Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · 10h

I find it interesting (but not frustrating or upsetting) that my non-peer-reviewed writing (on blogs or similar) get cited more often than my peer-reviewed articles. The issue is of course that academia counts/rewards the citations of the peer-reviewed ones only. Not the usefuleness of all of it.

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Matt Crosslin @grandeped.bsky.social · Sep 3

To be honest, I only made it through about a paragraph or so of Paul LeBlanc before I skipped ahead to @mahabali.bsky.social‘s insightful critique. We are supposed to see the launch of their LE-1 this month, so I guess we will see what they are overhyping right now…

jryoung.bsky.social @jryoung.bsky.social · Sep 3

Ep 2 of Learning Curve just dropped! This one looks at a new model for teaching with AI proposed by Paul LeBlanc, former president of SNHU, plus some reaction from longtime teaching expert Maha Bali. Can AI bots be part of teaching w/o cutting off human connection?

learningcurve.fm/episodes/wha...

What If College Teaching Was Redesigned With AI In Mind? | Learning Curve

A former university president is trying to reimagine college teaching with AI in mind, and this year he released an unusual video that provides a kind of artist’s sketch of what that could look like. ...

learningcurve.fm

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Sep 9

2/2 it's also like... analogous to training the AI in your voice and video and worrying about what it might do with it and distort it into something else given all it's been trained on before? I have some thought experiments on this!

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Sep 9

Yes... and also, there is a risk people on the margins have of whether training larger models on their data risks them losing rhetorical and data sovereignty (particularly important for Indigenous groups, but also, e.g., for me, sacred holy texts?). 1/2

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Sarah Wingo @sarahwingo.bsky.social · Sep 9

I HATE when people compare AI to the printing press, it's so disingenuous. The printing press was opposed by the elites because it put power in the hands of everyday people, and popularized a vernacular. AI does the opposite, by allowing elites to bypass artists and laborers.

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Brian Bergstrom @brianbergstrom.bsky.social · Sep 9

Not to constantly refer to one of my own translations, but Saitō's use of André Gorz's distinction between open and locking technologies is very pertinent here -- generative AI is locking tech masquerading as open tech

Excerpt from my translation of Slow Down by Kōhei Saitō:

It may behoove us here
to turn our attention to the nuanced
arguments offered by the French Marxist André Gorz. Toward
the
end of his life, Gorz was clear in his warnings about the dangers of
technological development under
capitalism. According to him,
the productivism that leaves everything
up to specialists is, in the end, linked to the negation of democracy, “a negation of both politics
and modernity at once.”116
Gorz asserts that to avoid the dangers of productivism, it’s important
to distinguish between “open technologies” and “locking
technologies.” Open technologies are those
that involve exchange
with others,
that relate to communication and cooperative industry.
By contrast, locking technologies are those
that divide people,
that
turn users into slaves and monopolize the provision of products
and services.
117
A prime example of a locking technology is nuclear power.
Nuclear energy was lauded for a long time as “green energy.” But
ostensibly for reasons of security, nuclear energy is isolated from
the general public, and information about it is kept classified and
tightly controlled. Such a situation leads to cover-ups,
inviting
major accidents to occur. It’s impossible to manage nuclear energy
production democratically.
It is in this sense a locking technology,
unadaptable to democratic
management and necessitating the
top-down
politics of centralized control. In this way, technology
and politics cannot be separated. Specific technologies demand specific
forms of politics. In the context of climate change, technologies
like geoengineering and NETs are democracy-negating,
locking
technologies par excellence.
LOCKING TECHNOLOGIES

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Audrey Watters @audreywatters.bsky.social · Sep 5

Brood parasitism is not a perfect metaphor, by any means, for AI, for the offloading of ed-tech development onto teachers and students, for the vampiric practices of VCs ... but it's the bird I went with to head this week's news round-up...

2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/brood-parasi...

Brood Parasites

Humans have always invested great meaning in birds. No surprise, what with the feathers, the flight. Each week, when I look at all the stories that've been told about education and technology and try ...

2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Grow Beyond Grades @growbeyondgrades.org · Sep 3

“Why focus on how to improve when the verdict has already been delivered?” 📫

High school senior, Subhiksha Sreeram, describes the way grades cut off real learning. Her essay A Letter to Letters is the first of three winners in our Growth, Not Grades contest.

growbeyondgrades.org/blog/a-lette...

A Letter to Letters — Grow Beyond Grades

In this letter, Subhiksha Sreeram breaks up with grades, recalling how letters once ruled her worth and turned learning into a numbers game. She shares how chasing A’s left her anxious, perfectionisti...

growbeyondgrades.org

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

jryoung.bsky.social @jryoung.bsky.social · Sep 3

Ep 2 of Learning Curve just dropped! This one looks at a new model for teaching with AI proposed by Paul LeBlanc, former president of SNHU, plus some reaction from longtime teaching expert Maha Bali. Can AI bots be part of teaching w/o cutting off human connection?

learningcurve.fm/episodes/wha...

What If College Teaching Was Redesigned With AI In Mind? | Learning Curve

A former university president is trying to reimagine college teaching with AI in mind, and this year he released an unusual video that provides a kind of artist’s sketch of what that could look like. ...

learningcurve.fm

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Educating to be Human Podcast @edutobehuman.bsky.social · Aug 26

#ICYMI, last week we spoke with @mahabali.bsky.social on #digitalliteracy and #AI in the classroom. Tune in at: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Sep 3

In this podcast episode, I respond to Matter & Space and critique their claims to transform edu with AI
learningcurve.fm/episodes/wha...
Would love to hear what you think

What If College Teaching Was Redesigned With AI In Mind? | Learning Curve

A former university president is trying to reimagine college teaching with AI in mind, and this year he released an unusual video that provides a kind of artist’s sketch of what that could look like. ...

learningcurve.fm

Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Aug 20

I'm giving a keynote today on Cultivating socially just care in academia today via SLU, starting 1.15pm Sweden time, 11.15 GMT, 2.15pm Cairo, and way early ET 7.15am

Register here if interested:
slu-se.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: SLU Education Conference Day 1 Keynote: Dr. Maha Bali. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Keynote talk will start at 13:15 and will be streamed from Loftets hörsal i Ultuna.

slu-se.zoom.us

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Educating to be Human Podcast @edutobehuman.bsky.social · Aug 19

🎧 New Episode: AI in the Classroom w/ @mahabali.bsky.social
exploring how #AI shapes power, equity & relationships in education - and why questioning tech is crucial in today’s world. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
#AIinEducation #DigitalLiteracy #CriticalPedagogy #FutureOfLearning #EdTech

AI in the Classroom: Power, Bias and Opportunity with Maha Bali

Podcast Episode · Educating to Be Human Podcast · 08/19/2025 · 45m

podcasts.apple.com

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Aug 18

Oh I don't know what story I shared inspired this? Or I forgot? Tell me haha

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Aug 18

Unexpected Reflections from the ABBA Museum Experience.
blog.mahabali.me/pedagogy/cri...

Unexpected Reflections from the ABBA Museum Experience

I love ABBA. My parents and uncle turned me into music of their generation when I was young, and I was hooked on them, the Beatles, Boney M, Beegees. My husband is similar, so our teen is also into…

blog.mahabali.me

Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Aug 18

Can a flight cancelation be a gift?
(This is me theorizing approaches to uncertainty and its intersection with privilege based on a recent experience)

blog.mahabali.me/parenting/ca...

Can a Flight Cancelation Be a Gift?

I start this blogpost the morning after arriving here in Sweden where I’m expected to give a workshop and a keynote soon. The question “how is this a gift to me?” came from the person who inv…

blog.mahabali.me

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Aug 2

Such a useful and important article when assessing tech for accessibility

Disability Dongle: Another Thinking Tool for the Technoskeptical Toolbox.

Via @civicsoftech.bsky.social www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/disabil...

Disability Dongle: Another Thinking Tool for the Technoskeptical Toolbox — Civics of Technology

The authors of this week’s blog intersect technoskepticism with disability studies to offer a series of questions that help in evaluating assistive tech.

www.civicsoftechnology.org

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Jul 27

Can't wait to chat with @hypervisible.bsky.social - join us! #MYFest25 - details below

Equity Unbound @equityunbound.bsky.social · Jul 27

Join Chris Gilliard to discuss themes from his upcoming book Luxury Surveillance. Explore how AI-driven tech blurs lines between control & convenience.
📅Tue, July 29 | 🕔 5–6pm Cairo | 2–3pm GMT
🔗Register for MYFest25: bit.ly/MYFest25regi...
Fee Waiver: [email protected]
#Surveillance #AI #HigherEd

MYFest25: Mid-Year Festival 2025

Choose-ur-own-learning journey: AI, Imagination, digital literacies, community building, critical pedagogy, wellbeing & joy.

bit.ly

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Jul 27

Nooooooooo 🙈🙈🙈

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Anna Mills @annamillsoer.bsky.social · Jul 12

Sponsored by the AI Pedagogy Project at Harvard's metaLAB and the Data Nutrition Project, this event is free, open to all, and designed to make AI approachable and relevant for you.

Honored to be giving a keynote with @mahabali.bsky.social alongside @randomwalker.bsky.social, @eryk.bsky.social +

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Anna Mills @annamillsoer.bsky.social · Jul 12

Register for a dynamic, free two-day virtual AI Summit August 13-14 for the general public to hear from leading experts about the latest AI developments, gain a clearer understanding of what these changes mean, and learn how we can leverage these tools in our everyday lives.
publicaisummit.org

Public AI Summit

A dynamic, two-day virtual AI Summit for the general public to hear from leading experts about the latest AI developments, gain a clearer understanding of what these changes mean, and learn how we can...

publicaisummit.org

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Maha Bali, PhD @mahabali.bsky.social · Jul 27

I think you were reading the museum stuff more closely than I was. I never liked physics in school or uni (had to take 5 courses! Got A's, understood nothing!) but still enjoyed CERN very much and more so because you were there!!!

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

edifiedlistener.bsky.social @edifiedlistener.bsky.social · Jul 17

Thanks to my visit to CERN in Geneva last week several of these terms magically make sense to me! 🙌🏾 Shout out to @mahabali.bsky.social who organized our excursion!

Paul Guinnessy @paulguinnessy.bsky.social · Jul 15

Mary Gaillard's calculations correctly predicted the mass of the charm quark and contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson as she triumphed over sexism in the field of physics. R.I.P. #physics

Pioneering theoretical physicist Mary K. Gaillard has died at 86 - Berkeley News

Gaillard's calculations correctly predicted the mass of the charm quark and contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson as she triumphed over sexism in the field of physics.

news.berkeley.edu

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Dr. Maria Dikcis @mdphd.bsky.social · Jul 17

Excited to co-organize the #PublicAISummit (Aug 13–14) with the Data Nutrition Project + metaLAB (at) Harvard's AI Pedagogy Project!
🎙️ Keynotes by Kathy Pham, @randomwalker.bsky.social, @annamillsoer.bsky.social, @mahabali.bsky.social
💻 Free + virtual
🌍 For the public
🔗 Register: publicaisummit.org

Public AI Summit

A dynamic, two-day virtual AI Summit for the general public to hear from leading experts about the latest AI developments, gain a clearer understanding of what these changes mean, and learn how we can...

publicaisummit.org

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Reposted by Maha Bali, PhD

Anna Mills @annamillsoer.bsky.social · Jul 23

Prompt libraries for higher ed!
Lessons from @mikecaulfield.bsky.social's megaprompt!
Lessons from deep collaboration on the @pairrfeedback.bsky.social prompt!

Slides for Let’s Prompt Together: Educators Sharing and Refining AI Prompts, a MyFest presentation
link.annarmills.com/letsprompt

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

lnkd.in

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