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College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

sentinelcolorado.com

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Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#101

Post by Planktonne »

onesociety2022 wrote: post #83
Planktonne wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of the educational process isn't the test paper, it's the learning. Gyms aren't redundant because tractors exist.

Huh? The gym analogy doesn’t even make sense. People didn’t go to gyms when they were farming with oxen. Gyms are popular now precisely because tractors exist and you don’t need manual labor to farm anymore but people still need the physical exercise for their health. Society has adapted to the arrival of new life-changing technology. Our education system needs to adapt to new technology like AI too. You can probably…

Gyms predate tractors by a couple of thousand years. You should think harder about the analogy.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#102

Post by lizknope »

My school couldn't afford typewriters in the 1980's and early 1990's.

We wrote assignments by hand using a pencil or pen.

Is that really complicated?

When I got to college and everything had to be typed I still wrote everything by hand on paper and edited with an eraser and a red pen to reorganize some sentences or paragraphs. Then I would go to the computer lab and type it in and print it out.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#103

Post by SamHenryCliff »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #30

When I did my Computer Science degree the vast majority of courses were 50% final, 30% midterm - even programming exams were hand written, proctored by TAs in class or in the gymnasium - assignments/labs/projects were a small part of your grade but if you didn’t do them the likelihood you’d pass the term exams was pretty darn low. We already had AI proof education.

[dead]

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#104

Post by llbbdd »

sarchertech wrote: post #95
llbbdd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is a nice side effect sometimes but yeah, I don't know how you could reach any other conclusion. If you're motivated to learn for learning's sake, college is an annoying slog that you know you don't need post-millenium. I literally left college early and started making money instead of spending it, because I got tired of demonstrating to my professors that I already knew everything they were teaching and th…

Or maybe you chose to waste your time because you treated college as a way to get a piece paper instead of as the only time in your life when you are surrounded by experts who will spend an hour a week answering any questions you can think of.

No time wasted at all, that option is also trivially available outside of college, it's called "email". There's a whole industry in tricking new adults into believing that college is not about getting a piece of paper, it's gross, and it's avoidable. I paid off a year of unnecessary college debt in 1/4 of a year of doing real work I learned how to do in my free time. It's a trap and articles like this where colleges are working as hard they can to make education less useful prove it.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#105

Post by meroes »

randoments wrote: post #99

Reading all these comments, I feel like US universities are a joke. I had to do all the exams in person. 100% of the grade was decided at the exam. Millions of people graduated this way and they are fine. No students were harmed in the process.

No projects, no labs, no teamwork, no papers?

What a narrow set of skills to send into your economy.

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#107

Post by dlivingston »

eichin wrote: post #56
gentleman11 wrote: post #14

I had a typewriter growing up and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing. I was amazed by it and tried writing several stories. Eventually my dad bought me a crappy old computer that was only really good for writing, and that was cool too. I loved that thing. It was small too, with an integrated monitor and keyboard, so it didn't take over the whole desk where I still used pencil and paper often Imagine being a…

There's an entire industry of "distraction free writing devices" based mostly on that nostalgia/yearning (not to say that it isn't effective, but the effectiveness is not actually being measured :-)

I have an old MacBook Air I flashed with writerdeckOS [0]. Feels like a digital typewriter.

[0]: https://writerdeckos.com/

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#108

Post by [deleted] »

lizknope wrote: post #102

My school couldn't afford typewriters in the 1980's and early 1990's. We wrote assignments by hand using a pencil or pen. Is that really complicated? When I got to college and everything had to be typed I still wrote everything by hand on paper and edited with an eraser and a red pen to reorganize some sentences or paragraphs. Then I would go to the computer lab and type it in and print it out.

[deleted]

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#109

Post by ivankelly »

meroes wrote: post #105
randoments wrote: post #99

Reading all these comments, I feel like US universities are a joke. I had to do all the exams in person. 100% of the grade was decided at the exam. Millions of people graduated this way and they are fine. No students were harmed in the process.

No projects, no labs, no teamwork, no papers? What a narrow set of skills to send into your economy.

Given the way things are going, not knowing how to use AI will be like coming out not knowing about revision control

Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work

#110

Post by llbbdd »

Planktonne wrote: post #93
llbbdd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gyms are a great example actually because tractors exist to do the economically useful work. You now optionally go to the gym to benefit from fake labor that used to be the side effect of useful work. The fake labor is now what colleges are trying to sell, and it's going to kill them.

Gyms predate tractors.

3,000 years ago, physical labor was a component of most jobs. Today gyms are for people who can afford to attend them and don't have a day job that naturally exercises them through labor. People exercising purely for health benefits, and not because the strength benefits them in their job and in other facets of their life, is new.
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