Ted Palenski

"The problem is not devices. It's not screens. It's not social media." A radically different social media wouldn't be harming us this way if our grandmothers invented them - they'd urge us to call home. It's the business model that's harming us. #attention2026

Carolyn Marvin, one of my mentors and committee members ❤️ If you haven‘t read When Old Technologies Were New, do your yourself a favor!

We must, however, also make sure we teach critical compressed air thruster literacy (CCATL), so that students learn to fly responsibly, while obviously reaching new heights* of learning. *heights made only imaginable thanks to the innovative thinking of the 1960s cartoon the Jetsons.

I will be eternally grateful to have been born in a literate culture where literacy was valued and expected and I still had the time, attention, and freedom to develop a literacy practice. Understanding context, inference, vocabulary, perspective, affect — all powerful, useful skills and values.

Cornell students, faculty, and staff stand with survivors!

Amazing turn out from students and staff at the University of Edinburgh, in protest at senior management's greed and manufactured cuts. This is what solidarity looks like - as our campaign of industrial action begins this coming week in protest at the cuts. www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/student...

Just when I think I can’t hate OpenAI and Sam Altman any more, new details come out about how ChatGPT helped a shooter plan one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history in Tumbler Ridge, BC. OpenAI made an explicit decision not to report the user to authorities.

Exactly this. Textbook example of what Joan Tronto calls “privileged irresponsibility.” All your everyday needs are met so you couldn’t possibly imagine the value of the work it takes to meet those needs.

Hey @nytimes.com I fixed this for you

Do I know any educators who live in Georgia? I know of a very cool project that is looking for teacher advisors and pays generously!

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library gifted more than 332,000,000 books since it was first created 31 years ago.

Hey, here's a wild idea. What if some of the decision-makers *were* teachers?

Fellow academics: I know a Haitian PhD student who due to TPS termination needs another institutional affiliation not in the USA. Do you or someone you know have an avenue for them? If so, DM me.

Great to see public libraries highlighted by the BBC as a low-cost way for families to make the most of the summer holidays. 🔗 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A new mapping tool from @friends-earth.bsky.social, the Environment Agency and Natural England reveals shocking levels of inequality in exposure to environmental harm in the UK, with people of colour and low-income households most at risk friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/mapp...

As my department's DGS, this fucking sucks.

Exactly. How often are young people told: “If the product is free, you are the product”? This was also a business strategy during Covid. It is plain as day yet here we are, again. Groundhog Day ad nauseam.

We’ve opened the call for @britishacademy.bsky.social Postdoctoral Fellowships. We provide 3 years of funding to early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences wishing to pursue an independent research project. Apply by 30th September www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

one of the many, many reasons I love owning books is that they're the last bastion of physical media that corporations can neither digitally repossess nor render technologically inaccessible due to regionlocking, subscription changes or phasing out the relevant device. you buy a book and it's YOURS

Everybody will be delighted to know that some very rich men are encouraging young people to do philosophy, major in the liberal arts, develop creativity and develop hobbies, since these people will 'benefit most' from genAI. www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/... #pairedtext

NIH grants have been under political scrutiny since early 2025. But what does the screening process actually look like? What is being flagged? I spent a month digging into leaked docs and emails. We've published the 235-word list that are being flagged by an internal AI tool. And so much more. 🧵

Wild. The limits of automation on full display, and the chaos that is modern academic publishing.

I understand the excitement about technology “rediscovering lost texts.” I do, & I get the media hype. But I wish people knew that there are hundreds of thousands of “lost” texts just sitting in manuscripts in libraries, which have never been published outside of those single manuscripts. 1/n

Also, the Obergefell ruling came 11 years after my home state, Massachusetts, legalized same-sex marriage. Much nicer anniversary than the Brexit referendum.

Today is the 11-year anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

I especially love this diagram.

Watching BBC News and they just did 5 minutes with a doctor about how this heatwave is life threatening and the interviewer closed it with "well, it's just an opportunity to have ice cream for breakfast!!". Amazing clip of how the BBC seems just blissfully unaware of what is happening

Reason #3743 not to use LLMs for lit reviews. Or for universities or research orgs to offer trainings for such a use. I am still angry about a training I saw earlier this year. Absolutely no criticality on display. After I emailed a list of reasons why I found the whole idea unacceptable.