ChatGPT: your new partner in the classroom (whether you like it or not)

It is no use burying our heads in the sand and banning AI-based tools. The horses are out of the barn and are running wild in all directions. These tools are becoming more and more powerful and are being used in new ways every day. We have a real chance to help students understand their own responsibility, take charge of their own learning, and use this amazing technology to improve their self-efficacy, their knowledge, their outcomes, and ultimately their lives. Let’s use it!

Final Thoughts on “Failure to Disrupt”

I wanted to start my last blog post with the same quotation that I used in the first, because I believe that it feels like the missing link in educational technology: My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others. Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, 1984 This quote was written almost 40 years ago, yet how many technological tools…

CMOOCs with a Mandatory C!

“The most powerful experiences in peer-guided learning at scale tend to be deep, collaborative, sustained, and interest-driven. These characteristics, however, are at odds with the pedagogical approach of most schools, which usually require that learning experiences are experience individually, not collectively, along a set of mandated curriculum guidelines, not determined by students’ interests, and for uniform time-spans – the class period, the marking period, the semester – not sustained over time.” Justin Reich, Failure to Disrupt Throughout the book Failure to Disrupt, I was constantly struct by the recurring theme of community, connectedness, and lack thereof. The proponents of learning…

Introduction to Learning Technologies

Reading through the history of learning technologies presents a woefully consistent approach. From the earliest mechanical computation machines, through television, the internet, and now virtual reality and artificial intelligence, the trend has always been for those in power to become enamored with the latest technology and try to shoe-horn it into the education space. Instead of asking “what is the cheapest way we can use this exciting new thing in education?”, we should be asking: “where are the weak points in education and what kind of technology would strengthen them?” Of course, it is not until recently that we would…

Debugging Away From Failure

Link to PDF: https://www.bartucz.com/mrbartucz/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/EPSY-5124-Debugging-Away-From-Failure-2.pdf Debugging Away From Failure Or How To Avoid Unrecoverable Loss John Bartucz Department of Curriculum and Instruction University of Minnesota EPSY 5124 – Debugging Failure Dr. David DeLiema December 22, 2021 Abstract Failure means many things to many people. From a low grade on a math test in elementary school to a space shuttle explosion, the word has different meanings and consequences for all of the individuals and groups involved. How can a single event be placed at so many different places on the continuum from success to failure by so many different people? This paper…

The Culture of Computer Science, A Short Review of Literature

Abstract Popular media and academic literature are rife with statistical descriptions of “underrepresentation” in computer science education and careers. Because of this, there is an increasing amount of research on what can be done in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities to attract women and students of color. A related effort is attempting to close the so-called “leaky pipeline” in which students lose their interest in computer science and pursue other subjects in high school or college. This literature review advances the idea that in order to treat these symptoms, the underlying cause must be addressed: the culture of computer…