Bibs and bobs #11

 

Graphically illustrating research

I’m often drawn to images that convey ideas/information clearly. Maybe it’s the novelty. For example Erik Brynjolfsson’s digram about AI and human tasks in B&B #9 has stayed with me and is currently framing how to muddle through the notion of embedding new text into GPT. This post has some examples of using graphical representations. And, of course, the prospect of having an app like DALL.E come up with your representations will likely come to mind.

Learning to live with GPT

This is an interesting take on using ChatGPT, chatting to yourself. I think that this approach could possibly work for reflecting on research design, analysis or framings. It’s worth a try. Michelle Huang is an artist from New York she fed GPT text and then asked it questions. Here is the account.

Bryan Alexander has put together a collection of posts: Resources for exploring ChatGPT and higher education. 

The ripples of ChatGPT continue to play out. The counter ripples of moral panics in education are already growing. I expect a lot of noise and not much sanity to continue. Until we see how any of this plays out in practices, the way things get done, it’s difficult to say much more. 

In the interim, hats off to the small army of folk churning out AI apps. One or two will make the big time and create serious waves. All we can be sure of is that most of the current predictions will get it wrong.

Change, reform and scale in formal education

The ANT daemon that sits annoyingly on my shoulder keeps reminding me that most of the ways change is thought about in education are misleading at best, i.e. the early adopter stuff of Everett Rogers (think early adopters, change agents etc). Fine if you are into post the event categories but not useful if you are interested in how it happens and what keeps any change in place. 

The history of change/reform in education is a sad one. Lots of fab ideas that glow for a bit and then just fade away.

I came across this post by Sam Chaltain that offers a more interesting approach to thinking about change and importantly, scale. Chaltain’s point resonates with Hemant Taneja’s book, Unscaled [1]. We appear to be living through another unscaling in formal education as time-revered but clunky approaches to assessing students become unsettled. 

Thinking like this is anathema to those who would seek to measure the outcomes of a one size fits all education systems. The managerialoso’s [2] existence is likely under some threat.   

Music

I don’t have any formal music knowledge but the how of this app intrigued me. Riffusion is wild in so many ways. The best way to get a take on it is to play.  

                                                                                                    

[1] Taneja, H. (2018). Unscaled: how AI and a new generation of upstarts are creating the economy of the future. PublicAffairs.  

[2] Managerialoso is a term I coined to refer to, as ChatGPT suggested:

The term "managerialoso" could potentially be used to indicate that the group is overly focused on managerial practices or principles, to the point of being excessive.

The particular set of managerial principles and practices more often than not are top down, hierarchical and belong to an era long since gone. Any resemblance to managers living or dead is, of course purely coincidental.