Technology and Society

My mental health toolkit includes meditation, journaling, a bit of exercise, and — every day, almost without fail — about 45 minutes with a brutally difficult card-based video game called Slay the Spire. What started as a pandemic coping mechanism has evolved into an essential ritual that’s now woven into the fabric of my life.

Lately, I’ve been noticing how much emotional stress technology places on people across all demographics. Technology increasingly shifts burdens onto users by design, creating anxiety and exclusion—particularly for those less comfortable navigating digital spaces, and I believe that it’s time to recognize and reverse this trend.

“It’s because you’re a generalist.” When my friend made this observation about my success with AI, I stopped for a beat. I was sharing my excitement about all the ways AI was transforming my work and creative processes, but I hadn’t connected it to this fundamental aspect of who I am.

I’m preparing to teach a unit on AI literacy to a group of high schoolers next month, and it’s clear that we need to spend some of that time discussing the ethics of using Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. I’m still working through this stuff myself, particularly because students are sharing their own opinions about it and getting me thinking, so I thought I would take this opportunity to carefully consider the ethics of this type of AI, both as a teacher and as someone who uses LLMs regularly.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what works in my classroom and what doesn’t. Sometimes it’s obvious - like when a project catches fire and students can’t wait to dive in. Other times, it’s harder to pin down why something that looked great on paper just didn’t land. I need help to see things clearly. That’s why I’ve always valued getting feedback on my work.

When I first got onto the World Wide Web, one of the things I liked best about it was that it was, in so many ways, completely bonkers. People were putting up weird stuff, wonderful commentary, exciting new ideas, and just being themselves in a way that was suddenly accessible to everyone around the world, including me, sitting at a computer in my tiny apartment.

In our rush toward progress, what do we choose to keep, and what do we leave behind? This question has been on my mind lately, sparked by a remarkable story from the aftermath of World War I. It’s a story that challenges how we think about value, preservation, and the hidden costs of optimization.

I wanted to find out how AI tools might impact the learning process for students in my 8th Grade Technology Projects class. I always ask my students to think deeply about their project experiences, but I can only get so far with a worksheet. Would doing these reflections with an AI facilitator make a difference? You bet. In fact, the results blew me away.