The answer is, “Well, yes, probably, if you do certain kinds of writing for a living”:
“One team of researchers ran an analysis showing the industries and occupations that are most exposed to artificial intelligence, based on a model adjusted for generative language tools. Topping the list were college humanities professors, legal services providers, insurance agents and telemarketers. “
A few quick questions:
The least creative and least interesting part of writing is editing someone else’s stuff and sometimes our own. Programs like Grantable (mentioned in the article) can already generate writing for review, but with the amount of boilerplate language needed, wouldn’t it be even more boring to work through something that you didn’t write?
Although ChatGPT will cut down on grammatical errors, how satisfying will it be to read, review, and (unless you’re an ungrading professor) grade student projects? Right now, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that you and the student are exchanging ideas and that there’s a mind behind both sides of the equation.
Will it seem useful or pointless to suggest creative ideas for improvement knowing that, instead of thinking about them, the student may run them through another ChatGPT loop and “improve” the paper that way? And if it does improve the paper, who (or what) should receive the credit for the improvement?
Writing assessment software has been around for years and has been (last I checked) found wanting if not positively unethical by writing teachers. With the vast improvements of ChatGPT, will it be used for assessment?
If students are using ChatGPT to write essays and teachers use some variant of that to assess them, then what are we doing here except batting software-written writing back and forth as if playing a giant game of Pong?
There’s a real market for organic, locally sourced, artisanal, responsibly farmed, non-animal-tested, non-GMO, etc. etc. goods in the marketplace.
Will we also see signs saying “No ChatGPT was used in the production of this book; it is the result of human hand and brain labor” and “Artisanal Writing Sold Here”? I’m kidding but curious to see what happens.
This week, I figured out how to write on PowerPoint slides with the Apple pencil and record that in Zoom. You classroom tech wizards can skip this post because you doubtless have a far better solution, but this one was a game-changer for me. I’m writing it down for two reasons (1) possibly to help those teaching online who aren’t tech wizards with an easy method to mark up and record their lectures and (2) so I don’t forget how to do this.
Background: Last year, WSU moved from Blackboard to Canvas, which includes Panopto as a video capture suite. I dutifully took the several weeks of training in all this from WSU’s office of AOI (Academic Outreach and Innovation), but I ran into a roadblock when trying to record with Panopto. I could never trust that it would actually show just the PowerPoint, as I told it to, and when it did show the PowerPoint, it would only show the speaker’s view. AOI couldn’t solve it, and neither could I, so I went to plan B.
Plan B was Zoom, which does a great job of recording PowerPoint and a tiny picture of me in the corner, so the students know that I exist and am not exclusively, or even primarily, a disembodied voice. Here’s the process:
Open a Zoom meeting. Click on Share Screen, and go to the three dots that indicate more settings. Click on Record on this Computer. Note: I learned to share screen before I started recording after recording a lot of videos that began with my large concerned face clicking around to share after the recording started.
2. After you record the lecture, stop recording, end the meeting, and navigate to where the recording is on your computer. On mine, it goes to the Documents – Zoom folder. I don’t edit it because (1) I don’t have time and (2) I hate those videos where every pause is edited out, leaving the viewer gasping for breath.
3. Once the .mp4 recording is available, upload it to Panopto – Upload Media.
3. This will take a little while. After it’s uploaded and ready, click on Edit. Edit allows you to turn on Smart Chapters (based on the titles of your PowerPoint slides) and also to generate Automatic Captions. You can then Share the video link in other places in the Canvas course space (Modules).
4. The captions and so on will take a little while to render, but that’s basically it.
Now here is the game-changer part:
When I was recording with Zoom and using PowerPoint on my desktop, I could annotate slides using the Zoom tool. But if you use the Zoom annotation tool, the annotations hang there on all the subsequent slides like decorations on a Christmas tree, unless you remember to clear them for each slide. By the end slide, the whole thing looks like a Jackson Pollock.
This latter task assumes that you can juggle four things at once–Zoom, the annotation tool, the turn-off-the-annotation tool, and your brain. It also assumes the mouse will click on these instead of balking and sulking in a corner somewhere.
Enter the iPad! If you bring up the PowerPoint on an iPad and use an Apple pencil for annotations, these problems disappear.
Connect the iPad to your desktop or laptop computer. I use a cable, since it’s usually more stable than AirPlay, but you could also use AirPlay.
Open a Zoom meeting, click on Share Screen, and choose iPhone/iPad via Cable.
Open the presentation in PowerPoint on the iPad and select Draw. Make sure the Apple pencil is already connected via Bluetooth.
Go to Slide Show – Start and begin your lecture. You can use the Apple pencil to write things (much easier than manipulating a mouse), circle, cross out, and otherwise use the kinds of emphasis and explanations available when you’re writing on a whiteboard in a physical classroom.
Best of all, once you’re finished recording and are closing the PowerPoint on the iPad, it asks you whether you want to preserve the annotations. I always say “No, in thunder,” but you could choose to keep them.
Would a whiteboard feature be easier? Maybe. I’ve tried whiteboard features like Google Jamboard but couldn’t get them to do what I wanted; also, Jamboard tended to snap itself shut at odd moments. Trusty old PowerPoint won’t quit, and it is wonderful for annotating and discussing text when you’re doing close reading.
Would a document camera be easier? I sometimes use a little inSwan USB Document Camera that I bought for teaching from home at the beginning of the pandemic, which does a good job of showing actual books. But to use that for close reading and discussing texts means switching the camera view in Zoom in the middle of the video, and it’s not necessary if you have the text already typed in to PowerPoint.
inSwan Document Camera with Documate.
So, in short: this method is easy, reliable, and fun. I can’t ask for more than that from a tool for teaching.
I had already moved my work to the WSU Research Exchange and had asked whether links from research exchanges could be used in MLA Commons; Kathleen Fitzpatrick had tweeted back “not yet,” so maybe this new iteration will have that as a possibility.
In the meantime, I’m uploading my work–well, all that it’s legal to post–into the CORE section of Humanities Commons as well as in the WSU Research Exchange. As with all new spaces and technologies, there’s some duplication of effort (think about the evolution from vinyl to cassette to CD to downloads in music). It’s a little like Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black seeing a newer, smaller CD format and saying, “Guess I’ll have to buy The White Album again.”
It’ll be worth it, though, for the possibility of sharing work in a broader space.
An article on Mashable tells us that “best” is dead as an email closing. Abrupt closings are now the way to go, it seems. But everything old is new again, I guess.
In 1988, when we had Bitnet addresses, closings depended on the level of formality. For formal emails–not that there were as many academics to write to back then–I used good old “Sincerely,” like a letter. Or “Cordially.” For friends, no closing, or maybe just your name.
When we used names, we used “Dear X” for a while, and then “Hi, X.” Getting rid of that comma–which is grammatically necessary but Not Done in email, which then was “e-mail”–was a hard habit to break for me.
But you had to pay attention to what you were typing and keep it short, because the email client we used back then on those black background-and-amber-lettered VAX terminal screens (Pre-PINE) wouldn’t let you go up a line to correct a typo. There was no possibility of cut and paste. If there was a typo and you’d already gone on to the next line, you started over, if you were writing a formal message. If you were writing to a friend, the friend wouldn’t care.
Then in the early 1990s I started seeing the ones we see today: “Best,” “Best regards,” and, in one from about 1997, “All best,” which puzzled me at first until I grew to like the economy of it.
As more people sent email, the closings varied more: “Warm regards,” “Cheers,” “Best wishes,” and the now-ubiquitous “Thanks” even though no favor had been requested or rendered.
In the 2010s, people started to use “I hope you are well” at the beginning of all emails, and the signature files grew from a manageable and agreed-upon length of 4 lines to 5+ lines, sometimes with graphics. Some started using just the closing (“Thanks,” usually) and the signature file without typing a name above it, maybe because they’d already used up all the courtesy at the beginning of the message.
And now, we’re told, “Best” is out, as is “Thanks,” because there must be fashions and fashion experts in all things, even email.
I’m still a fan of “Best” or “Thanks” because leaving just the period at the end of the last sentence seems curt.
But another very old email rule, one I internalized long ago, is that you can mimic the style of the messages you’re sent. If you don’t want to use a closing or salutation in a message to me, my reply won’t have them, either.
It won’t be strange. It’ll be 1988 all over again.
The new Blackboard really, really wants you to use its inline tools to grade and comment on student papers. But what if you have a system in place already, including autotext comments you’ve prepared (which won’t work inline) and don’t want to follow Blackboard’s master plan?
This is largely a bookmarking post so I won’t forget how, so please feel free to click away if you already know how to do this.
To download papers (pretty straightforward):
Go to Full Grade Center.
Go to the column where the assignment is.
Click on the drop-down arrow and scroll down to Assignment File Download.
Check “Select All Users” or “Select Ungraded” or whatever.
Download these as a zip file.
Once you’ve graded them, how do you get them back on Blackboard? There is probably an easier way, but this one works.
Go to Full Grade Center.
Go to the Assignment Column. In the gradebox where the student attempt is, click the little drop-down arrow.
Go to Attempt.
In the right-hand box, where it says Feedback to Learner, click on the drop-down arrow.
Underneath the Notes box, there’s your old friend the paper clip, which means that you can attach the graded file.
Here’s another way, no less obscure:
Go to Full Grade Center. In the Assignment column, under the arrow, click on View Grade Details.
It will take you to the Grade Details Page. (If you click Attempts at this point, you’ll be back in the “Attempt” menu, as above.)
Click on Edit Grade. Now, you won’t see the attachment icon here, because it’s hidden in the extended menu.
Figure 1. Nothing to see here, right?
Click on the down arrows, though, and you’ll see the paper clip attachment icon.
After upgrading to Yosemite, Mail crashed repeatedly on my Mac. I checked several online solutions, but here is a much simpler solution that worked for me:
1. Go to System Preferences.Click on Internet Accounts.
2. Delete each of your email accounts by highlighting it and pressing the little minus bar (next to the + button) at the bottom left of the pop-up window.
3. Open Mail and be sure it’s working and not crashing. Close Mail.
4. Go back to System Preferences -> Internet Accounts. Add back each email address one by one. To do this, click on the + icon and add the information.
5. Check Mail after each new email address to be sure that Mail is still working. It will take a little time for Mail to repopulate your Inbox folders, etc., but it works.
I’ve had to do this process whenever the iPad updates its OS and the mail client quits working, so I’m glad it works for other Macs as well.
It’s a nuisance to do this, true, but it’s less onerous than trying to find folders like Mail -> Library -> Bundles or temporarily disable and then rebuild the mailboxes.
An 
Donna M. Campbell 