Some games journalists I’ve encountered in various places over the years have a new website Jank that already has some cool stuff on it, including a seven-part series where they interview game developers who have designed climbing games from within the game Peak.
I shared this Penny Arcade reacting to writing-assisted AI with several colleagues in English.
I suspect a lot of people encountered Hunter’s Atlantic article Stop Meeting Students Where They Are when it came out in early February, but I happened to encounter it right after reading Guzdial’s post on Defining Learner-Centered Design of Computing Education which made for a good pairing. The supporter at the bottom vs. supporter at the top description and idea that supporter at the bottom is more student centered (as compared to standards centered) is interesting. But, the problem of “motivating in the middle” (which Guzdial does touch on) is a challenge I’m thinking about a lot. Sometimes, that gets mixed up with students gaining clarity about what they really want as learners, as compared to what their family, high school, media, etc. have been telling them they should want. When is it okay to help a student recognize they want to be scaling a different wall than the one I’m prepared to help them up….
“PrintingFilms.com is a collection of vintage films that showcase the technologies and processes of printing, journalism, and typography.” Some are old silent films with narration cards, such as the “Hand Composition at R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.” training film. I enjoyed the intro cards justifying why they would use film as a medium to provide training.
I anticipate Introducing Our Lord and Savior, The College’s New Strategic Initiative becoming a perennial classic for academics on par with It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.
I often ask myself to think about designing systems to allow effective coexistence with AI. The HBR article AI Doesn’t Reduce Work – It Intensifies It closes with reflections on how to design organizational systems overall (not just technical systems) – what they call an “AI Practice” – to encourage long-term productivity while using AI.
Other writing on AI this past month that caught my attention:
- How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt – I don’t see why this issue of cognitive debt wouldn’t apply to non-code projects managed by AI as well
- The AI hater’s guide to code with LLMs (The Overview) and An AI haters guide to code with LLMs (The How-to) are a snapshot of the current state
- Simon Willison’s Writing about Agentic Engineering Patterns introducing his collection of “chapters” about agentic programming design patterns
- Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation
In August 1983, you could take out a punny half-page advertisement for your C compiler that will prevent you from “retreating to assembler”….
