Voice Matters: Beyond Mr. Altman's Vision
OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode Inspires the Launch of My New Curriculum
Hi, Educating AI Readers,
I hope everyone enjoyed diving into the 40 Must-Read Newsletters for AI, Tech, and Innovation Enthusiasts. I am enjoying my last week with my kids before I jump back into the school year this coming Wednesday.
It seems like every day I come up with a new idea for a newsletter topic as I interact with people online, read new things, and develop my own course materials. That said, I will have to keep the next couple articles somewhat short as I am actively finishing up two different online trainings with the help of some of my colleagues before the school year really hits hard.
New Training for Teachers!!!
Pragmatic AI Prompting for Advanced Differentiation
The first training course I am developing with the amazing instructional designer Richard Andrew: Pragmatic AI Prompting for Advanced Differentiation. This one is designed for teachers at all levels of AI literacy and proficiency. While this course focuses ostensibly on differentiation, it truly offers faculty, admin, and professionals a full AI onboarding experience. Andrew’s platform is collaborative and pushes the participant gradually towards a deeply reflective AI work cycle and practice.
Module 1: Choosing the Right AI Model (Pilot Module 1)
Understand AI models and their educational applications.
Develop skills to evaluate and select AI tools that align with your instructional goals.
Module 2: AI Role Playing (Pilot Module 2)
Engage in hands-on experiences with AI to explore its capabilities and limitations in educational contexts.
Module 3: Exploring Differentiation
Deepen knowledge of differentiated instruction principles.
Brainstorm innovative ideas for using AI to enhance differentiation and create inclusive learning environments.
Module 4: Preparing To Differentiate Your Assignments
Select appropriate student assignments for AI differentiation.
Reflect on differentiation strategies present in those student assignments.
Module 5: Using AI to Differentiate (Core Project)
Apply newly learned AI skills to expertly differentiate student assignments.
New Course for Students!!!
AI Uncovered - Your Immersive Journey into the World of Artificial Intelligence
The second training course is designed for students in grades 9-12. With the guidance of a good teacher, this course can serve as the basis for a semester-long AI literacy experience. I am developing it with the dynamic duo, David Hatami and Andrew Landeen. Our instructional designer, Andrew Landeen, has taken full advantage of the Articulate platform. Students will engage in coding their own bot in one module and will work with embedded LLMs in several other modules.
Module 1: AI Uncovered - Your Immersive Journey into the World of Artificial Intelligence
Introduction to interactive, hands-on AI training.
Activity 1: AI or Not AI? - Defining the Undefinable
Classify everyday technologies as AI or not AI to understand key AI concepts.
Activity 2: Crafting the AI Timeline - From Dartmouth to DeepMind
Arrange key milestones in AI history on an interactive timeline.
Activity 3: AI Approach Simulator
Experiment with rule-based systems, machine learning, and deep learning.
Activity 4: AI Toolbox Challenge
Match AI tools to real-world problems and learn how they provide solutions.
Activity 5: The Agency Spectrum
Interact with AI systems of varying agency levels and analyze their decision-making processes.
Activity 6: Human in the Loop - Collaborative AI Simulator
Collaborate with AI in different scenarios to balance AI insights with human judgment.
Activity 7: Ethical Implications Debate
Debate the ethical considerations of granting AI legal personhood.
Activity 8: AI Literacy Navigator
Navigate everyday scenarios involving AI to apply and reinforce AI literacy skills.
Activity 9: Design Your AI Literacy Campaign
Create a public awareness campaign to educate others about key AI concepts.
If you have any questions or inquiries, or if you'd like to set up a call to see the trainings in action, please reach out to me at nicolas@pragmaticaisolutions.net.
We offer competitive pricing for each training session.
Voice Matters: Beyond Sam Altman's Vision
Voice matters, but not for the reasons that Sam Altman believes.
I love the word "voice" and its many meanings. It can refer to the sound of our larynx, our style or presentation, or our participation in the moment or a movement. This week, after several months of hiding, ChatGPT-4's Advanced Voice Mode showed its controversy-tarnished face once again.
A small percentage of GPT Plus customers received access to Voice Mode this week and responded to it like a party trick on TikTok: "Look, GPT can have a Bostonian accent!" "Look, GPT can speak Turkish!" In classic OpenAI fashion, instead of considering the potential risks of a highly persuasive AI, the company spent the hiatus tweaking the model to make it even more persuasive and personable.
Earlier in the summer, I wrote a series of very concerned posts about this trend. However, at this point, I am almost reassured that OpenAI is just barreling along with its "voice" first business model – voice here in the sense of "the sound of our larynx."
Before I get any further, please check out these other interesting responses to GPT-4's Advanced Voice Mode:
: “On speaking to AI”—Ever the techno-optimist, Mollick explains once again how AI will revolutionize everything.: “Synthetic Relationships Will Alter Real Ones”—Watkins warns us about the erosion of our distrust for conversational machines.: “Stranger Danger: Effective AI Use via Critical Thinking and Humanities Skills”—Kentz position release of Advanced Voice Mode as an opportunity to hone our critical thinking skills. : “Let’s Stop Treating LLMs like People”—Nelson, although not explicitly commentary on Advanced Voice Mode, offers his most comprehensive case against LLM anthropomorphization.Here's the good news: OpenAI isn't concerned with Educational AI at all. Their focus is on multi-modal AI as means for conducting financial and commercial transactions, perhaps through their new search functionality. That said, they'd be happy if you carried out these AI-enabled tasks through a traditional search engine.
Secondary evidence: The chat feature hasn't evolved since its inception. How can OpenAI claim to care about instructional goals when their interface still promotes zero- and one-shot prompting? As we learned in my series in the middle of the summer, this technological framing encourages users to regard AI as an agent rather than a tool.
Please revisit Marc Watkins’s 2023 article on LLM interfaces. Note that none of these alternative interface developers are still in the game or have yet pushed out a product. Do I smell a business opportunity educators???
So as Sam Altman pursues the promises of one particular definition of voice, we educators are free to seize on the power and expansiveness of the other definitions. This past week, I had a wonderful conversation with Harvard Professor and journalist,
, about AI x education. She had reached out in particular to discuss my foregrounding of the concept of voice in my Senior English Capstone course, positioned as a response to AI’s arrival in today’s writing classroom.I have noticed many great educators working hard to figure out what to do with AI in the classroom, how to slot it into traditional assignments and writing cycles for instance or how to evaluate what students do with AI. While I commend my colleagues for their efforts as this is tremendously difficult work, I have come to see this work as the “inside” work of AI curriculum building and pedagogical design — it takes AI as the foundational point of department, and starts theorizing and re-conceptualizing education from that starting point.
In my work with voice, I engage in a parallel work, “outside” work that asks what do our students really need right now to be successful in their writing development and practice, and then asks how AI might help students reach those goals. Here it is important to punctuate–as in all possible moments of opposition–that both sides of this curriculum building and pedagogical design need one another.
Personally, I am sick of educators turning on one another–positioning themselves as the righteous adherents of the true pathways–when really a systems-level perspective will reveal that “inside” and “outside” work combined are the only way forward. Our students need both. And at this time, I find myself in this moment, best positioned, in light of my own interests, my wide range of teaching experiences, and my specific training in narrative and rhetorical studies to contribute to the “outside” approach.
As I am running short on time, I will briefly overview the three conceptual and pedagogical dimensions of voice: agency, expression, and creativity. I'll provide a few insights into how this reframing might benefit our work in an AI-infused writing classroom. In upcoming articles, I will delve deeper into the rhetorical elements of voice, classroom and assignment design principles that facilitate the development and maintenance of voice, establishing feedback systems for reflecting, refining, and developing voice, and exploring the intersection between human and AI voice as a promising, mutually reinforcing curricular feedback loop.
Voice: Conceptual and Pedagogical Framing
Fostering student voice is essential for meaningful learning experiences. Traditional, rigid writing curricula often fail to accommodate the diverse needs and perspectives of students. We need a writing curriculum that emphasizes voice—conceptualized as agency, expression, and creativity—to engage students deeply and empower them to develop unique perspectives and communicate effectively.
Agency is about giving students control over their writing process, which increases engagement and motivation. Allowing students to choose topics that interest them fosters a deeper connection to their work. Encouraging them to set their own writing goals helps them take responsibility for their learning. Empowering students to make decisions about format, style, and structure fosters ownership and accountability, leading to more authentic writing.
Expression in writing reflects a writer's personality and perspective, emphasizing personal connection. Encouraging students to write in their own voice helps articulate their thoughts clearly. Allowing them to experiment with various writing styles and genres helps them express ideas effectively. Helping students make personal connections to their writing topics fosters deeper understanding and engagement.
Creativity in writing involves experimenting with styles, genres, and formats. Engaging in creative writing activities inspires students to see writing as a form of art and personal expression. Supporting innovative approaches helps students explore new possibilities in writing. Recognizing and celebrating unique voices and creative contributions fosters a positive and inclusive learning environment. By emphasizing agency, expression, and creativity, this approach to writing curricula ensures deeper investment, engagement, and authentic learning experiences.
By embracing broader definitions of voice, we can empower our students to be active, engaged, and creative participants in their learning journeys. As Martha Nichols emphasized, students must first understand their own voices to effectively leverage AI's transformative potential in writing. If writing programs rush to embrace new technology without this foundation, students may struggle to analyze and evaluate AI-generated outputs. By focusing on personal voice development, we ensure students can harness AI for creative and analytical purposes, retaining essential human elements of creativity and critical thinking. This balanced approach prepares them to navigate and shape the future of writing and communication.
Nick Potkalitsky, Ph.D.
Check out some of my favorite Substacks:
Terry Underwood’s Learning to Read, Reading to Learn: The most penetrating investigation of the intersections between compositional theory, literacy studies, and AI on the internet!!!
Suzi’s When Life Gives You AI: An cutting-edge exploration of the intersection among computer science, neuroscience, and philosophy
Alejandro Piad Morffis’s Mostly Harmless Ideas: Unmatched investigations into coding, machine learning, computational theory, and practical AI applications
Michael Woudenberg’s Polymathic Being: Polymathic wisdom brought to you every Sunday morning with your first cup of coffee
Rob Nelson’s AI Log: Incredibly deep and insightful essay about AI’s impact on higher ed, society, and culture.
Michael Spencer’s AI Supremacy: The most comprehensive and current analysis of AI news and trends, featuring numerous intriguing guest posts
Daniel Bashir’s The Gradient Podcast: The top interviews with leading AI experts, researchers, developers, and linguists.
Daniel Nest’s Why Try AI?: The most amazing updates on AI tools and techniques
Riccardo Vocca’s The Intelligent Friend: An intriguing examination of the diverse ways AI is transforming our lives and the world around us.
Jason Gulya’s The AI Edventure: An important exploration of cutting edge innovations in AI-responsive curriculum and pedagogy.
@Nick Potkalitsky love the play on the meaning of the word Voice, so multi layered and so important but as you suggest the nuances are probably missed by many in the AI company space.
Nick, we did have a great conversation, and I hope we’ll have more. I appreciate the way you’ve highlighted the varying responses to OpenAI’s banal “voices.” You’re quite right that Sam Altman and his company have little interest in educational uses, no matter what they say. They are pushing the persuasive qualities of bots, which should give anyone not in marketing or finance pause.