Mike Paul

The Battle of Access: Mississippi’s New Law and the Fight for Information Freedom

In a world where information is increasingly digital and accessible, a new law in Mississippi is causing a stir. The law, Mississippi Code 39-3-25, part of House Bill 1315, has effectively banned anyone under the age of 18 from accessing digital materials made available through public and school libraries without explicit parental or guardian permission. …

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Would AIs make better professionals than humans?

Doug Johnson posits: One quality that AI may put to extremely positive use would be objectivity – a lack of personal biases or prejudices. Properly programmed, my financial advisor AI should not be advising me to invest in areas where the advisor would get the biggest fee, but where I would stand to make the …

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What Will We Do with AI Tools in Education?

The buzz around AI writing tools continues in the education world. Of course, there are several AI tools that we’re already using, whether in the classroom or not. We were using AI tools long before anyone thought about them invading our classrooms, but we didn’t think they had classroom applications. But none have gotten the …

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More Thoughts on ChatGPT and AI in Education

From Tyler Cowen: No, it is not converging upon human-like intelligence or for that matter AGI. Still, the broader lesson is you can build a very practical kind of intelligence with fairly simple statistical models and lots of training data. And there is more to come from this direction very soon. Tyler Cowen Also, my friend Micah …

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Advice for Brand New Teachers: You Don’t Have to Impress People

Reflecting on my first year in the classroom, I was utterly obsessed with impressing everyone. Maybe it was because I came to teaching as a second career. Maybe it was due to my involvement at conferences and summits, even as a brand-new teacher. Whatever my reasons for wanting to show everyone how good I was, …

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Why Do We Spend So Much Time on Inert Learning in Our Classrooms?

How much time do we spend on inert learning daily in our classrooms? I’ve been asking that myself a lot lately as we’ve had more and more discussions in my schools and across the country about deeper learning and what our students are learning in schools. I’m watchful of any inert learning happening in classrooms …

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Gun Control and Schools

I’m having a hard time putting into words my feelings over the past couple of days. I work in education but I’m also a parent. I worry about the kids and teachers whom I work with but I also worry about sending my daughter to school. Note: she just finished 4th grade, which has struck …

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Pike Mall Tech: 17 May 2022

Today’s Links The Trials of Academic Publishing Teachers are Leaving, Here’s Why Colophon The Trials of Academic Publishing (Permalink) First things first: I appreciate the need for peer review and understand why we have academic journals. I’m not the person you need to convince that any work any scientist or academic publishes needs to be …

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Pike Mall Tech: 11 May 2022

Today’s Links Rethinking the Honor Roll Stop Cancelling Recess Linkus Randomus Colophon Rethinking the Honor Roll It’s time for educators to make honor a core value in schools. It’s time to build honor into our curriculums and establish it as one of the primary social and emotional learning goals we work to help students achieve. …

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Ed Policy Changes for “Future Ready” Students

“Today, various pathways exist for future success that value all learning. We need to move beyond a narrow focus on success as only a four-year college degree that ignores entrepreneurial opportunities, career and technical education, and the evolving nature of work… When we expand our vision to encompass all these pathways, we see that social …

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