Kate Littlejohn
@kelittlejohn.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.8K following 1.8K posts
History, curriculum, curriculum history, books, writing. PhD student researching gender, historical consciousness, and the history curriculum in Australia. Passionate about rural equity. She/her. 🏳️‍🌈 My words and thoughts are my own.
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kelittlejohn.bsky.social
#PhD research callout!

I am seeking History teachers in NSW for a short interview about NSW History 7-10 syllabuses. If you have taught History in NSW and are interested, please enter your details into this form.

forms.office.com/r/cvf5QfLrLb

Ethics approval: H16788

Please share!
Seeking: NSW History Teachers. Have you taught History 7-10 in NSW? Are you interested in taking part in an online interview for a PhD study at WSU about the representation of women in the NSW history syllabuses? Please enter your details into the form below for further details. https://forms.office.com/r/cvf5QfLrLb Contacts: Kate Littlejohn, Kay Carroll
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
And I'm going to do a pilot run with a colleague that won't be a participant in the research first as well, to hopefully get out some of the surface nerves
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
It's so exciting and scary at the same time, I feel equal parts too old to be feeling all of this and too young/not grown up enough to be doing it at all 😅
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
I do! I thought booking one in with someone that will go gentle on me if I'm nervous would be a good plan so I'm relieved I did that.
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
I just booked in my first interview for my PhD research and I am *terrified*. I am a highly qualified and competent 40 year old woman that has been successful in lots of professional realms - why does this feel so scary!? #PhDSky #PhDchat
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
tedmccormick.bsky.social
A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
tedmccormick.bsky.social
Appendix 2: on tools

A tool is *for* something. If the things generative AI tools are *for* are not conducive to learning a given subject, generative AI is not a tool for learning that subject. Establishing that and then talking about how to integrate it into courses on that subject is incoherent.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
tedmccormick.bsky.social
The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to:

(1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education

(2) therefore, the goals of education must change.

Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
It will also disconnect students from each other—and in a world fractured by various flavors of technofascism, I cannot think of a more disastrous thing (which is likely partly why AI fetishists are pushing for AI in schools and universities)
hypervisible.blacksky.app
“One of the negative consequences AI is having on students is that it is hurting their ability to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, the report finds. Half of the students agree that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers.”
Rising Use of AI in Schools Comes With Big Downsides for Students
A report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at teachers' and students' experiences with the technology.
www.edweek.org
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
spalm.bsky.social
AI is just the latest in a long line of 'innovations' that have progressively degraded relationships between students and teachers. Huge classes. Assessment done by others. Online everything. Just spend a few minutes in any university Reddit to observe the obvious disconnection.
hypervisible.blacksky.app
“One of the negative consequences AI is having on students is that it is hurting their ability to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, the report finds. Half of the students agree that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers.”
Rising Use of AI in Schools Comes With Big Downsides for Students
A report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at teachers' and students' experiences with the technology.
www.edweek.org
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
blairwilliams26.bsky.social
Kelly on the money here!

"As it bangs on about conservatism, reinforced by media backers, it doesn’t get that conservatism doesn’t enjoy majority support in Aus. It never has and it never will. Since Federation, Australia has never been governed by a party that calls itself Conservative."

#AusPol
www.theaustralian.com.au
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
threnody.bsky.social
just watched a dozen people ask microsoft copilot experts their most pressing questions and those questions were 90% “how do i turn it off?” and “when i turn it off, is it really off or is it spying on me?”
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
reshetz.bsky.social
I want an unprecedented meltdown on the right so I want Greta Thunberg to get the Nobel Peace Prize this year
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
sgadarian.bsky.social
Everyone who studies research methods just had an aneurysm
atrupar.com
RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
bestonetx.bsky.social
Democrats: We follow the science.

Republicans: The science follows us.
atrupar.com
RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
I'm sorry, did Temu Mel Gibson here just sat that the baby is *in* the placenta?

Is there any aspect of human biology this lumbering science experiment of a man can't get wrong?
atrupar.com
RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
That's ... Not how research works? Literal high school students know that's not how research works.
atrupar.com
RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
This has always been the plan!
They want a captive market in schools/universities and for those institutions to eventually automate education with their chatbots.
We are TRAINING these LLMs in preparation for our redundancy, and experimenting with the health and futures of children while we do it
ncecire.bsky.social
"Why would OpenAI and Microsoft spend $23 million to give 'free training' on how to use AI to teachers? Because they love teachers? No. Because they want to get their products into public schools in an attempt to cultivate the education market."
jljacobson.bsky.social
I maintain that we are in grave danger due not only to the trends noted by @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social in this piece, but by the failure of the Democratic party 1) to grasp these dangers and act in advance to prevent or minimize them; (1)

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/thinking-o...
kelittlejohn.bsky.social
This sounds amazing, can't wait to read it. Congratulations!
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
keithwdickinson.bsky.social
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
wyld.bsky.social
@southerlylitmag.bsky.social, so-called Australia's oldest literary journal, has quietly woken from a long hiatus to join us in the Bluesky. This must be a sign of something brewing. So give them a follow.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
ouinne.bsky.social
The only correct take on a fundamentally anti-human technology.
Screenshot of David Simon interview 
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
charlottewood.bsky.social
Brief re-entry to Bluesky to let you know of our self-directed online writing course, 'Elements of Fiction'. Emily Perkins & I chose 5 topics: Voice, Texture, Tension, Time, and People - most of which we think are under-explored in writing classes. Very affordable & (we modestly think) excellent!
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
glasscitygordie.bsky.social
When your entire worldview is built around the idea that everyone and everything is out to get you, even when you get everything you want, it's not enough. They'll always need an enemy to fight, even after they've defeated everyone and everything. It's a truly lonely, pathetic existence.
Reposted by Kate Littlejohn
anneapplebaum.bsky.social
"We took the freedom of speech away," says the president
atrupar.com
Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."