After spending the better part of the past 2 yrs grading #AI-generated papers, Troy Jollimore, a poet, philosopher, & Cal State Chico #ethics professor, has concerns. “Massive numbers of #students are going to emerge from #university w/degrees, & into the workforce, who are essentially #illiterate,” he said. “Both in the literal sense & in the sense of being historically illiterate & having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Less than 3 months later, teaching a course called #Ethics & #ArtificialIntelligence, Green figured a low-stakes reading reflection would be safe—surely no one would dare use #ChatGPT to write something personal.
But one of his #students turned in a reflection w/ robotic language & awkward phrasing that Green knew was #AI-generated.
Sarah, a freshman at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, said she first used #ChatGPT to cheat during the spring semester of her final year of high school. (Sarah’s name, like all other current #students in this article, is changed for privacy.) After getting acquainted w/the #chatbot, Sarah used it for all her classes: Indigenous studies, law, English, & a “hippie farming class”called Green Industries. “My grades were amazing,” she said. “It changed my life.”
#education #tech #AI #dependence
Generative-#AI #chatbots — #ChatGPT but also #Google’s #Gemini, #Anthropic’s #Claude, #Microsoft’s #Copilot, & others — take their notes during class, devise their study guides & practice tests, summarize novels & textbooks, & brainstorm, outline, & draft their essays. #STEM #students are using AI to automate their #research & data #analyses & to sail through dense #coding & debugging assignments.
#Professors & #teaching assistants increasingly found themselves staring at essays filled with clunky, robotic phrasing that, though grammatically flawless, didn’t sound quite like a #college student — or even a human. 2½ years later, #students at large state #schools, the Ivies, liberal-arts schools in New England, #universities abroad, professional schools, & community colleges are relying on #AI to ease their way through every facet of their #education.
In Jan 2023, just 2 months after #OpenAI launched #ChatGPT, a survey of 1,000 #college #students found that nearly 90% of them had used the chatbot to help w/ #homework assignments. In its first year of existence, ChatGPT’s total monthly visits steadily increased month-over-month until June, when #schools let out for the summer. (That wasn’t an anomaly: Traffic dipped again over the summer in 2024.)
#idiocracy #tech #AI #dependence
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html
His unlawful arrest & detention are an extreme and unprecedented attack on the #FirstAmendment & part of the #Trump admin’s escalation of attacks against #students & #Palestinian rights advocates.
“In just four days, #ICE transferred Dr. Khan Suri among 5 different ICE facilities across 3 states – while keeping his counsel in the dark about his whereabouts – & he’s not the only one,” said #ACLU-VA Legal Dir Eden Heilman.
@igd_news @blogdiva looks as though the Washington State Patrol were arresting force.
#UniversityofWashington #students #protest #protesters #Boeing #divest #Palestine
In the latest in Academic complicity with Israel's Genocide against the Palestinian people, New York University School of Law has just barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.
#palestine #FreePalestine #FreeSpeechMatters #university #students #protest
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/03/nyu-law-students-protests-gaza-palestine-israel/
THE KENT STATE MASSACRE
It is May 4, 1970 - minutes after the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a peaceful antiwar protest at Kent State University. A horrified Mary Ann Vecchio crouches over the body of Jeffrey Miller.
That’s me on the right with a white arm band. I am watching a freaked-out fellow art student jumping in the blood of Jeffrey Miller.
Four were killed and nine wounded, protesting against the invasion of Cambodia. Days later came massacres at Augusta GA and Jackson State MS.
The shootings at Kent were choreographed at the highest levels of government. Inflammatory comments by President Nixon and Governor Rhodes of Ohio provided a framework for the shootings. Actions reeking of the work of agent provocateurs preceded the murders. In the May 4 protest was an armed FBI agent - photographed holding a gun.
For 55 years, there has been a diligent cover up of the events by politicians of both capitalist parties. KSU has attempted to airbrush the mass anti-war movement of thousands of students out of existence.
Official May 4 commemorations were placed in the hands of Stephanie Danes Smith, a former top official of the CIA - testimony to the moral bankruptcy of the KSU admin. Former “radicals” of SDS, having carved out careers as “experts” and “survivors,” have embraced Smith - a sad testimony to failed ultra-left/liberal politics.
Now, Trump officials are again making inflammatory statements and threatening students with the National Guard. Like Nixon, they believe that deporting, jailing or killing some students will put an end to the anti-war protests. They are doomed to failure.
Those of us who went through the experience of building the Vietnam antiwar movement learned this: when millions of people join in direct action in the streets, we have enormous power.
The most important way to prevent state violence is to build a mass, independent defense of civil liberties.
Together with the Vietnamese people, we defeated the war makers in Southeast Asia.
We can and must do it again.
Stop the assaults on democratic rights!
End the genocide in Gaza!
War machine off campus!
—
#KentState #students #demonstration #protest #freespeech #massacre #vietnam #cambodia #antiwar #solidarity
#May4 #Alewitz #RedSquare
Educators, Students, Parents, Kids, and supporters of free public education:
Join us at the May 17 California demonstrations against the fascist federal assault on students, teachers and schools. Come on out to defend DEI programs, LGBTQ students and staff, special education programs, mental health services, free speech and academic freedom.
Since Ricochet doesn’t seem to be around Fedi, I’m X-posting this. If you know or are a Canadian youth with an interest in journalism, this may be for you. Please feel free to pass thing along.
https://ricochet.media/job/ricochet-jhr-bipoc-youth-fellowship-2025/
Today in Labor History May 3, 1968: The first battles of the May Upheaval began in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The police arrested 500 students meeting at the University of Sorbonne to protest repression at Nanterre. Revolt broke out along the route taken by police vans, with thousands fighting against the police. Throughout the month of May and part of June, workers and students occupied schools, factories and offices. By mid-May, 10 million workers were on strike.
#Trump has proposed cutting spending on #CivilRights enforcement in #schools, work-study programs & services for #students from disadvantaged backgrounds. But one corner of the education budget he would boost: #CharterSchools [I wonder if this has something to do w/the #religious charter school case before #SCOTUS right now]. His budget proposal would increase federal support for new charter schools by $60 million, or about 8.3%.
We need your help to see the full picture of how the dismantling of the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is affecting students, parents, school employees and their wider communities.
Here's how to reach out.
https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/help-propublica-report-on-department-of-ed-ocr-civil-rights-cases?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
A Gutted Education Department’s New Agenda: Roll Back Civil Rights Cases, Target Transgender Students
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The Trump administration is subverting the traditional priorities of the department’s decimated civil rights office by making discrimination investigations practically impossible — instead enforcing its own anti-diversity campaign.
https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-civil-rights-donald-trump-discrimination?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
As #CivilRights prosecutors conducted the investigation #EmilBove demanded, they pushed back against steps he wanted taken, arguing they were either not justified by available facts or contrary to #law, or both.
At one point,Bove instructed #FBI agents on the NY joint terrorism task force to put on their raid jackets, go to #Columbia & stand in a phalanx near #protesters. Within the civil rights division, the instruction was viewed as deeply improper & a blatant attempt to #intimidate #students.
The investigation began shortly after masked protesters barged into Milbank Hall, a building at the #Columbia-affiliated #Barnard College, on Feb 26 to demonstrate against the expulsion of #students who had been accused of disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. Video shows students pushing past a security guard & occupying a hallway. School ofcls said at the time that the guard was assaulted & taken to the hospital for minor injuries.
A top #Trump appointee in the #DOJ ordered an aggressive investigation…of #student #protesters at #ColumbiaUniversity, raising anger & alarm among career prosecutors & investigators who saw it as politically motivated & lacking legal merit….
The demand for the inquiry into #students who protested #Israel’s conduct…in #Gaza also prompted pushback from a federal magistrate judge, who believed some of the steps being sought by… #EmilBove were unjustified & might violate the #FirstAmendment.
To other #blind #students, what tools have you used to help you format your papers with #APA styling and #citations? My #university provides #Perrla for free to students, but it doesn't seem to be the most #accessible with #ScreenReaders, at least not the online version. I haven't tried the add-on for #MicrosoftWord. With the online version, though, I don't see any keyboard shortcuts, and when you move into the edit box to start writing a paper, focus gets trapped there and it's hard to get out, so I don't think it's the best tool for me. The only other tool I know of is the reference manager built into Microsoft Word, but it seems to have fewer features and doesn't really help you format your paper like Perrla does, something I was looking forward to since all the APA rules for styling seem hard to remember.
#College #CollegeStudent #accessibility #JAWS #ScreenReaders #writing
@mastoblind @main
