpenAI. But we can still vote with our dollars, with our feet, and with our communications to the developers of these products. Take the time to speak out if you are as bothered as I am by the directions the AI movement is taking.  So far, AI is like a toddler running around with no judgement and a risk of stumbling into the fire. We are the adults (well, some of us anyway). LLMs as well as other AI technologies can grow into marvelous additions to the human environment.  But we’re going to have to socialize them and not permit them to embody, no, simulate the worst qualities of human beings. This little tale is just one example of how we can go wrong.

See this whole chatGPT session, here: https://chat.openai.com/share/431ce57e-9fd4-48b1-bb42-70a7c37339f2

2 Comments

Filed under Artificial Intelligence and Stupidity, Open Educative Systems, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

by | May 3, 2023 · 3:30 pm

Is climate change going to wipe out humanity? No!

Desolated city

Creator: gremlin Credit: Getty Images

The disastrous effects of a changing climate – famine, floods, fires and extreme heat – threaten our very existence.

https://www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report/summary.shtml

This quote, from the very first page of the United Nations Common Agenda Report Summary, is wrong. Yes, there is a very real threat – but it isn’t a threat to the “very existence” of humanity. It is highly unlikely that climate change will cause such widespread death in the human population to reduce the 7,953,952,577 or so individuals now alive down to the 500 or so that would be necessary to repopulate the Earth.

What is threatened? The way of life enjoyed by the wealthy people who live in the richest nations on the planet. Yes, the poor are likely to die first under the influence of climate degradation. The wealthy will be able to move inland, to higher ground, or further from the Equator. They will be able to buy expensive food and build fire resistant, air conditioned homes. Yes, quality of life is likely to decline even for the rich. But no, climate change is not going to wipe out the human race. A comet strike? That could do it. Huge solar flares? Possibly. Global nuclear war? We might not survive that. But climate warming due to human activity? This is a self-regulating problem.

Why is climate change self-regulating? Because, as changing climate conditions kills off our excessive population, poorest first, it will also decrease the industrial activity that causes it. Humans will lose the technical capacity to keep pumping carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Without such interference the planet will reach equilibrium again. Overall mean temperatures may be hotter than the previous they have been in more than 100,000 years but, as a species, we are likely to adapt.

 

The last time the Earth was this warm was 125,000 years ago

https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/01/18/hottest-year-on-record/96713338/

 

Modern humans have been around at least 196,000 years and maybe as much as 300,000 years.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_human). They have lived through major climate changes that they did not cause. Some of us more modern people will too.

I’m not suggesting that there is nothing to worry about. The possibility of knocking human progress back to the stone age is no laughing matter. The likelihood of a global population collapse as cultures struggle to adapt to warmer and more volatile weather is not fun to contemplate. But does exaggerating the consequences of climate change help or hinder the popular crusade to halt human impact on planet-wide weather? By suggesting that the human race will not survive we make it easier to dismiss the whole issue.

IMHO, overstating the consequences of climate change empowers climate change deniers.

Flames rise from the remains of a house that burned down in Santa Rosa. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Climate Change Commentary, Future Gazing, Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

by | January 13, 2023 · 7:00 pm

Internet hopes and fears in 10 years

I just filled out a survey about what I think the best and worst consequences of digital technology are going to be for humans. I’m in a sort of cynical mood but perhaps you’ll find my responses interesting. If you find the questions stimulating, do feel free to reply with some of your own answers. I love comparing points of view.

BEST AND MOST BENEFICIAL changes

* Human-centered development of digital tools and systems – safely advancing human progress in these systems
Nature’s experiments are random, not intentional or goal directed. We humans operate in a similar way, exploring what is possible and then trimming away most of the more hideous outcomes. We will continue to develop devices that do the tasks humans used to do thereby saving us both mental and physical labor. This trend will continue resulting in more leisure time available for non-survival pursuits.

* Human connections, governance and institutions – improving social and political interactions
We will continue to enjoy expanded synchronous communication that will include an increasing variety of sensory data. Whatever we can transmit in near real time we will also be able to store and retrieve to enjoy later – even after death. This could result in improved social and political interactions but not necessarily.

* Human rights – abetting good outcomes for citizens.
Increased communication will not advance human “rights” but it might make human “wrongs” more visible so that they can be diminished.

* Human knowledge – verifying, updating, safely archiving and elevating the best of it
Advances in digital storage and retrieval will let us preserve and transmit larger quantities of human knowledge. Whether what is stored is verifiable, safe, or worthy of “elevation” is an age-old question and not significantly changed by digitization.

* Human health and well-being – helping people be safer, healthier, happier
Huge advances in medicine and the ability to manipulate genetics are in store. This will be beneficial to some segments of the population. Agricultural efficiency resulting in increased plant-based food production as well as artificial, meat-like protein will provide the possibility of eliminating human starvation. This could translate into improved well-being – or not.

* Other – you are welcome to write about an area that does not fit in the categories listed above
IMHO, the most beneficial outcomes of our “store and forward” technologies are to empower individuals to access the world’s knowledge and visual demonstrations of skill directly, without requiring an educational institution to act as “middleman”. Learners will be able to hail teachers and learning resources just like they call a ride service today.

yellow robot looking to the right, standing in front of white building
MOST HARMFUL OR MENACING changes

The biggest threat to humanity posed by current digital advances is the possibility of switching from an environment of scarcity to one of abundance. Humans evolved, both physically and psychologically, as prey animals eeking out a living from an inadequate supply of resources. Those who survived were both fearful and aggressive, protecting their genetic relatives, hoarding for their families, and driving away or killing strangers and nonconformists. Although our species has come a long way toward peaceful and harmonious self-actualization,  vestiges of the old fearful behavior persist. 

Consider what motivates the continuance of copyright laws when the marginal cost of providing access to a creative work approaches zero. Should the author continue to be paid beyond the cost of producing the work?

* Human-centered development of digital tools and systems – falling short of advocates’ goals
This is a repeat of the gun violence argument. Does the problem lie with the existence of the gun or the actions of the shooter?

* Human connections, governance and institutions – endangering social and political interactions
Any major technology change endangers the social and political status quo. The question is, can humans adapt to the new actions available to them. We are seeing new opportunities to build marketplaces for the exchange of goods and services. This is creating new opportunities to scam each other in some very old (snake oil) and very new (online ransomware) ways. We don’t yet know how to govern or regulate these new abilities. In addition, although the phenomenon of confirmation bias or echo chambers is not exactly new (think “Christendom” in 15th century Europe), word travels faster and crowds are larger than they were 6 centuries ago. So is digital technology any more threatening today than guns and roads were then? Every generation believe the end is nigh and brought on by change toward “wickedness”. If change is dangerous than we are certainly in for it!

* Human rights – harming the rights of citizens
The biggest threat here is that humans will not be able to overcome their fear and permit their fellows to enjoy the benefits of abundance brought about by automation and AI.

* Human knowledge – compromising or hindering progress.
The threat lies in increasing human dependance on machines – both mechanical and digital. We are at risk of forgetting how to take care of ourselves without them. Increasing leisure and abundance might seem like “progress” but they can also lull us into believing that we don’t need to stay mentally and physically fit and agile.

* Human health and well-being – threatening individuals’ safety, health and happiness
In today’s context of increasing ability to extend healthy life, the biggest threat is human overpopulation. We don’t get too upset if thousands of lemmings jump off a cliff but a large number of human deaths is a no no, no matter how small a percentage of the total population it is. Humanity cannot continue to improve its “health and well-being” indefinitely if it remains planet bound. Our choices are to put more effort into building extraterrestrial human habitat or self-limiting our numbers. In the absences of one of these alternatives, one group of humans is going to be deciding which members of other groups live or die. This is not a likely recipe for human happiness.

* Other – you are welcome to write about an area that does not fit in the categories listed above

1 Comment

Filed under Artificial Intelligence and Stupidity, Future Gazing, Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

by | December 3, 2022 · 3:27 pm

Skip that next latte and Send Fiston to College

Sometimes you meet a person destined for leadership and you want to make sure the way is open. This is especially true for refugees who are hanging on to the edges of economic cliffs. So here’s what we’re doing for Fiston. Forced to leave his village in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo as a young teen, Fiston made his way to the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in southwestern Uganda. There, he has emerged as a brilliant, articulate, active community leader – just the kind of young person we need to build a thriving 21st century. What blocks his path forward? No way to afford higher education. No jobs available without a college education. This is where you come in.

But wait a minute, let Fiston tell you himself…click

See more about Fiston and donate on his GoFund.me page

Thank you

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

by | September 17, 2022 · 11:14 am

Indigenous Know-how as a 21st Century Skill

Today I’ve been reading about the Zizi Afrique Foundation’s Assessment of Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE). The program focuses on:
“the need for strengthening the integration and development of 21st Century skills, and commenced work around this. More than 20 Civil Society Organizations have committed to collaborate in deepening understanding of members on values and life skills, experimenting with what works in nurturing and developing values and life skills, and developing context-relevant assessments to measure progress, share learnings and inform system change across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In the first round assessments, ALiVE will focus on 4 competencies; Problem solving, Self-Awareness, Collaboration and Respect.” (Read more at https://lnkd.in/gQsYi2dN)

I’m wondering if strengthening indigenous Life Skills might contribute more to improving the immediate quality of life for extremely poor people than “21st century skills”.

Why take this approach? To benefit right away from most vocational, entrepreneurial, and digital technology-based skills, there must be a developed infrastructure that includes water, power, transportation, and telecommunications as well as an economy that offers paid employment. The lack of this infrastructure is the very definition of “underdevelopment” and improvement usually takes decades. By contrast, human beings have lived happy, healthy, often peaceful lives for millennia by passing on knowledge of how to thrive with only locally found materials and indigenous know-how.

Ancient or indigenous lifestyles and techniques are called “primitive” by people who can only see value in the new, modern, or flashy. However, indigenous techniques can be taught quickly, make use of low or no-cost resources, do not destroy the planet, and can be implemented without waiting for infrastructure development.

Don’t indigenous, low technology skills deserve to be included as “Life Skills in programs like ALiVE and the UN Sustainable Development Goal #4 on Education just as much as highly publicized “21 Century Skills”?

Find more discussion on this and other issues of alternative and expanded education at:
https://lnkd.in/g_aCAyVc

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

by | February 5, 2022 · 2:05 pm

Are Equity and Access Enough?

One of LO*OP Center’s volunteers sent me the following questionnaire as part of his college research on Computers and Society. The wording of the questions suggested to me that we need to get smarter about the factors that impact ‘equity’ and ‘access’ to digital technology.

The first question seemed to be designed to establish my bona fides:

What has your experience been with providing low-income communities with access to technology?

newspaper article on ComputerTown USA! from May 26, 1980

ComputerTown USA! News in  neighborhoods in 1980

My response:

Before personal computers became prevalent and smart phones were invented I was filling the trunk of my car with small computers and demonstrating their use across California.
I ran a public access computer center that provided extremely low-cost access. I participated in ComputerTown, USA!, the first project to put computers in libraries for patrons’ use. This greatly facilitated access in low income communities. I also introduced computer literacy to teachers.

My experience is that members of low-income communities are just as capable of using computers and other high-tech devices as wealthy people. Access is related to having the means to purchase hardware and software but it is much more. Effective access requires a sense of agency, a commitment to continuous learning, permission to do things differently, and the availability of long-term mentors, factors that are often lacking in low-income communities.

The questionnaire continued:

Do you feel as though people from low-income households have equal access to technology?

My response:

Of course not. Income determines access to all commodities including food, health care, digital devices and connectivity.

To me the question seems like a throwback to the early 1900s when many people believed that poverty was an inherited trait like eye color or being able to curl your tongue. It’s not the poverty that’s inherited in our DNA. The poverty is maintained through cultural practices, the learned behaviors that are passed from grandparent to parent to child. Some cultural practices allow us to survive, thrive and celebrate our unique community identities. Others sap our self confidence, tell us things like, “our people are farm hands, not land owners.” Traditional cultures often rely on what worked in the past because the environment didn’t change much from one generation to the next. Schools can counter this stay-the-same mentality. They can give children permission to go beyond their heritage, to carry forward the language, art, cuisine and styles of their ancestors while revising work habits, attitudes toward money, and rejection of new technologies.

Are people from low-income communities any more or less inclined to pursue technology related studies than those from higher income communities?

Although it isn’t politically correct to admit it, most of us “apprentice” in our own families and follow careers that are similar to our parents. Our studies are highly influenced by our career choices. If your family is economically stressed you are usually less “inclined” to take risks because you have little or

no financial cushion to absorb the blow if you fail. We (educators and technologists) are making strides toward bringing low income students into our ranks but the cultural and educational barriers remain high. It’s important that we not “blame the victim.”  Instead we need to analyze more deeply the relationship between low-income and adoption of untried technologies and the risks of pursuing them. 

What do you think our education system can do to assist in giving equal access to technology and technology related skills?

Access is just the first step in the process of creating equal representation in electronic technology ownership, use, and employment. Schools are discovering that simply giving each child a tablet computer helps but does not solve the problem. Motivation is just as important. To address motivation our educational system must improve student perception of self-efficacy and overcome cultural inhibitions that prohibit participation in new employment patterns and financial success.

There is no one “silver bullet”, no single intervention that schools can implement that will magically lead to equal access to ed tech and subsequent economic success. Even multiple changes in schooling will not be enough. We need to see schools as one in a chain of community institutions that surround and support those among us who are not thriving.

 

words related to education and development

Word Cloud from Africa Voices Dialogue Workshop on 5 Feb., 2022

Leave a Comment

Filed under Educational Computing, Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

by | November 9, 2021 · 3:48 pm

Research Interest Histories and the Forces that Shape Them

journal reprintsMany of us who read research literature may notice that research is a very “trendy” business. For example, the areas of “personalized learning” and “individualized instruction” became very popular for about 10 years between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Subsequently this subject has faded away and few papers address the topic. Why?

Generalizing from my personal experience, I doubt that the shift in trend results from loss of interest on the part of the researchers. If one invests 10 years of study on a topic, boredom is unlikely to cause the shift. Perhaps we should explore three other possible influences.

First to come to mind is results. Many research projects focus on very tough nuts to crack. Figuring how to provide a custom curriculum for every student at scale isn’t easy. After chipping away at such a problem for 10 years it may continue to be of interest but an investigator may be daunted by how far in the distance a solution still appears. When significant results are scarce a line of research may be difficult to continue to pursue.

A second force may be the acceleration of technical change. In a field like education, one is concerned not only with the content being taught, the tools used to deliver that content become a subject of study in their own right. As computing devices infiltrated teaching practice, I’ve seen educational researchers struggle to separate the impact of motivation to play with the machine from both learner and investigator focus on the instructional content. Instead of varying one experimental factor at a time, researchers changed the phenomenon being investigated, the experimental methods employed and the situational context from one experiment to the next. No wonder results about the impact of computing in education have been inconclusive and/or unrepeatable.

A third force is inconsistency in funding for research. Funders, like the rest of us, tend to be dazzled by the latest and greatest innovations that are grabbing the headlines. A foundation may invest millions in a line of research such as personalized learning over a period of years and then suddenly switch to a sexier topic. When I follow the individual researchers who were publishing on personalized learning ten years ago, they show up today in searches for data analytics, MOOCs, AI in education, or workforce retraining. Personalization is no longer an effective keyword. Personalization may be an underlying factor in any or all of these new titles but the connection is difficult to track.

What makes interest histories important? By failing to sustain a line of research from conception of a problem to solution, we waste huge amounts of money and slow the impact of research way down. We discourage careers and often fail to recognize brilliant, although preliminary advances. We make it harder for those with an underlying passion for the same interest to find each other and collaborate.

complex sociogramToday we have some wonderful data visualization tools to make interest histories easier to track and thereby encourage valuable collaborations. We can display mesh diagrams showing student-professor relationships as well as co-authorship of papers and patterns of citations. We can see which journals are featuring articles we need to read, what conferences we would benefit from attending and how siloed groups of practitioners can cross-fertilize each other. The migration of keywords that indicate an underlying interest can come to light. Perhaps an even more practical use of such analytical methods would be to alert us when promising research initiatives begin to starve from loss of funding. I doubt that lack of interest is a key force here. It’s time we paid attention to what is driving trends in research.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Educational Computing, Uncategorized