I ran 14 Ed Tech post themes through the Kagi’s “LinkedIn Speak” translator. Here’s what it helped me decode:

1. Equity

“I want every child to be addicted my tech tool, so I can make millions, while pretending I care about equity.”

2. Pedagogical Strategy

“I know nothing about education, pedagogy, or child development, but in my uninformed opinion teachers should just teach the way I very short sightedly think they should in response to AI.”

3. Scale

“Help me get rich by creating a sense of fomo for schools who are not using my tool.”

4. Technology Interventions

“I hate educators so much, I’d rather us invest in untested technology over evidence-based human interventions in education.”

5. Tech-Company PD

“We should be thankful that the big tech companies are providing free PD to schools and ignore the potential for bias in their sales pitch.”

6. Worksheet Generators

“I built an app that replaces a worksheet with a slightly worse digital worksheet”

7. Access

“I call everything ‘access’ because it gets me grant money.”

8. Future Ready

“Let’s make sure students are prepared for the future by training them in current technology that will be obsolete next year.”

9. AI-Powered

“I put ‘AI-powered’ in front of a study app while completely missing the point of productive friction in learning.”

10. Stakeholder Alignment

“Teachers told us they don’t want this. But, who cares? It’s flashy enough for the policymakers!”

11. Engagement

“Our engagement metric for students is basically screen addiction rebranded.”

12. Free Tools

“Our ‘free tier’ exists solely to harvest student data for our Series B pitch deck.”

13. Case Studies

“Our pilot school showed no improvement but the principal said something nice so we’re calling it a success story.”

14. Personalized Learning

“I’ve said ‘personalized learning’ 400 times and hope no one sees that it still just means the algorithm picks the next video based on a guess.”

Remember to bookmark this to return to it later when you need help translating an Ed Tech sales pitch! Try it yourself at https://translate.kagi.com/.

If this post got you thinking, check out last week’s post, where I think about how we should teach writing inspired by Grammarly or my attempt at some inspirational poetry!

Image by Peter H

Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, recently shared that he makes no time or effort for introspection. He highlighted that introspection was fueled by Freud in the early 20th century, and before that, “Great men of history didn’t sit around doing this stuff at any prior point.”

His argument really resonated with me! I’d save so much time by not “looking backwards,” “feeling guilty,” and “thinking about my internal self.” It’s been an exhausting run, and before I look only forward, I figured I’d peek backwards one last time, for nostalgia’s sake. So, here’s my retrospection on the beauty of humanity before introspection.

1. King David (900s BCE)

King David was a “doing” man! In one lifetime, he defeated Goliath, conquered Jerusalem, and authored over a hundred psalms! During this time, he focused on the future and didn’t waste time “looking inward” or “feeling guilty.”

Even then, he was a great content creator and got some popular writing done reflecting his forward looking attitude:

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.1

2. Yajnavalkya (700s BCE)

Yajnavalkya, one of the first philosophers in recorded history, is widely credited with influencing various developments in Hinduism. As an innovator, he developed the concept of “neti neti” to define what the self is. But rather than introspect, he focused on defining the self by thinking about what the self is not made of.

He did get a little dangerously close to introspection in older age, which caused him to give up all his worldly possessions, and say things like:

…as there can be no water without the sea, no touch without the skin, no smell without the nose, no taste without the tongue, no form without the eye, no sound without the ear, no thought without the mind, no wisdom without the heart, no work without hands, no walking without the feet, no scriptures without the words, so there can be nothing without the Self.2

3. Alexander the Great (300s BCE)

Another great conqueror! Alexander was busy from age 13 and never did look back again. Alexander had no time for introspection, and despite being followed around by the likes of Aristotle, managed to stay focused on his goals.

The only reflecting Alexander did was on how his humanity constrained him from doing more:

He was wont to say that sleep and the act of generation chiefly made him sensible that he was mortal; as much as to say, that weariness and pleasure proceed both from the same frailty and imbecility of human nature.3

4. Marcus Aurelius (100s CE)

We should look at the rulers of the past to be rulers of the future, and Aurelius is another perfect role model. Never one to waste time introspecting, he focused on running the Roman Empire. His private notes, later published as Meditations, are often mistaken for introspection rather than what they clearly are: forward-looking operational notes.

For example, Aurelius was surely talking of gold mines when he wrote:

Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.4

5. Da Vinci (1400s CE)

A man of many trades, he spent his time constantly being productive. An artist, inventor, scientist, and mathematician, Da Vinci spared no minute to push forward, grow, and stay concerned only with the external world. Writing backwards to keep his projects in stealth mode, he knew that dominion is what we should seek:

You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself.5

6. Benjamin Franklin (1700s CE)

Besides being an inventor, publisher, diplomat, and scientist, he even had time to help found the country. He focused on writing, experimenting, and negotiating, rather than thinking about his “internal self.”

Franklin’s journal-keeping habit, served as inspiration for his revolutionary projects:

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.6

7. Abraham Lincoln (1800s CE)

Keeping a country together during its only Civil War requires your A-game. Focused on winning debates, giving memorable speeches, and commanding the winning side in a war, Lincoln saved the reflecting for the Confederacy. In one of his #winning speeches, he explains:

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.7

8. Winston Churchill (1900s CE)

Steadfast at protecting his country and ushering in a new wave of global power, Churchill was the ultimate man of action! Churchill was out there leading his troops, not in his armchair writing reflections. What was his Nobel Prize for after all? He also remained super fixed on the future:

Every night I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done anything effective during the day.8

I could go on and on with visionaries who succeeded because introspection hadn’t been invented yet: Confucius, Augustine, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Dostoevsky, Eisenhower, even the Buddha. The best of humanity all lived before Freud started us on this faulty introspection path. Wasting time reflecting, taking responsibility, and reconciling your inner voice is causing the overwhelming weakness we are witnessing every day. It’s time to return to the world’s greatest role models and give up introspection!

n.b. The women of history, on the other hand, were clearly pre-infected with the disease of introspection, which must be why Andreessen doesn’t even bother thinking about what they were doing at any prior point.

If this post got you thinking, check out last week’s post, where I think about how we should teach writing inspired by Grammarly or my attempt at some inspirational poetry!

Image by Peter H

Grammarly is at the forefront of helping students learn how to write in the age of AI. So, here, I draw inspiration from their new tools, and ponder: If Grammarly were a writing center tutor, how might they answer common student questions?

Can you look over this paper to help me correct it?

Sure, here’s a copy with suggestions to rewrite every sentence into how I would write it. You just have to click “accept all changes”, and you should be good to go.

I don’t know if I did enough research before writing this. What should I do?

Easy peasy! Let’s sit down together, and I can flag all the claims that I think need a citation, and suggest them. You won’t have to waste time reading the papers or evaluating your argument against them. Remember: confirmation bias is a strength to be channeled!

I copied some paragraphs that said what I was going to say anyways. Should I just add the cite to my bibliography?

Yes. Let me add that for you. Also, I’ll rephrase these paragraphs so that it uses different words to say the same things. That avoids any doubts about plagiarism.

I have three papers due on the same day, should I get an extension?

Please don’t worry! If you send me one sentence about the topics you’re thinking about, I can prepare a draft for you to start with. If you don’t have time for that, just send me the assignments, and I’ll choose a topic for you, too.

What grade will my professor give me on this?

I’ve known your professor for years, so just send me your paper and I can tell you what they’ll say. I can give you my written justification, so that if they give you a different grade, you can advocate for yourself.

I keep getting points off on papers in this class, but can’t seem to figure out why.

Send me your paper, and I can edit it based on what I know about them and their RateMyProfessors profile. It should be fairly simple to deconstruct what they are looking for, so you don’t have to ask them.

I used some additional interventions to get this paper written. Is it obvious?

I do see some signs of those interventions that would get flagged. Let me rewrite it for you to sound more natural and just like you. The best part is that no one has a way to flag those corrections, too.

Writing is taking me too long. By the time I research, read, take notes, write, and then rewrite, it’s 10 hours!

Oh gosh! Homework shouldn’t take more than a few minutes at most. Let’s see if I can take some of that off your plate. I can review the literature, form a thesis, incorporate class materials, create a draft, and prepare your citations. You will just have to hand it in. Actually, if you give me your Canvas password, I’ll handle all of that for you (drawing on some additional inspiration from Einstein for this lesson).

Is there anything you won’t do for me?

We draw a hard line at writing your paper for you. We can create a draft, make all the edits, rewrite every sentence, find and insert citations, adjust your tone, predict your grade, scan for any integrity issues, and make sure you feel supported in the writing process. But, we won’t write the paper for you.

This still sounds like cheating?

The amazing thing is that it’s not. Trust me; some schools even pay for this service. As long as you are physically present, anything we do for you is assistance. It’s your name on the work, and that’s what really matters.

As I reflect on the role of an educator in the age of AI, I’m happy to have examples of forward-thinking education technology tools like Grammarly to help guide the way toward doing right by our students. I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn from them next.

If this post got you thinking, check out last week’s post! I took a stab at some poetry.

Image by Alexandra Koch

Take up the Tech Bro's burden— 
    Send forth the best ye coders— 
Go add your code to Github
  To serve your markets' need;
To build in heavy darkness
 For offline folk and wild—
Your newly acquired peoples,
  Half luddite and half child. 

Take up the Tech Bro's burden— 
    Through user churn abide
To veil the threat of bias
    And check the show of greed;
By open letter and simple,
    An hundred tweets made plain,
To guard another's data,
    And work the investor's gain. 

Take up the Tech Bro's burden— 
    The savage wars of reach—
Bridge all the gaps of access
    And bid the friction cease; 
And when IPO is nearest
    The tool for others built,
Watch regulators' folly
    Bring all your scale to nought.

Take up the Tech Bro's burden—
    No tawdry rule of scrum,
But toil of bot and intern— 
    The tale of daily sprints. 
The apps ye shall not download, 
    The links ye shall not click, 
Go make them with your coding, 
    And lock them in your stack! 

Take up the Tech Bro's burden—
    And earn his old badges, 
The blame of all ye users, 
    The hate of those ye fork— 
The cry of hosts ye upload 
    (Ah slowly!) toward the cloud— 
"Why brought ye us from quiet, 
    "Our loved unwired night?" 

Take up the Tech Bro's burden—
    Ye dare not debug less— 
Nor call too loud on mission 
    To cloak your pivoting; 
By all ye pitch or ship out, 
    By all ye hack or do, 
The mindless scrolling peoples 
    Shall weigh your growth and you. 

Take up the Tech Bro's burden—
    Have done with demo days— 
The lightly proffered benchmark, 
    The easy, debt-free raise. 
Comes now, to search your repo 
    Through all the start-up years, 
Cold-edged with dear-bought feedback, 
    The changelog of your peers. 

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