There’s no shortage of things to worry about when it comes to the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. When I talk to students about AI, by far the biggest concern is about whether the jobs that they’ve spent years of their lives preparing for will just be gone. For those of us who work n…
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A Computer Romance Revisited
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2007/8/my-computer-romance Years ago, a good friend wrote this essay titled “My Computer Romance.” It was a eloquent reflection on a moment in academic life when the internet—still young, still full of promise—was beginning to reshape how we learned, taught, and connected. The technologies of that era were wikis and blogs, not large language models. But…
Reframing Assignments as Learning Projects
If I could whisper one piece of advice into the ear of every incoming college student, it would be this: reframe your understanding of assignments. Stop seeing them as mere tasks to be completed and graded. Start viewing them as individual learning projects – short, focused prototypes designed to get you valuable feedback from experts…
A Spat With My Chatbot
I had a bit of a spat with m Chatbot this morning. I was reading a post by Doc Searles on his blog. Searles wrote about his experience trying to use to answer a question about theme song for a podcast. He is the co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, along with Rick Levine, Christopher Locke…
Using Bing AI to Fact Check
I was able to use the Bing Chat this morning to fact check the lecture at the Chautauqua. I’m trying to use Bing as my primary interface to generative AI as much as I can. It’s currently the best free version of Large Language Model, and I’m recommending for anyone who wants to learn more…
Avoiding Yak Shaving
What is Yak Shaving? One of my focus areas for the new year (though definitely not a “resolution” in the classic sense) was to develop a new website focused on Life/Work design. There are multiple challenges to focus including being distracted by shiny objects and a passion for yak shaving. What, you might ask, is…
Not Nearly the Threat I Thought I’d Be
One of the last presentations that I did before I finished at William and Mary was to Mark Hofer’s doctoral class on student engagement. The topic was engaging adult learners, and it gave me the opportunity to look back over my time at William and Mary and to think about how it was shaped to…
Requiem for a Dead Blog
When I met our new president for the first time. “Oh, you’re Gene Roche”, she said. “I looked at your web site.” That probably wasn’t a positive comment… The site hadn’t been updated in a year. It was a WordPress blog with a theme that had been pretty outdated when I installed it in 2016…
Writing my way to a retirement plan.
Yesterday, I posted an overview of a process that I had recommended to one of my former colleagues to help get started on the process of finding a possible focus for her retirement. She’s an extremely accomplished woman, with deep expertise in her field, a long record of achievement, and plenty of energy to invest…
Writing Your Way to a Meaningful Retirement
I’m in the midst of my third month of being “retired” from William and Mary and things are admittedly quite different than I had imagined. In this series of posts, I’m going to share some ideas about how to move into a new life role as a “retired person” post pandemic. In July of 2019,…
