To say that "the power of AI can change learning" without disclaimers is to ignore the neuroscience of learning, grading culture, and wider context of our modern educational system. 7/7

route to that goal, regardless of whether or not I learn along the way. If we ever want to see AI be used productively in classrooms, we have a lot of work to do first in the realm of shifting the grading culture and cultural expectations of education. 6/

If the goal truly was learning, pushing AI into school MIGHT (big emphasis there) be possible as a way to support student learning. However, if my goal is to accumulate the most points (as opposed to achieve high levels of learning), then our very efficient brain will see AI as the fastest... 5/

to claim that AI can support student learning ignores the reality of the high-stakes grading culture present in most American schools. Points and grades, which (arguably) were intended to be measures of a goal (learning), have now become the goal in our educational system. 4/

expertise to be able to critically analyze the AI's outputs. Someone who needs to begin learning a skill does not have the ability to do that, and thus, will naturally slide into cognitive outsourcing because they can't be an active agent. More importantly... 3/

For context, cognitive outsourcing is simply letting an AI do all the thinking for you, and cognitive offloading is using AI to support your own active thinking processes. For starters, cognitive offloading is only effective and possible when you have enough... 2/

I really wish more of the people pushing AI into schools understood the difference between cognitive outsourcing versus cognitive offloading, and more importantly, how our current grading culture makes it nearly impossible for a student to choose the former when the latter's an option. 1/

I assumed (hoped) that would be the case, but it was a surprise when I watched a student do it today.

For those who don't know... Chromebooks just have this feature built in. Right click. Search with Google lens. Answer. No thinking needed. 🙄

Nearly ten years later, this is still one of my favorite images I've ever made to demonstrate a concept.

Today I learned my middle schoolers are pretty well versed in the lyrics of “Don’t Stop Believing.” I learned that when an instrumental acoustic version of it came on in the playlist I was using to help us focus for a reading diagnostic. You can imagine how that went.

“Is this for a grade?” “It’s for learning.” My latest response to the age-old question. And the play goes on, my friends. The play goes on.

Why young people hate AI even more?

I know I've been out of the game for a bit, but the ability to do voice, video, and screencast feedback (in addition to the comment bank where you can link resources) is a game-changer. Love it!

Sometimes it's great to have positive feedback from a teacher, but I can't understate the power of that same feedback coming from peers. The best part is that no one really even realizes what's happening, but everyone can feel it. 3/3