I read the local newspapers on-line, which is my way of saving trees. However, someone has created clever little live ads for the paper that annoy the hell out of me. This week, it's a colorful hummingbird that swoops and flutters its way all over the front page. If it did a short, simple little flight, I probably would ignore it, but this hummingbird does not stop until I physically click on the X for the ad box.
My students write blogs to help them develop ease of written communication in a non-graded setting. One student really went all out, adding her play list of favorite current music that blasts on when I open her page. Not only is the volume set way too high, but there is no X option for turning it off. Believe me, I read her blogs quickly and write a very short response.
Gmail reads my email and offers suggestions for products, other sites, and recipes that I might enjoy based on my content. This week, I received an offer that is hard to resist: gmail will now read my email and send a response to it so I don't have to do so myself! Wow. The computer program analyzes the way I usually respond myself and applies that style to their computer-generated response. They assure me that no one will be able to tell that I am not responding myself, but I'd like to hope that my people would know the difference.
I'll betcha that rather than worrying about all the students who buy the teacher editions of their textbooks on line so they can "earn" a better grade in my classes, I'm going to have to worry about computer-generated essays! After all, why should any student risk a bad grade on an essay if a computer can do it faster and better? Find some really great essays on-line, use them to set up the computer program to recognize that style as your own style, and type in the topic: voila! An instant A.
Yeah, just because you can does NOT mean you should, but I'll be willing to bet that the same people who use the teacher editions to enhance their course grades won't understand that ethical concept.
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I took off my music playlist. It wasn't showing the whole playlist where you can turn down the music, and the pause button never wanted to work. I have been planning on taking it down for a while now, but I finally got to it tonight, haha. :]
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