Google’s Illuminate AI podcast feature received a series of major updates that eclipsed NotebookLM’s Audio Overview feature, which first made waves in education.
Really appreciate this post, as it helps "update" my own understanding amidst all the other stuff of a given school year—as it's hard to pay attention to how this continues to evolve.
Where I'm struggling: 1) there's a major divide that I've noticed between the potential/good uses of AI being utilized by students who already have strong skills to further/deepen them versus students who are struggling and use AI to shortcut the learning—ultimately widening the gaps that already exist; and 2) there's just no discernible way for an educator to "keep up" amidst the bustle of the school year with all these changes and, in terms of incentive, if you "catch up" only to see that it has moved on once again to a new stage/capacity, the exhaustion is real.
Keep doing what you're doing! It genuinely helps, including for those of us flailing...
I'm skeptical of authenticity as a concept in teaching for reasons I hope I can explain in a way that is satisfying (to me if no one else), but I'm enthusiastic about the concept of presence. Being present as a teacher and as a student feels increasingly important as screens get better at capturing our eyeballs.
As the semester winds down, my students and I have been talking about ways to improve the class the next time I teach it. We imagined eliminating digital technology from the classroom experience, relegating it to class preparation, what José Bowen calls teaching naked. Everyone agreed this is a good idea, and then we started in with the "but what about...."
I'm thinking about building a class next fall on AI in Higher Education around the seeming contradiction of using absolutely zero AI or other digital tech during class time. We would spend our time in class using nineteenth-century technology to make sense of our experiences with twenty-first century tools.
The Present Professor is now on my list of reading to prep for the class. Thanks for the pointer!
Short version: I buy William James's notion that our selves are socially constructed. There is no core or true self. There is a person's social self, the "recognition which he gets from his mates." Our selves are made of "fluctuating material" and we create selves for every social situation we're in, including when we are alone. The self we construct for teaching or writing isn't an expression of deep identity. It is "a performing self." I think this conception solves some problems that arise when we overthink how to manage ourselves as teachers.
I have been looking for a book to pair with Brian Lowery's book "Selfless" for a review essay, and I think "The Present Professor may be it. That essay, when I get to it, will be my long answer.
Got it, that makes a lot of sense (and for what it's worth, I agree with the idea of selves being constructed).
The broader question for me is how to construct and project a self that's authentic to our values. Perhaps such a self is strictly speaking "inauthentic" – it's still a role we play, or a mask we put on. But it's a role that can be consistent over time, and is true to however we want to show up in the world.
You make an excellent point in your second-to-last paragraph when you advocate for teachers to have open conversations with their students about the different ways generative AI tools impact the details of their learning *experiences* On a related note, those who work in faculty & educational development will need to begin crafting responses to faculty who ask for guidance on how to incorporate these conversations amidst the other teaching-related obligations they have
For me as a foreign language teacher, there is a further layer of authenticity to be considered (and my colleagues always discuss this layer whenever I do a training on the latest developments in AI): Can an AI podcast be considered to be an example of authentic language use? See, in Germany, exposing students to authentic bits of foreign language use is very important, and any staged dialogue (e.g. something you might use to illustrate the use of a grammatical structure introduced in a textbook) has to have at least native speakers to perform it or, even better, be a recording of a "natural" bit of dialogue using that grammatical structure. Now, if we have AI generated voices performing an AI generated dialogue, the question does arise in how far this is "authentic" and helpful for our students. (There was a whole controversy out there on the various levels of this kind of authenticity even before genAI came along, but let's not go down that rabbit hole.)
My two cents on this particular question: The importance of authentic foreign language usage depends on several factors, one of which is the student's situation and learning objective. Many of my EFL students struggle with correct English pronunciation. Their mother tongue interferes with basic pronunciation rules in English, they attend classes, we do a lot of group work, but one on one feedback and pronunciation practice for words and phrases they struggle with individually is impossible to provide - whether at school or university, where I teach. So this very specific purpose would be an example that "authenticity" - whether of the feedback giver as a voice, or the feedback giver as a persona - is not really relevant. For many learners it is actually a relief not to have to embarrass themselves in front of a real person when they want to practise their "th" for example.
However, when they have put in a lot of work, whether on the content of their product (e.g. a text) or the performance (e.g. a presentation), my students have told me in various polls that they prefer the feedback from people (their teacher or their peers) over AI feedback. And this is where I am completely with you: They want the authentic reaction of a real person and genAI cannot provide this. So let us focus on providing, teaching, restricting genAI use to where it is helpful and doing without genAI in all other scenarios.
I really resonate with this idea of using technology for "practice", and not a replacement for real human feedback.
There's real benefit for practice not only in creating an "embarrassment-free" safe space, but also in giving specific controls in targeting a practice to focus on exactly what needs the most work.
This approach also pairs well with Rob's point above about using technology as class prep, and leaving it outside the lived classroom experience.
It's impossible to keep up! Great overview on podcasting and authenticity. There's a reason we use the concept of "voice" to mean a unique and authentic stamp on creative output. Synthetic voice disrupts that. I highly recommend this short podcast by my colleague Erin Anderson, "Being Siri." It's from 2017 so it doesn't address AI, but it does tackle voice synthesis and individuality in a compelling and personal way: https://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/being-siri
Really appreciate this post, as it helps "update" my own understanding amidst all the other stuff of a given school year—as it's hard to pay attention to how this continues to evolve.
Where I'm struggling: 1) there's a major divide that I've noticed between the potential/good uses of AI being utilized by students who already have strong skills to further/deepen them versus students who are struggling and use AI to shortcut the learning—ultimately widening the gaps that already exist; and 2) there's just no discernible way for an educator to "keep up" amidst the bustle of the school year with all these changes and, in terms of incentive, if you "catch up" only to see that it has moved on once again to a new stage/capacity, the exhaustion is real.
Keep doing what you're doing! It genuinely helps, including for those of us flailing...
I'm skeptical of authenticity as a concept in teaching for reasons I hope I can explain in a way that is satisfying (to me if no one else), but I'm enthusiastic about the concept of presence. Being present as a teacher and as a student feels increasingly important as screens get better at capturing our eyeballs.
As the semester winds down, my students and I have been talking about ways to improve the class the next time I teach it. We imagined eliminating digital technology from the classroom experience, relegating it to class preparation, what José Bowen calls teaching naked. Everyone agreed this is a good idea, and then we started in with the "but what about...."
I'm thinking about building a class next fall on AI in Higher Education around the seeming contradiction of using absolutely zero AI or other digital tech during class time. We would spend our time in class using nineteenth-century technology to make sense of our experiences with twenty-first century tools.
The Present Professor is now on my list of reading to prep for the class. Thanks for the pointer!
Very curious for your take on authenticity in teaching.
Short version: I buy William James's notion that our selves are socially constructed. There is no core or true self. There is a person's social self, the "recognition which he gets from his mates." Our selves are made of "fluctuating material" and we create selves for every social situation we're in, including when we are alone. The self we construct for teaching or writing isn't an expression of deep identity. It is "a performing self." I think this conception solves some problems that arise when we overthink how to manage ourselves as teachers.
I have been looking for a book to pair with Brian Lowery's book "Selfless" for a review essay, and I think "The Present Professor may be it. That essay, when I get to it, will be my long answer.
Thanks for asking!
Got it, that makes a lot of sense (and for what it's worth, I agree with the idea of selves being constructed).
The broader question for me is how to construct and project a self that's authentic to our values. Perhaps such a self is strictly speaking "inauthentic" – it's still a role we play, or a mask we put on. But it's a role that can be consistent over time, and is true to however we want to show up in the world.
Looking forward to your future post!
You make an excellent point in your second-to-last paragraph when you advocate for teachers to have open conversations with their students about the different ways generative AI tools impact the details of their learning *experiences* On a related note, those who work in faculty & educational development will need to begin crafting responses to faculty who ask for guidance on how to incorporate these conversations amidst the other teaching-related obligations they have
For me as a foreign language teacher, there is a further layer of authenticity to be considered (and my colleagues always discuss this layer whenever I do a training on the latest developments in AI): Can an AI podcast be considered to be an example of authentic language use? See, in Germany, exposing students to authentic bits of foreign language use is very important, and any staged dialogue (e.g. something you might use to illustrate the use of a grammatical structure introduced in a textbook) has to have at least native speakers to perform it or, even better, be a recording of a "natural" bit of dialogue using that grammatical structure. Now, if we have AI generated voices performing an AI generated dialogue, the question does arise in how far this is "authentic" and helpful for our students. (There was a whole controversy out there on the various levels of this kind of authenticity even before genAI came along, but let's not go down that rabbit hole.)
My two cents on this particular question: The importance of authentic foreign language usage depends on several factors, one of which is the student's situation and learning objective. Many of my EFL students struggle with correct English pronunciation. Their mother tongue interferes with basic pronunciation rules in English, they attend classes, we do a lot of group work, but one on one feedback and pronunciation practice for words and phrases they struggle with individually is impossible to provide - whether at school or university, where I teach. So this very specific purpose would be an example that "authenticity" - whether of the feedback giver as a voice, or the feedback giver as a persona - is not really relevant. For many learners it is actually a relief not to have to embarrass themselves in front of a real person when they want to practise their "th" for example.
However, when they have put in a lot of work, whether on the content of their product (e.g. a text) or the performance (e.g. a presentation), my students have told me in various polls that they prefer the feedback from people (their teacher or their peers) over AI feedback. And this is where I am completely with you: They want the authentic reaction of a real person and genAI cannot provide this. So let us focus on providing, teaching, restricting genAI use to where it is helpful and doing without genAI in all other scenarios.
I really resonate with this idea of using technology for "practice", and not a replacement for real human feedback.
There's real benefit for practice not only in creating an "embarrassment-free" safe space, but also in giving specific controls in targeting a practice to focus on exactly what needs the most work.
This approach also pairs well with Rob's point above about using technology as class prep, and leaving it outside the lived classroom experience.
It's impossible to keep up! Great overview on podcasting and authenticity. There's a reason we use the concept of "voice" to mean a unique and authentic stamp on creative output. Synthetic voice disrupts that. I highly recommend this short podcast by my colleague Erin Anderson, "Being Siri." It's from 2017 so it doesn't address AI, but it does tackle voice synthesis and individuality in a compelling and personal way: https://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/being-siri
Thank you, Annette! I will check it out.
the middle path in your last section really resonated with me. as did the ai-free zones.
thanks for writing this!