Teaching Machines

Once again, I have no updates on the book progress. Well, that’s not quite true. I gave a talk this week at Austin Peay State University, and what I said will probably become the introduction to Teaching Machines. (And that’s why, contrary to my usual practice, I did not post a transcript of the talk to Hack Education.)

Other Writing

• HEWN, No. 306 via substack.com

Working

Most of the work this week involved moving. The apartment in Hermosa Beach is mostly empty, save some furniture that we need to dispose of down there. The apartment in Seattle is now mostly unpacked. We spent yesterday assembly IKEA furniture, which as always was hell.

Speaking

I gave a presentation at Austin Peay State University titled “(Don’t Know Much About) Education Technology History” – about the importance of knowing the history of education and ed-tech and about the problems with scrapping the liberal arts education in exchange for some “everyone [only] needs to learn to code” bullshit.

Traveling

This past week: I was in Hermosa Beach CA, Clarksville TN, and home in Seattle WA. Upcoming week: Home. Food highlight (dining out): hot chicken. Food highlight (at home): having all my kitchen equipment and pantry supplies back, and discovering that the local supermarket carries harissa paste – I made some delicious lamb meatballs with couscous.

Visiting

At my talk, I saw a good friend from graduate school, Dan Shea, who’s an English faculty member at Austin Peay (and by the sounds of it, still working on really interesting projects). I calculated that it had been around 15 years or so since I’d seen him, which is amazing. Graduate school does feel so far away, and I am living such a different life than I anticipated when I was working on my PhD back then.

Icon credits: The Noun Project