This line jumps out to me:
> Everything slows down. It’s like back in the old days when you really did one thing at a time.
Why did we turn computers into frenetic, distracted multitasking machines? What would it take to reverse course?
College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
351–360 of 451 posts
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#352Why didn't she ask to write by hand?
Because trying to read the handwriting of 100 students would take a lot of time?
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a poor comparison given they said CS theory . I could easily imagine a CS theory course that doesn't involve any programming language at all.
Yes, there are some university CS courses on topics like discrete mathematics, theory of computation, and ethics that don't involve any programming.
Gotta know your math syntax in those classes
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#354When 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.
An old friend told me she'd hand in her assignments on paper, and would receive the computers output the following week.
Apparently you learn to double check your work!
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if the companies hiring students from those universities have come to understand there’s no guarantee they learned any of the material.
The dirty secret in HR is that performance in most regular jobs doesn't really depend on having learned anything in college. Companies only require a college degree to filter the candidate pool down to a manageable level. Line managers know they'll have to train entry level hires on almost everything. IBM used to hire software developers based on aptitude test scores regardless of formal education, then put them thro…
IBM (among other companies) used to have multi-month internal training programs based on their specific needs. And, in many cases, the expectation was that you'd be there for 25 years or whatever afterwards.
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a bad point, but the "calculator" metaphor is not the best one. First, schools don't create schoolwork. Teachers in different disciplines do. Second, calculators aren't in pervasive use across disciplines; AI products are. Third, schools provide these AI products for free - teachers don't. So a student in a psych methods class uses a free tier to create lit reviews, or whatever. The asymmetry there creates a…
> The only reason there is pervasive student use is because someone made it free. The CoPilot window that comes with the basic tier of 365 and all the other in-app copilots are what my students have; the Google Docs stuff exists, and the Grammarly stuff exists, and the best way to "ban" it (which is just fine as an approach) is to make it even slightly more expensive. If someone does that, yeah, I think some of these…
Bit silly to read that as a "solution." Financial gatekeeping? Unis don't set costs for AI products.
>thus making the richies have access but the poors not to?
I don't know that you need "thus" to describe the status quo. My school has tiny little Dells that are ten years old inside our Prometheus units. You think we're gonna upgrade each unit in the school with costs as they are, or do you think MS is just going to suddenly "provide" a cloud computing solution?
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK they claimed that girls did worse on one-off exams and so the one-off exams structure favoured boys. When course had more graded coursework, girls did better. So that was the justification used to switching to a less impactful final exam. No idea how true that is. We were also told learning a phonetic alphabet was better for young children learning to read than using the old ABC system. As far as I have hea…
That sounds like a good reason to keep the exam model, since boys are already at a strong and widening educational disadvantage compared to girls.
That would make sense if the stated goals were the actual goals.
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the entire purpose of schools is to teach you how to answer some specific set of questions; they want to improve your knowledge and skills in various domains, and the questions are merely a roundabout way to assess that. If you can answer the questions but don't know the knowledge, you're missing the most important part.
For most students the "purpose" of studying computer science at university is to get a better job and make more money. And for the people for whom this isn't the case, they're generally smart and motivated enough to learn the extra details they're interested in by themselves.
that is a trade school.. there is nothing wrong with trade school, but it is not the same thing as a general education.
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#359If you need a typewriter, there's a company in New Jersey that makes them for the prison trade in a lucite housing to prevent prisoners from hiding contraband inside.
Not sure if China manufactures new machines. India supposedly still manufactures them.
Re: College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work
#360If you need a typewriter, there's a company in New Jersey that makes them for the prison trade in a lucite housing to prevent prisoners from hiding contraband inside. Not sure if China manufactures new machines. India supposedly still manufactures them.
Swintec