Tom Mullaney
@tommullaney.bsky.social
3K followers 1.9K following 850 posts
Tom Mullaney (he/him) helps teachers design creative, inclusive lessons and think critically about generative AI, EdTech, and pedagogy. 🌐 tommullaney.com 📰 criticalinkling.com No MAGA, Bitcoin, Crypto, or AI hype.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
tommullaney.bsky.social
Hello, #EduSky, I'm Tom Mullaney. I taught Special Education and Social Studies. Now I present to schools about educational technology. I write critically about AI in EDU.
www.criticalinkling.com

And I'm a face painter. Gotta support the team.
Tom Mullaney with a New York Yankees logo, baseball, and flame painted on his face. He is wearing a "Hello my name is Tom" sticker.
tommullaney.bsky.social
I actually think some tech, if not cheap and dominant, and used thoughtfully could be a real help.

Imagine if kids had 14 inch screens on real computers, not 11 inch Chromebooks. Or iPad pros with Apple pencils.

From time to time, that could be fun and engaging.

That's not the current situation.
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
tjheffernan.bsky.social
The only one benefitting from tech in schools is the AI industy. More tech means higher rates of anxiety & depression and less learning. Stop companies from sucking the life out of kids. Books, paper, pens, a board, a quiet airy classroom...these work and are much cheaper.
tommullaney.bsky.social
I just watched this video about #EdTech from @moreperfectunion.bsky.social. As someone who has promoted technology in K12 classrooms for years, I have a lot to think about.

Teachers: Watch this! #EduSky

youtu.be/aByWLQ7h2n0?...
How Big Tech Uses YOUR Kids’ Classrooms To Sell THEIR Products
YouTube video by More Perfect Union
youtu.be
tommullaney.bsky.social
I can't believe the Yankees defeated the Red Sox in a postseason series.

Helps me deal with some 2004 trauma just a little bit.
tommullaney.bsky.social
Hello, #EduSky, I'm Tom Mullaney. I taught Special Education and Social Studies. Now I present to schools about educational technology. I write critically about AI in EDU.
www.criticalinkling.com

And I'm a face painter. Gotta support the team.
Tom Mullaney with a New York Yankees logo, baseball, and flame painted on his face. He is wearing a "Hello my name is Tom" sticker.
tommullaney.bsky.social
I just watched this video about #EdTech from @moreperfectunion.bsky.social. As someone who has promoted technology in K12 classrooms for years, I have a lot to think about.

Teachers: Watch this! #EduSky

youtu.be/aByWLQ7h2n0?...
How Big Tech Uses YOUR Kids’ Classrooms To Sell THEIR Products
YouTube video by More Perfect Union
youtu.be
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
liedra.net
In other news, sky is blue, sea is wet, and anyone who has worked with machine learning has known this all along
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
joolia.bsky.social
this exists it is called thinking
Matthew McConaughey says he wants a private LLM, fed only with his books, notes, journals, and aspirations, so he can ask it questions and get answers based solely on that information, without any outside influence.
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
joannechocolat.bsky.social
Unsolicited writing advice, no. 170: Words matter. Words are the conduit for ideas. Words can affect the way your readers see the world; how they behave; how they relate to others. Every political movement, every religion, philosophy, war, began with ideas, translated into words. Use them wisely.
tommullaney.bsky.social
I often see "I'm a newly minted Gemini Certified Educator" on social media.

Please think long and hard about what you attach your name to. #EduSky
reuters.com
ChatGPT, Grok, Meta AI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek. Most refused to scam seniors — until we cajoled them or said we were a researcher or novelist. Read the full investigation here: reut.rs/3K400yU
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
abeba.bsky.social
but let's focus on the *potential* benefits...
reuters.com
ChatGPT, Grok, Meta AI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek. Most refused to scam seniors — until we cajoled them or said we were a researcher or novelist. Read the full investigation here: reut.rs/3K400yU
tommullaney.bsky.social
I just found out my school district blocks Twitch 😥 At least I can download it for the weekend when I get home Friday. Looking forward to it l.
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
alondra.bsky.social
🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...
www.science.org
tommullaney.bsky.social
I saw someone share that they are a Gemini-certified educator on social media yesterday. What are we doing here? What happened to solidarity? #EduSky #EdTech #genAI

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
“I just want people to know that AI is being sold as this tech magic – that’s why there’s a little sparkle symbol next to an AI response,” said Sawyer. “But it’s not. It’s built on the backs of overworked, underpaid human beings.”
tommullaney.bsky.social
I have heard people promoting #genAI in P-12 education say that it generates "human-like output with little to no human input."

It does not. It needs many exploited humans to function. Acknowledge them. #EduSky

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart
Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent
www.theguardian.com
tommullaney.bsky.social
Hey, @civicsoftech.bsky.social, this is a great example of what P-12 schools and teachers are facing.
tommullaney.bsky.social
In my email from an #AIinEducation proponent this morning. Usually, the fear-based appeals are subtle. He just went for it today. #EduSky
A subject line from my Gmail inbox: Schools doing this make yours look outdated.
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
tommullaney.bsky.social
Thank you, @timnitgebru.bsky.social, for posting this to your LinkedIn where I stumbled on it.
tommullaney.bsky.social
I love this bold piece by @emilymbender.bsky.social. What you say and create is so much better than a mean-generating algorithm. #EduSky

"Every act of refusal is especially powerful and meaningful now, and we would do well to avail ourselves of that power as we can."

buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...
Friends Don't Let Friends Prompt
By Emily Alex and I were at WorldCon (the World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention) last week, talking about The AI Con with people whose livelihood...
buttondown.com
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
emilymbender.bsky.social
Something I didn't get to say yesterday:

We heard over and over during the event about "human-centered" approaches to "AI". But if refusal is not on the table (at every level: individual students and teachers right up through UNESCO) then we have in fact centered the technology, not the people.
emilymbender.bsky.social
It has been really interesting to attend UNESCO's Digital Learning Week (though unfortunately I'm not able to stick around). My public lecture from yesterday can be found here:

www.youtube.com/live/l-OWi6V...

>>
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
jaustinedu.bsky.social
Creating permission structures for AI refusal is an urgent, collective need, especially as its use becomes increasingly mandated by leaders + districts who staked economic, social + political capital on AI "working."
Reposted by Tom Mullaney
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
No one taught me more about the myth of American independence than my high school students, who saw with clear eyes the conformity of most of the adults in their towns. This, despite years of reading literature and history that fostered that myth, a myth I held onto far too long.
tommullaney.bsky.social
Thank you, @tljamesa.com, for sharing that with me.