Stephen Downes

Dean Shareski pushes back against "the so-called thought leaders out there who seem to have a clear handle on how to best consider AI for learning and schools." You see them a lot on LinkedIn and, of course, on their own web pages, offering "frameworks and approaches neatly packaged, intended to support leaders, educators and students in their professional and instructional use of AI." The reality isn't that straightforward. Take the simple question of using AI to help design slides for a presentation. PowerPoint will incessantly offer suggestions. Sometimes they're useful, but sometimes the personal touch is what's needed. There's no general rule. Me, I prefer to design by hand, but that's mostly because I enjoy designing. Though I like to think there's an intuitive aspect, where my design reinforces my message in a way that an AI-generated design would not. It's hard to say. Image: one of mine, that I'm pretty sure an AI would never use to illustrate this post.