January 19, 2024

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Jan 19 2024

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Here are long-form blog posts I published this week:

• on Scrabble, French, and what it means to learn

• an 'enmediated' God

Here are microblog posts that I published this week:

• On one hand, doing replacing snow days with “non-traditional instruction” feels performative and inequitable, and I don’t think I like it. On the other, if kiddo isn’t going to have school tomorrow, I don’t necessarily mind her having things to keep her occupied while I do some work.

• In our family this January, severe weather means checking three different schools’ responses before figuring out what our day looks like. Today’s combination of decisions has worked out, but we’ll see how the rest of the week turns out.

• I know that the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie isn’t actually good, but there are bits of it I like, not least the “Zaphod Beeblebrox for President” track on the soundtrack.

• It’s a Chromebook-heavy “non-traditional instruction” snow day for kiddo today, and I’m having a lot of thoughts about Larry Cuban and that recent UNESCO report about emergency remote teaching during the COVID shutdowns.

• I mean this as a general observation and not generational handwringing, but it’s amazing how many cues my students take from YouTubers when recording video presentations for my class.

• ClassDojo sent me an automated “see how this week went!” email today even though school hasn’t been in session all week, and I feel like that’s telling.

Here are news articles and podcasts I commented on this week:

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Substack keeps the Nazis, loses Platformer - The Verge'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy - The Verge'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Plagiarism is the latest weapon in the culture wars. But what even is it? - Vox'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: American education has all the downsides of standardization, none of the upsides (16 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'What is the Annotated Book of Mormon? – From the Desk'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Cat and Girl'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘Student Should Have a Healthy-Looking BMI’: How Universities Bend Over Backwards to Accommodate Food Delivery Robots'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Macron Shifts Rightward, and Charts a New Course - The New York Times'

Here are my reviews of books and other media I consumed this week:

If you have thoughts about anything I've posted, feel free to comment directly on my website through Hypothesis or to reply to this email with what you have to say.

Thanks for reading!

Spencer