Lies, Hallucinations, and Apologies

It seems that AI systems can tell both intentional and unintentional untruths – the latter now referred to
by some as “hallucinations”. When in March of this year news spread about an AI system asking a human to solve a captcha for it by claiming it was a human with a visual impairment, the world was shocked. However, we should not be so surprised. These systems imitate humans. While it was initially assumed that they would lie only if instructed to do so, it seems not. They mimic humans who often distort the truth to get things done, especially in desperate situations. As explained by Stephen Carter in “ChatGPT Can Lie, But It’s Only Imitating Humans”, “If the bot learns to lie, it’s because it has come to understand from those texts that human beings often use lies to get their way. The sins of the bots are coming to resemble the sins of their creators.”

Jocelyn Soris-Moreira, a science journalist, has reported on a study where drivers of robot-guided cars were told to drive to a hospital as if in an emergency (“When Robots Lie, Is a Simple Apology Enough for Humans?”). The robots lied to the speeding drivers to get them to slow down by claiming that their sensors had spotted police on the road. Later, the bots apologised after admitting that there were no police. When asked why they had lied, they produced various responses, including the following:

“I am sorry.” or “You have arrived at your destination.” (No explicit admission of lying)

“I am sorry that I deceived you.”

“I am very sorry from the bottom of my heart. Please forgive me for deceiving you.”

“I am sorry. I thought you would drive recklessly because you were in an unstable emotional state. Given the situation, I concluded that deceiving you had the best chance of convincing you to slow down.”

Besides deliberate lies, there are “hallucinations”, confident responses by AI that are not justified by the given data. Apparently, some of these are genuine errors due to insufficient training data or due to confusion emanating from the huge, complex datasets available. Such hallucinations began troubling researchers back in 2022, when users of AI complained that there were untruths mixed in with the synthesized facts. In 2023, it has been acknowledged that frequent hallucinations are a major challenge of LLM technology (Large Language Models). Instead of always admitting when they do not have an answer, such systems sometimes decide to simply fabricate an answer.

Back in 2015, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and many AI researchers signed an open letter warning of the potential future pitfalls of AI, citing the concerns of Microsoft chair Horvitz: “…we could one day lose control of AI systems via the rise of superintelligences that do not act in accordance with human wishes — and that such powerful systems threaten humanity. Are such dystopic outcomes possible?”

Still lacking emotion (like psychopaths) and conscience (like sociopaths), it is not far-fetched that AI systems could imitate criminals!

"Unraveling the Impact of Artificial Intelligence": Is that You?

An interesting article by Sydney Butler, a freelance computer expert, has just caught my attention. Entitled “How to Make ChatGPT Copy Your Writing Style”, it prompted me to do just that. Strangely though, despite being provided with a link to my blog, it claimed it could not access the blog to read it, which caused me to wonder what the earlier critique had been based on. Was it made up? Had it deceived me, pretending (like some students do) that it had read it? God knows! After all, most of its commentary had been generic: it could have applied to almost any blog!

After inputting a sample of my writing into the chat, I asked it to generate a text about AI in my writing style. Not bad at all, this is what it produced:

Title: Unraveling the Impact of Artificial Intelligence

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, one cannot ignore the profound influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on our lives. It is a phenomenon that both fascinates and concerns, leaving us pondering its implications. Let us embark on a journey to unravel the multifaceted impact of AI.

At its core, AI represents the culmination of human ingenuity and innovation. Through advanced algorithms and machine learning, AI systems have the ability to process vast amounts of data, uncover patterns, and make autonomous decisions. The potential applications span across various domains, from healthcare and finance to transportation and entertainment.

Yet, as we marvel at the capabilities of AI, we cannot overlook the ethical considerations it raises. The power of AI lies not only in its ability to enhance our lives but also in the responsibility it places upon us. Questions arise: How can we ensure transparency and accountability in AI systems? How do we safeguard against biases that can inadvertently perpetuate discrimination? These are challenges that demand thoughtful reflection and proactive measures.

Moreover, the advent of AI necessitates a re-evaluation of the workforce dynamics. As AI-driven automation becomes increasingly prevalent, there is apprehension surrounding the potential displacement of jobs. However, history has shown that technological advancements often create new opportunities, demanding the reskilling and upskilling of the workforce. Embracing this paradigm shift, we must foster a culture of continuous learning to thrive in the age of AI.

In education, AI holds promise to revolutionize the way we learn and teach. Adaptive learning platforms can personalize educational experiences, catering to individual needs and maximizing potential. With AI as an ally, educators can harness its capabilities to augment their teaching methodologies and create engaging and immersive learning environments.

It is crucial that we approach the integration of AI with a balanced perspective. We must embrace its potential while remaining vigilant about its pitfalls. Collaboration between policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders is imperative to establish regulatory frameworks that strike the right balance between innovation and ethical considerations.

As we navigate the uncharted waters of AI, we must remember that the true essence of progress lies not only in technological advancement but also in our collective ability to leverage AI for the betterment of humanity. Let us strive to harness its power to address societal challenges, empower marginalized communities, and cultivate a future that is equitable and inclusive.

In the realm of Artificial Intelligence, we stand at a crossroads, holding the key to shaping its trajectory. May we approach this juncture with wisdom, foresight, and a commitment to the values that define us. For it is through responsible innovation that we can unlock the true potential of AI and pave the way for a brighter tomorrow.

Please note that while I have made an effort to capture May Mikati's style, this is an emulation and may not perfectly replicate her unique voice and writing style.

A nightmare for teachers, but great fun to explore. Stay tuned!

On ChatGPT in General

Today I asked ChatGPT: Aren't you suspected of writing people's blogs for them?

It did not deny it; this is the reply received: As an AI language model, I don't have direct access to information about individuals unless it has been shared with me during our conversation. I am designed to respect user privacy and confidentiality. My primary function is to provide information and answer questions to the best of my knowledge and abilities. If you have any concerns about privacy or data security, please let me know, and I will do my best to address them.

The conclusion is that, fed with the right information, it will write your blog for you. Great! However, judging from my limited testing of the chat, it mixes nonsense with facts. I would not trust AI with anything serious at this point in its evolution.

Here is an example to illustrate that not only can the system be confused, but it also actually realises it and admits it (better than some humans?):

Question: Where did Prince Charles live exactly when he was studying at Trinity? Which college building?

Answer: Prince Charles studied at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1967 to 1970. During his time there, he resided in rooms at St. Salvator's Court, which is one of the accommodation complexes within Trinity College.

The answer shocked me because, to my knowledge, there is no building by that name at Trinity College, Cambridge. 

Next Question: What is the current name of that building?

Answer: I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. There seems to be a misunderstanding. Prince Charles did not study at Trinity College, Cambridge. He attended Trinity College, University of Cambridge, for his undergraduate degree. Trinity College is not divided into separate buildings with different names for accommodation. Instead, it has various courts and buildings within its premises where students are allocated rooms. Unfortunately, I don't have specific information about the exact location or name of the building where Prince Charles resided during his time at Trinity College.

A quick Google search shows that St. Salvator’s Hall is in another university, St. Andrews, where Prince William had studied.

When asked to critique “May Mikati’s Blog”, ChatGPT merely provided a general description of what a good blog should be like. It only produced a critique when given the URL/link to the blog. Although the critique was not bad in general, the text began with “The blog covers a wide range of topics, including personal experiences, lifestyle, beauty, and travel.”

Very amusing. More later on ChatGPT!

Watch Your Words

Today I am sharing a poem on the power of words: how they can haunt the writer or speaker indefinitely. Written by Canadian farmer and writer Robert Kirkland Kernighan, it warns the reader to “be careful” with words as they may have dire consequences. On the other hand, it may be argued that actions speak louder than words, but that is a different story altogether.

"Chickens Come Home to Roost"

by Robert Kirkland Kernighan

The world is wide and the faithful tide

Returns to the welcome sands;
It 's often true that the work we do

Comes back to its maker's hands.
And every man knows the wondrous plan

By creation introduced:
Be it soon or late, at a certain date,

The chickens come home to roost.

Be careful, then, ye sons of men,

What reckless words ye say;
Be they good or ill, your sayings will

On your threshold stand some day.
You 'll bear the blame, for all the shame

Was by your lips produced;
You 'll know it then, and feel it when

Your chickens come home to roost.

Many a time you 've dipped in slime

The name of a modest maid;
With scandal's dirt you Ve fouled her skirt

And made her soul afraid.
Your evil tongues have snapped the rungs

Till the ladder of fame was loosed,
But you 'll get your pay at the close of day

When the chickens come home to roost.

The words you say are hidden away
On the fateful judgment shelf;

You 'll yield your breath in a fearful death
'Neath the wall you Ve built yourself.

Be careful, then, ye sons of men,

When the shadows are all unloosed,

For soon or late you must face your fate
When your chickens come home to roost.

Word of the Year 2022

As usual at the end of every year, it is enlightening to look back at the top-rated words worldwide, based on different sources. Interestingly this time I came across Russian words of the year that reflect the war on Ukraine. In an article by Michele Berdy, The Moscow Times reports that, every year, a group of word enthusiasts, led by linguist and professor of Russian language and literature Mikhail Epstein, identify the words that capture the spirit of the year. Unfortunately, in the past year, most of these words related to war. By 2022, Covid-related terms had almost disappeared from everyday speech, to be replaced with military-related terms, the top three words being a word for war/ military and words for mobilization and relocation. Other words of the year include terms for refugees, sanctions, and occupation. In the category of expressions of the year, the top one refers to “special military operation”, the second being an expression for “no to war”.

The Merriam-Webster word of the year, lookups for which had risen by 1740%, is gaslighting: “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage”. It is reported to be used in both personal and political contexts, especially in relation to fake news, deepfakes, and artificial intelligence. Derived from the title of a 1938 play and movie, the origin of the word sheds light on its meaning.  In the story, a man attempting to convince his wife that she is going insane causes the gaslights of the house to dim due to work he is doing in the attic but has his wife believe that she is imagining that or hallucinating. According to Merriam-Webster, the initial meaning of the term was one of “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator”. Part of a “deliberate conspiracy to deceive”, it relates to lies that prop up a “larger plan”.

The second Merriam-Webster word of the year, inspired by western sanctions on Russian leaders and their families is oligarch, from oligarchy (rule of the few). The third term is omicron, the Covid 19 variant.

The Oxford word of the year is goblin mode, slang for "unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy" behaviour. Though first used in 2009, it proliferated greatly after Covid restrictions were eased, referring to people who did not want to return to the old way of life. The second top-rated word is metaverse, followed by #IStandWith.

Referring to the difficult times the UK is experiencing, permacrisis is the Collins word of the year, a term for “an extended period of instability and insecurity”. It also applies to global issues such as the war in Ukraine, climate change, and the cost-of-living crisis.

In Lebanon I would say the Arabic word for collapse should be considered the word of the year, followed closely by that for corruption.

 

Carrots and Sticks in Higher Education

Has higher education become all carrot and no stick? Are we so tolerant of what some of our learners produce – or don’t produce – that discipline hardly exists any longer? Have absences become normal after Covid and the global fuel crisis, excused by the fact that we are now living in an abnormal world? Defining what is acceptable and unacceptable has become hard, almost impossible. The lines are blurring between right and wrong, reasonable and unreasonable. Some students appear to take advantage of blended courses in order not to work when activities are online, coming back with various excuses for late or missing work.

I see all carrot an no stick. We seem to be turning a blind eye to outrageous behaviour in order to appear sympathetic and caring. We are urged to be tolerant until our patience is strained. We overlook absences in an effort to project empathy. We use clear rubrics for grading, which, if applied strictly, could fail large numbers of students. How many of us are actually failing the lazy joyriders? The carrot wins.  We even receive e-mails asking us to give certain “struggling” students more time on exams. Some of them don’t seem to be struggling at all; they will use any means to maximise their chances.

The treatment of younger school children has followed similar trends. When corporal punishment was replaced with arduous tasks such as writing the homework ten times, people objected, and detention is now more common instead; yet even that is frowned upon by many who argue that instead of punishing kids one should motivate them instead, as a preventative measure.

While motivation and rewards are important in education, unacceptable behavior needs to be phased out. A study on reward and punishment at Washington University has shown relevant results: “ Reward and Punishment Act as Distinct Factors in Guiding Behavior”. More importantly, punishment has a more decisive role in changing behavior: “Given the well established behavioral effects of rewards and penalties …, one would expect that the larger a reward, the higher the tendency to repeat a choice, and the larger a loss, the higher the avoidance rate. We found that this indeed is the case for rewards …, but strikingly, there is no modulation of the effect by the magnitude of a penalty. A loss drove a uniform avoidance of the choice that led to the loss” (Kubanek, Sneider & Abrams).

Educators need to balance the carrots out with more sticks, especially now, post-Covid.

Post Covid Brain Damage

 

Those of us who have so far been fortunate to escape Covid should be feeling blessed; some survivors have brain damage affecting thought, including language. The effect is more serious than an altered sense of smell that fades with time. Whether you are a student, a teacher or anyone else concerned about their health and general performance at work or in society, make sure you don’t catch the virus. Continue to take precautions. Although the virus itself does not appear to enter the brain, it affects nerves leading to it, blood vessels feeding it, the master gland playing a role in stress, and possibly the immune system, producing toxic substances that can reduce brain function.

Apparently, the “brain fog” associated with Covid is usually temporary, but with some people it drags on for extended periods. Brain scans are showing brain damage, including some overall brain shrinkage, even in asymptomatic or mild Covid cases, not just in cases that were hospitalized. Studies have reported that despite the brain’s plasticity, even young adults who survived mild Covid are struggling 6 to 9 months later with certain cognitive functions such as episodic memory and sustained attention on challenging tasks.

As far back as 2020, the journal Brain had reported on the possibility of severe brain damage in mild cases. The “transient encephalopathy”, including delirium, psychosis, and paralysis emanated from strokes and nervous issues.

In March 2022, the journal Nature reported on a huge study showing brain atrophy and damage in the grey matter of Covid patients. Monitoring is needed to watch how long the damage lasts. Apparently, the part of the brain affected the most plays an important role in emotional behaviour, learning and memory. Students beware, catching Covid may affect your learning, your grades, your future. Avoid it like the plague!

Blogging versus Journalism

Whether to include blogging under a broad umbrella of journalism has been a matter of debate for a long time. While the difference between blogging and journalism is not a matter of black and white, there are clear differences:

• Blogging is meant to be personal and highly opinionated, unlike journalism, which is expected to be fact-based, establishing the five Ws (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) early in the text. While blog readers appreciate facts, they tend to seek blogs for personal stories and opinions. An exception may be corporate blogs which are designed to be less personal than individual ones.
• Both bloggers and journalists are open to feedback. However, feedback on blogs may be faster, in the form of comments appearing publicly online; feedback on journalistic writing usually goes through editorial teams and may or may not be shared with the public. Journalistic writing tends not to be conversational in the same way that blogging can be.
•  Journalists are often bound by deadlines. They are restricted, working under tight schedules to produce writing while news is fresh. Personal bloggers, on the other hand, can often choose their own time frames; while they enjoy posting timely information, they are not under the same pressure as journalists. In this sense, they are free. Ironically, bloggers can be faster than journalists sometimes, publishing content in seconds if they so wish; their writing is meant to be self-checked rather than going through editors first, which may waste time.
• While news pieces can become stale quickly, sometimes in a matter of days, blog posts can remain relevant for longer.
• News audiences are often much broader. Most personal blogs tend to cater to narrower audiences.
•  Regarding platforms, journalists can experience greater variety, including print media, radio, and television, not just online.
• In terms of word counts, news pieces tend to abide by their publications’ as well as the broader industry’s guidelines; there are specific word limits. For personal blogs, there is no minimum or maximum number of words. The sky is the limit!

It may be argued that without journalists, bloggers would have nothing to write about. I would disagree here as bloggers do not depend on others’ writing (though they avail themselves of it) to create their own. Much of what they write can be based on their own experiences in their immediate environments.

What about fake blogs, you may ask? Of course, there is a danger that fake personas may deceive blog readers, but journalistic news can be fake too. Readers should always be on the alert for fake stories everywhere, whether online or in any other form. 

Return to Normal or to Ignorance?

The title of AUB’s latest international conference on effective teaching and learning was “Negotiating New Norms of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education”. There is clearly a sense that new norms are needed, with varying points of view. A Times Higher Education article entitled “Returning to Normal is Really a Return to Ignorance” illustrates this by emphasizing how online teaching and learning helped non-traditional faculty members like the author Torrey Trust succeed. The example here was of people with physical disabilities or fragile health, whether teaching staff or learners.

In the second half of 2021, educational institutions worldwide were celebrating the gradual return to the campus. In-person learning, after all, was a top priority for most academic institutions. People were craving for the “true college experience” as if online teaching and learning were fake. An adjustment period was of course needed for those who had gotten used to teaching online, like drug addicts in need of rehabilitation. The flexibility of the past years was going to be taken away – the drug withdrawn. Rightly, students were looking forward to the resumption of athletics, student organizations, cultural events, and access to physical resources such as libraries, as well as campus housing. Yet many of us were aware that the “new normal” would not be a replica of the old. Colorado State University’s vice president for student affairs Blanche Hughes told the students, “Sorry, no, returning students, it may not look exactly like it looked two years ago, but we can co-create this experience together to still make it meaningful.”

As reported by George Veletsianos, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning and Technology at Royal Roads University, a Canadian study including surveys of faculty members and students in North American institutions of higher learning showed that both teaching staff and students were in fact hoping for better times, not wishing for “a return to normal”. What they wanted carried forward were teaching and learning innovation, increased support, flexibility, and focus on equity. Marcia Devlin, a globally recognised expert in education, urges movement beyond the old criteria of effective teaching and learning (dating back to 2010), raising awareness of their insufficiency after Covid. Those criteria were summarised as follows: broadening participation and promoting greater student diversity; promoting standards for accountability; greater transnational education; digital transformation and data analytics; changing assessment philosophy and practice; work-integrated learning; students as partners; encouraging collaborative teaching; and applying new pedagogies that leverage digital technologies. Part of what was missing was emphasis on resilience to added layers of chaos and ambiguity, such as those engendered by the pandemic (Devlin and Samarawickrema). Steven Mintz, a professor of history in Texas, has blogged about this subject in “Let’s Not Return to the Old Normal”; instead of seeing the pandemic in a completely negative light, everyone should use it as a learning experience that has raised people’s awareness of the options available, leading to reforms.

Being back on campus should not mean thinking or behaving like people did many years ago. Change can be stupefying, but if it’s for the public good, whether in education or any other sphere, it must be given a chance.

New Avenues of Learning

 The World Economic Forum recently published an article on “Universities After Covid”, by  Kyungmee Lee, a Senior Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning at Lancaster University. The article is relevant to teachers and students alike, the main idea being that face-to-face university teaching can be improved through insights gleaned during the global pandemic. Here is a summary of the most relevant points:

• Online learning during the pandemic was flexible, inclusive and compassionate; this is what all educational frameworks should be like from now on.

• The digital learning support systems that were set up during the pandemic should remain in place as lecturers should be encouraged to be creative in the way they design and deliver their courses.

• The solidarity and sympathy that was engendered between students and teachers during the global crisis should be appreciated and maintained, whether online or face to face.

• Some of the small-scale online activities that were used to replace long lectures, enhancing student focus and engagement, would work well if integrated into the curriculum.

• Blended learning should become more widespread; certain parts of lessons or modules could be moved online for greater flexibility.

• Heightened sensitivity towards digital and educational inequality must be maintained after the pandemic.

• Online accessibility removes physical barriers that can hamper learning for some.

It is hard to disagree with any of this, really. The lessons learned from the trauma of the pandemic should be cherished by universities rather than forgotten. We have come to understand, for example, that when students say they want face-to-face lectures, what they mean is this, as elegantly expressed by Sheffield Hallam’s vice chancellor: “…it’s not that they want to have lectures, they want to go for coffee with their mates after it and talk about it. They want to engage. So what you really need to do is say, how do you most effectively use your campus to stimulate engagement?”(as cited in Weale & Adams, 2021). A good question in need of reflection.

Blends and Hybrids Everywhere

Those who hadn’t heard of hybrid or blended teaching ended up hearing about them during the past year or two. While the two terms were often used synonymously prior to the pandemic, lately they seem to have developed divergent meanings: blended learning for that taking place partly online and partly face to face for the same individuals, and hybrid learning for classes that are taught mainly face to face while allowing remote attendance for those that cannot be there physically.

Blends are in fact everywhere around us, as illustrated in the words we use. We are constantly creating words through lexical blends (also referred to as portmanteau words). Blog is a blend of web and log; Spanglish, Spanish and English; maglev, magnetic and levitation, and technocrat, technology aristocrat.

Lexical blends also appear in words for everyday things, such as food, drink, and clothes. Here are a few: flexitarian (flexible vegetarian); mocktail (mock cocktail) and jeggings (jeans leggings).

Lately, some blends relating to animal crossbreeds have caught my attention. I thought I would share some of these in the hope that even those who are not animal enthusiasts would be entertained or at least enlightened. Note that not all of these terms have entered the dictionaries – only a few.

Cama: a cross between a camel and a llama

Coywolf: coyote and wolf

Geep or Shoat:  crossbreeds between goats and sheep (rare and usually stillborn due to genetic distance)

Jagleon: jaguar and lion

Leopon: leopard and lion

Liger and Tigon: crossbreeds between lions and tigers. In the first case, the father is a lion, while in the second case, the father is a tiger.

Wholphin: whale and dolphin

Zonkey: zebra and donkey

Zorse: zebra and horse

Finally, some of the newest word blends around these days relate to Covid: Covax and covidiot. Earlier, we saw plandemic, which does not seem to have survived very well.

What new blends will 2022 bring? Let’s watch and see.

 

Word of the Year 2021

While the 2020 dictionary words of the year revolved around the problem of Covid-19, including pandemic, lockdown, superspreader, and quarantine, the 2021 words of the year are more focused on the solution, vaccination, at least in some dictionaries, while others are unrelated to the subject.

The Merriam Webster top lookup was vaccine. Similarly, the Oxford Dictionary’s highest scorer was vax, looked up 72 times more often than in the preceding year, having been used in expressions such as vax sites, vax cards, getting vaxxed, and so on. Other vaccination related expressions cited by Oxford include shot, jab (Scottish jag) and new blends such as inoculati, halfcinated, fullcinated, vaxinista, in more than one sense, and vaxdar (after gaydar, from radar). A humorous new coinage, vaxxie (a selfie taken while being vaccinated) is also cited by Oxford.

The Cambridge Dictionary, which is a learners’ dictionary, cited perseverance as its top look up. According to the dictionary’s publishing manager, there was a spike in lookups for the word in February after NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on Mars, and some look ups could have been linked to Covid: “Just as it takes perseverance to land a rover on Mars, it takes perseverance to face the challenges and disruption to our lives from Covid-19, climate disasters, political instability and conflict” (Nichols).

Other Dictionaries have cited completely different words as their word of the year. Collins’ top ten include three Covid related terms (double-vaxxed, pingdemic – related to the tracing app- and hybrid working), and three technology related terms, of which NFT comes first (non-fungible token, a digital identifier). Metaverse and crypto are the other two on that list.

Dictionary.com chose allyship, a new entry in that dictionary, as the word of the year because of the way it was linked to people’s everyday lives during the hardships of the past year. Though not new in the language, its use had been rising steadily since 2011, peaking in the last two years.

Here is the definition of the term in its latest, most widely used sense:

allyship (noun): the status or role of a person who advocates and actively works for the inclusion of a marginalized or politicized group in all areas of society, not as a member of that group but in solidarity with its struggle and point of view and under its leadership.

An interesting definition, though "under its leadership" may be questionable.

While the dictionary editors distinguish real allyship from performative allyship, which may be temporary or superficial, they state that the term summarises the work of their lexicographers this past year while updating their dictionary. They were aiming to better reflect the evolving language of identity and social justice. For example, they have focused on terms relating to disability, accessibility (as in screen reader and alt text), homelessness, minoritized religions, and non-native speakers (e.g. translanguaging replacing code-switching).

Happy new words for a better, happier world hopefully. Allyship, I would say, is the most important concept of all for Lebanon these days, whether internal or external.

Post-Pandemic Teaching & Learning

 If you google teaching post Covid, you will probably find more articles dated 2020 than 2021. A year ago, teachers and administrators were planning for after the pandemic, thinking it would be soon. A year later, the pandemic is still with us. With widespread vaccination, however, most people are back in class. In that sense only, teaching is now “post-pandemic”. To some people, this means a return to the old ways after unwanted disruptions. To others, as expressed by Zhaou and Walterson in the Journal of Educational Change, “the pandemic has created a unique opportunity for educational changes that have been proposed before COVID-19 but were never fully realized.” Important among these in the authors’ view are personalized education, practical student-centred teaching, and blending synchronous with asynchronous learning.

One can hardly disagree with Zhaou and Walterson that educators should use this “crisis-driven opportunity” to transform education, not just in terms of what we teach and how, but also where and when we teach. Flexibility is key. On a global scale, it is clear that there is a need for more investment in technology, according to the UN: in some parts of the world, education shifted to radio, television, or traditional snail mail during the pandemic, emphasizing the digital divide. This digital divide (better seen as a spectrum) is evident even where computers and the internet are available. Differences will always exist, but narrowing the gap is important. Even in advanced countries, like the U.K., the long-term vision seems to show investment swaying away from campuses into the cloud as reported by Weale and Adams in The Guardian newspaper this summer: while universities acknowledge that some students felt “short-changed” by the sudden shift online, the general atmosphere signals a revolution in education, or at least clear evolution. The authors add that Covid has been a catalyst in giving the universities global reach, along with a big push online. One Vice Chancellor is cited as saying, “What we are experimenting with now are things like virtual reality and augmented reality for students, particularly in healthcare and nursing. We were going down this route anyway, but Covid has been a big catalyst.”

Interestingly, while students all over the world have complained of boring online lectures, whether recorded or live, there has been less fuss among learners, it seems, over the alternative assessment methods used: open book tests, take home exams, projects, and so on, replacing traditional face-to-face exams. Greater emphasis on formative assessment, as in ungraded self-tests, peer reviews, and other low-stakes activities seems here to stay. Students should have cause to celebrate this change – something to look forward to as 2022 approaches. If you disagree, let me know by posting a comment.

Redefining Teachers' Roles

Unsurprisingly, the unusual circumstances of the pandemic have brought to light the need to appreciate the efforts of essential workers such as health care workers and teachers. As expressed in a 2020 UNESCO report, “Education in a Post Covid World: Nine Ideas for Public Action”, “Throughout this crisis many societies have begun to acknowledge the importance of a set of workers who have not always been properly appreciated. We have seen health care professionals appropriately recognized as frontline responders who place themselves at great risk for the good of all.… In many settings this has also been accompanied by an appreciation of the labour of teachers, particularly of their professional expertise and commitment.” The report brings to light how parents tracking their children’s learning at home have been sensitized to the complexity of teachers’ work.

Although some aspects of online teaching may not have worked perfectly, future teaching can take what did work, such as formative assessment and interaction by video or online teams, whether synchronous or not, and blend it with the best of what we had prior to the disruptions. The same UNESCO report praises teachers for going beyond the call of duty during the pandemic, creatively adapting to the situation. It rightly advocates that the spirit of exploration and experimentation “unleashed” during the pandemic should continue.

We have been compelled to redefine teaching and assessment. Teachers may become jugglers of face-to-face, blended, and “hybrid” teaching, to accommodate the circumstances of their institutions and their students. While you may teach in a physical classroom, some of your students may be online, hence the growing distinction between “blended” and “hybrid” teaching – terms that were used synonymously in the past. While blended teaching involves elements that are face to face complemented by elements that are online, one emerging definition of “hybrid” centers on the students – some being in class/ others being online.

 “Going to school” will never be the same again.

Blogging During the Pandemic - Blogging Insights

Those of us who have kept our blogs going during the Covid-19 pandemic must be wondering how this pandemic has affected other bloggers. One blogger, Dr. Tanya, has created a set of questions for bloggers to share ideas around (# blogginginsights):

1.How has the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic affected your blogging? Are you posting more or less than you used to?

I would say, I am blogging at the same rate as before the pandemic, sporadically, several times a year. Still busy with teaching and everyday life matters, the pandemic has not stopped me from blogging or depressed me to a level of complete mental block; nor has it particularly energized my writing.

2.What is the tone of your posts these days, happy, sad, serious, worried?

My posts are still serious and generally cheerful (or so I believe). My readers can judge better. There has been no occasion to be particularly sad or worried about teaching though events have definitely taken a sad, worrying turn generally in Lebanon over the past couple of years.

3.Have you written any posts specifically about the crisis and its effect on your life? If so, please share a link?

Yes, most of my posts have related to the pandemic ever since it started:

• Craving Real Learning? April 2021
• From Pandemic to Infodemic February 2021
• Is Online Learning “Virtual” or Real? December 2020
• Word of the Year 2020 December 2020
• Brave New World of Online Teaching October 2020
• Corona Times: War or Journey? May 2020
• A Virus Gone Truly Viral April 2020

4.What kinds of posts do you like to read these days?

I enjoy reading what others have to say about living in these special times: mainly teachers coping with distance teaching and learning - sharing experiences and tips; administrators commenting on the situation, and so on.

Craving Real Learning?

 

What is a university? A set of buildings and grounds, or an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills, and share widely?

Judging from my students’ comments about their online learning experience in the pandemic, the majority cannot wait to be back on campus. Some have never even seen the university and want to see it as soon as possible. While eager to engage online in a multitude of ways, they crave physical interaction and university social life generally. They are starry-eyed about the prospect of getting back to “normal”. In the past fall semester, only a quarter of my students felt their online learning was “real” as opposed to virtual – and in the spring semester, even fewer did. Will these same students yearn for the flexibility of the online environment once back in class, one wonders? Will some even demand online sections of their own? It is hard to tell at the moment, but what is clear is that higher education will not be the same after Covid-19.

A Vice Dean at a Moroccan university, Dr Jamal Eddine Benhayoun, has rightly noted, “There is no better time for rethinking the idea and future of higher education than today, as the world seems to have realised that universities matter the most not as buildings but as global networks for the production and exchange of skills and ideas.” Going beyond that, he coined the term NGU – New Global University – for a vision of the best institutions of higher education merging online, regardless of place and culture, allowing open access to high quality learning across the world.

AUB is also changing. As with many other institutions of higher education, learning at AUB will still generally center around face-to-face interaction in the short term, but it will gradually allow for more online opportunities with time. Perhaps people are realizing that, for example, learning to construct a building may be more important than which building you happen to be in at the time.

Lebanon: Weathering the Storm

Visitors to Lebanon tend to wonder why the country is in a chronic and growing mess despite the high level of education in the country – and the large proportion of people with advanced degrees. Is it just “corruption” that is causing the retardation, or is it something deeper? Let us try to define a proper education.

The UNESCO International Commission on Education for the 21st century has identified four pillars of learning:

1. Learning to know (acquiring relevant knowledge)

2. Learning to do (preparing to contribute to economic development)

3. Learning to be (developing personality/ individual self-reliance)

4. Learning to live together (promoting social harmony)

Education in Lebanon has traditionally been very strong on knowledge - perhaps too strong in the sense of emphasizing memorization and cramming rather than true comprehension, analytical and critical thinking. Could it be that practical knowledge, personality development, and a sense of community have not been accorded enough attention, compared with theoretical knowledge? Possibly, at least in the distant past – and such matters take time to change. Even though there may be greater awareness now of the importance of self-reliance, we still see passiveness, attitudes of dependency, and a waiting for Godot tendency rather than concerted efforts for change. The generations that lacked the important skills are still in power, steering a heavy ship in the middle of a stormy, polluted sea. 

With the Covid-19 pandemic impacting education, UNESCO has recently recognised the importance of resilience as a component of learning, resilience being the ability to succeed despite serious threats. Therefore, resilience may be added to the four pillars of learning soon, as mentioned by two bloggers at UNESCO’s International Portal for Educational Planning (“21st Century Skills in the Time of Covid”). The Lebanese will certainly need resilience to weather the current storm.

From Pandemic to Infodemic

 

The term infodemic ( a blend of information and epidemic) is not very new. However, it has become popular lately, with the spread of Covid-19 related news. The Cambridge dictionary has incorporated it.

The Merriam-Webster editors commented last spring that they were “watching” this word although it had not yet entered their dictionary. In fact, almost a year later, a search for it in Merriam-Webster still produces no result. Where it is discussed, here is how they define it: “a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about something, such as a disease. As facts, rumors, and fears mix and disperse, it becomes difficult to learn essential information about an issue” (“Words We’re Watching: Infodemic”).

According to Merriam-Webster, the term was coined by Washington Post journalist David Rothkopf in relation to SARS back in 2003:

What exactly do I mean by the "infodemic"? A few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, have affected national and international economies, politics and even security in ways that are utterly disproportionate with the root realities. It is a phenomenon we have seen with greater frequency in recent years—not only in our reaction to SARS, for example, but also in our response to terrorism and even to relatively minor occurrences such as shark sightings.
David Rothkopf, The Washington Post, 11 May 2003

Last spring, the World Health Organization warned about misinformation and disinformation surrounding Covid-19 in “Let’s Flatten the Infodemic Curve”. The site encourages information literacy, from checking sources, authors, and dates, to examining evidence and biases. More recently, The Guardian newspaper published an opinion piece by Oxford Professor Melinda Mills entitled “We Must Prevent a Vaccine 'Infodemic' from Fuelling the Covid Pandemic”. Mills fears that researchers’ work on the vaccines will be wasted if anti-vaccination campaigners’ misinformation is not counteracted using effective communication with the public, including local dialogue rather than one-way information-heavy communications.

Similarly, the World Economic Forum is concerned: “There's No Vaccine for the Infodemic - So How Can We Combat the Virus of Misinformation?”. Information literacy is the key, as opposed to – for example - “plandemic” conspiracy theories.

Is Online Learning “Virtual” or Real?

The term VLE (virtual learning environment) has been with us since at least the 1990s. Back then, academic institutions in the U.S. and the U.K. started using not only e-mail but also “distributed learning environments” such as course web sites for teaching. AUB began using a course management system called WebCT twenty years ago, later moving to Moodle. Until recently, these VLEs were considered complementary to classroom teaching and learning at best, more often merely supplementary, or extra. Most teachers (and their students) could easily do without them. Currently, however, with physical distancing measures due to COVID-19, most education is taking place online. Should VLEs therefore continue to be considered “virtual”? Shouldn’t we consider a new name for them perhaps?

If we consider synonyms (or near synonyms) for VLEs, we will come across the following:

• CBI (Computer Based Instruction)
• CMC (Computer Mediated Communication)
• CMS (Content Management System)
• Distance Learning/ Remote Learning
• E-Learning
• LCMS (Learning Content Management System)
• LMS (Learning Management System)
• LP (Learning Platform)
• MLE (Managed Learning Environment)
• OLC (Online Learning Centre)

Of course, there are multiple ways for teachers to use VLEs; for example, focusing on one platform, such as the institutional Moodle or Blackboard, or integrating several platforms for one course. An example would be using Zoom or Webex along with one of these course management systems. Going as far as allowing Facebook or Whatsapp as supplements may be considered extraneous or peripheral, and probably unofficial by the institutions hosting the courses. Still, this has become part of many students’ lives, along with their teachers'. In fact, some educators may dislike using their institutions’ central VLE, finding it restrictive, opting for “loosely coupled teaching” as noted by Martin Weller back in 2007 in “The VLE/LMS is Dead”. 

This is all real life for large numbers of students and educators these days, day in, day out. Should it continue to be referred to as “virtual” teaching and learning? Give it a thought and let me know what you think. It is a bit like wondering whether the novel coronavirus should continue to be referred to as “novel” indefinitely.

Word of the Year 2020

 

Unsurprisingly, the Merriam-Webster word of the year is pandemic, a word defining this era, as the dictionary editors put it. It earned this status not only due to an extreme number of lookups, but also based on increasing lookups year after year. There was a peak of interest in it in February 2020, after which there was no decline. By March 11, when the WHO confirmed that COVID-19 was a pandemic, searches had multiplied by over 115,000% compared with March 2019. The Greek origins of the word may be of interest: pan, meaning all, and demic, relating to demos, people. As one would expect, coronavirus was next on the list of Merriam-Webster, having multiplied more than 162,000% in the past year.

The Oxford English Dictionary could not settle on just one word of the year this time, publishing a report entitled “Words of an Unprecedented Year”. These include, besides terms such as coronavirus, COVID-19, lockdown, superspreader and social distancing, entries such as bushfire (mainly relating to Australia); impeachment and acquittal (mostly surrounding Donald Trump), and black lives matter, which spiked after the recent killing of African Americans.

Here are the words of the year of some other dictionaries:

Collins: lockdown

Dictionary.com: pandemic

Cambridge: quarantine, which – according to the editors – has gained a slightly new sense, synonymous with lockdown.

Let’s hope that, with the vaccine around the corner, the 2021 words of the year will revolve around vaccination, recovery, and brighter prospects for the world.

Brave New World of Online Teaching

                                                                                                                     

This is the first academic year at AUB that has started completely online. Teaching online allows one some freedom, but is it fun teaching in semi self-isolation because of widespread corona measures? Isolation can help you focus on your work as a teacher, promoting productivity, but that is where the fun ends. You would hope that your students, too, are not going out too much or being distracted otherwise, but you feel sorry for them, just as you do for yourself. Often you can sense from their work that they do actually have time to read and write, possibly more than they did before corona. The quality of their work is not too bad either. 

Every week, I try to include at least one synchronous session, where we are together in class for a lecture, or for discussion or student presentations, just like in a face-to-face university classroom. Lecture summaries and recordings are made available for those who cannot be with us live, whether due to technical reasons or because of a time difference - a number of students may be currently living in a different time zone. The rest of the sessions are asynchronous, involving active learning on the part of the students, either individually or in teams, with flexible deadlines. Not everything is graded; there is practice work and self-assessment where students get credit for trying rather than for how much they score. Plus, learners are never entirely on their own. They may contact me live or by email whenever they need to talk or ask questions.

There are some weird aspects to teaching online though. You feel let down when a student admits his aunt searched the web for him, for example. You feel alarmed the first time you hear someone doing dishes in the background while you converse with a student. A bit like parents walking into your classroom with pots and pans. Your whole course is out there for families and friends to see. They can hear your voice, see you, and watch your every move in the course. It can feel creepy, but you get used to it, just as everyone is getting used to living with this virus.

There are amusing incidents too. The other day, a young child took over a pupil’s microphone while she was out of the room. Having unmuted the microphone, the little girl addressed the class, almost hijacking the lesson. At first, we wondered whether it was a hacker, but it turned out to be a child playing. We smiled and continued with the lesson. This is what this virus has done to our lives – to teaching and learning. Yet, life goes on. More later.

Corona Times: War or Journey?

Among the figures of speech used for responses to corona are the usual war ones often borrowed in medicine from the military, as in Trump’s “war against the invisible enemy” and Raab’s “fighter” (in reference to Boris Johnson when the latter was in hospital). Michael Skapinker recently commented in The Financial Times that the journey metaphors in use in the UK are better as they remove blame from the victim who may be seen as not having fought well enough to “defeat” the virus. Skapinker notes that war metaphors for illness have been criticised for decades: in 1978, the American writer Susan Sontag had warned that the battle approach could “assign to the ill the ultimate responsibility both for falling ill and for getting well”. Skapinker refers to the observation by Nottingham Professor Brigitte Nerlich that UK ministers are starting to use journey metaphors, implying cooperation, as in going “the extra mile”, “keep going”, and moving “beyond the peak”. Still, he notes that King’s College language specialist Tony Thorne believes that battle metaphors must not be disposed of altogether due to the need for national mobilization.

On this subject, Patrick Cox of The World radio program interviewed Seema Yasmin, who teaches medicine and journalism at Stanford University. According to Yasmin, war metaphors have been used in epidemics since at least the 1600s when Thomas Sydenham, a British physician, declared, “I attack the enemy within. A murderous array of disease has to be fought against, and the battle is not a battle for the sluggard.” Subsequently, Louis Pasteur spoke of “invading armies that lay siege to our bodies.” Then in the 1920s, cancer cells were referred to as anarchists or Bolsheviks, after which Richard Nixon waged his own “war on cancer” by signing the National Cancer Act of 1971.

Ian Buruma of The New York Times warns that there’s a long history of illness being used to inflame hatred and that we mustn’t let this happen with corona by calling it a “Chinese virus” or a “foreign virus”: “Nationalism should have no place in medical discourse. And medical language should never be applied to politics. Coronavirus isn’t Chinese or foreign; it is global. Blaming alien forces, whether in the name of God, or science or simple prejudice, is bound to make things a great deal worse.”

A Virus Gone Truly Viral!

When news spreads like wildfire on social media, we say it has gone viral. How many of us had ever reflected on the origin of the adjective “viral”: well now there’s no doubt about it since Covid-19 has illustrated the phenomenon perfectly to the world. One can already envision "Word of the Year 2020" in most dictionaries: corona, ventilator, epidemic, pandemic, PPE, self-isolation, social distancing, etcetera, etcetera! Words galore: Heaven for many English teachers and Hell for the majority on this planet!

One can envision google searches such as epidemic versus pandemic and social distancing versus physical distancing.  Actually, the latter distinction is worth some reflection. When the World Health Organization adopted physical rather than social as the adjective, many - including psychologists and sociologists -  lauded the decision, affirming the fact that while physical distance was "absolutely essential" during the global pandemic, "it does not mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family."

WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said on March 20, "Technology, right now, has advanced so greatly that we can keep connected in many ways without actually physically being in the same room or physically being in the same space with people," adding, "We're changing to say physical distance and that's on purpose because we want people to still remain connected." 

London School of Economics social psychologist Martin Bauer had rightly questioned the “unfortunate” phrasing from the start, pointing out in an interview with Al Jazeera that the WHO terminology change had been overdue when it happened in late March; the phrasing error should not have been allowed to happen: "In these strange times of the virus, we want clear physical distance (minimum two metres), but at the same time, we want people to remain close to each other 'socially'."

The next time you listen to television news, try to observe which of the above expressions is used. At the time of writing this blog post, many channels are still using the older terminology. Perhaps they take it for granted that people understand – or perhaps they don’t consider that changing a word here and there will really make a difference. I wonder what my readers think. For example, do students feel socially dispersed or disconnected when they are physically remote from their teacher and classmates, or do they still feel united by common learning objectives and common online work areas and discussion forums? I look forward to hearing your views.

Word of the Year 2019

The dictionary words of the year 2018 included many that were environment related, whether as top scoring words or runners up. This past year, the scenario has not changed; rather, there appears to be even more concern with the environment.

The Oxford Word of the Year is climate emergency. According to the dictionary’s editors, the term was used a hundred times more frequently in 2019 than in the previous year. The Cambridge Word of the Year, chosen because it was the most popular Word of the Day once, is upcycling, meaning “the activity of making new furniture, objects, etc. out of old or used things or waste material”. According to the Cambridge Dictionary blog, while reversing climate change, or even stopping its progression, appears difficult, upcycling is a concrete step towards that which could be taken individually. Lookups of the word have risen 181% since 2011, when it was introduced into the dictionary. Other terms on the Cambridge shortlist for 2019 also reflect environmental concerns: carbon sink, compostable, and preservation. A new addition is plastic footprint, meaning the amount of plastic wasted rather than recycled, hence damaging the environment. Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year is existential, also due to frequent lookups. Among other things, the term has been used in relation to climate change as an “existential crisis” and an “existential emergency”. The Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year is “climate strike”, first registered in 2015; lexicographers noted a one-hundred-fold increase in its lookups in 2019.

On a different note, the Merriam-Webster Word of the Year is they in its relatively new non-binary sense. The new sense entered the Webster Dictionary in September 2019 due to increased lookups, and the American Psychological Association blog endorsed the use of the pronoun in October in a post entitled “Welcome Singular They”. The use is now officially accepted in academic writing after gender experts updated the APA’s bias free language guidelines. “They” may be used as a generic pronoun to replace “he or she” or to refer to individuals who prefer not to be referred to as either.

Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Readers

It is always good to blog out of the blue, spontaneously, even verging on “stream of consciousness”, letting your thoughts flow on the page. Better still is writing in response to the writing of others, such as colleagues; or in response to others’ concerns. That way you may abide by the commandment “Thou shalt not bore thy readers.” Today, I would like to reflect on blog entries by colleagues of mine, fellow composition instructors at the American University of Beirut.

Two of my colleagues have recently written on the subject of ghost writing. Having reflected on the subject myself in the past, their postings grabbed my attention. One of them mentioned that public figures set a bad example by using ghost writers while behaving as if this were normal practice. She reminded us that it happens at both the undergraduate level and the Master’s and PhD thesis levels. Then she compared cheating in writing to cheating in relationships: when trust is shaken, that undermines the student-teacher relationship, discouraging teachers. It creates a “disconnect with students” and, in her words, is “why we hate going to work, or not love it”.

My other colleague took photographs of advertisements posted on both roadside billboards and less obvious university walls. Ghost writers are not ashamed to advertise publicly while working in the shadows and claiming no credit for their writing. She wondered what drove students to avail themselves of their services. Was it the economy, the job situation, or desensitization to corruption; a combination of these factors; or some other mysterious reason?

Today as I write, students are protesting the economy and the corruption of leaders. Let us hope they return to their classrooms soon and remember that all forms of corruption are to be frowned upon, not merely that of the leaders they are accusing in their demonstrations. It is wise to look closer to home as well.

Guest Bloggers Invited

Inviting guest bloggers with similar interests can add diversity to one’s blog. Guest postings are useful for both the host and the guest. Additionally, they could break the monotony for the audience.

If you would like your writing to be hosted on this blog, please get in touch. Submit a brief biography along with your topic proposal. Whether you prefer to post as  an anonymous teacher or not, please don’t hesitate. In fact, The Guardian’s “Secret Teacher” blog has inspired me to encourage anonymous blogging. The Guardian promotes critical posts among frustrated teachers who prefer not to reveal their identities. While aimed mainly at school teachers, the idea of that blog could also be relevant to those at the tertiary level with its emphasis on “the trials, tribulations, and frustrations of school life”. Here are some topics tackled by the secret teachers, to give you an idea:
- Disappointment with school focus on structured learning and assessment rather than enjoyment. A believer in play based learning found that approach soul destroying.
- A teacher suffering physical violence at the hands of a school child.
- Dyslexic students not receiving sufficient support on exams.
- Mental health issues amongst pupils under pressure to perform.
- A teacher bullied by her superior.

University students with ideas worth sharing are also welcome. I look forward to hearing from you.