How Much Enough is Enough?

Background: I read this tweet by Cultural Tutor on how writing letters by hand can encourage depth, reflection, and introspection. It said that:

In a world of relentless distraction and instant response, it’s difficult to introspect properly. So taking the time to write a letter — a process in which you simply cannot hide from yourself — might just help you to find out who you really are…

https://twitter.com/culturaltutor/status/1678925241853067264?s=20

And thus, I decided to do journaling again by hand to reflect on my thoughts. I still use my laptop, but I use an app called PenBook to literally handwrite my thoughts. Here’s an entry about the tendency of human beings these days to be greedy.

Enjoy!

Using Bing Chat AI for an English Writing Class: a Lesson Idea

I was ‘testing’ Bing Chat AI yesterday, trying to see if it could produce a five paragraph murder mystery story in a compelling manner. I’ve got this inspiration after a discussion with a colleague of how ‘scary’ AI could be, of how it could write a story creatively, worthy of publication as a novel. Somehow it got me thinking of what differenciates human from machine. If creativity is the factor that separates us from machines, well, Chat AI is one of the things that may scare us as it can get very creative. In fact, many artists and writers already fear that it may eliminate their jobs, as it can produce art works/writing to the level of quality of experienced artists and writers.

Anyhow, as a teacher, I personally believe that AI is inevitable, and our students are of the digital generation. Instead of making AI as an enemy, I think we need to equip students with the abilities to employ AI to develop their learning skills. Something of a metacognitive approach to learning. It is due to the situation in which our students are located; they are a generation that has AI in almost every aspect of their daily life. Thus, they need to able to use it for their learning benefits.

And thus, back to my little experiment with Bing Chat AI. I specifically use this platform, as it provides not only the product of a prompt, but also references that it used to generate the product. In that way, I can always crosscheck the original source of the product, to see if the product is valid or true or reliable. I had an experience of asking a question to Bing Chat AI and it gave me a false information, but luckily it had a reference to the source and I quickly discovered why it provided me with the false answer. This feature is missing in ChatGPT and without criticality, one can assume that whatever ChatGPT provides, that is the truth (which is dangerous).

Categorizing People: Analyzing People’s Motivation

I like analyzing people’s characteristics. Partly it is because I’m trained to be a teacher and it is useful to understand students’ characteristics to help them find the most suitable learning strategies. Partly it is because it serves me a purpose of getting them to ‘work’ or of getting something from them.

Of my experiences, I can safely categorize people’s motivation in doing something into four categories: money, personal glory, network, and altruism. Of course, one cannot be categorized into only one box. The characteristics may be a combination of some categories, but with one category to be more dominant. I even found that a person can wear different masks at a time, being in one category for certain occasions and/or purposes.

Tips dan Trik Menghadapi Ujian S3

Seminggu yang lalu, tepatnya tanggal 9 Juli 2021 pukul 16:00 WIB, saya mempertahankan tesis S3 saya di the University of Manchester. Selama 1,5 jam saya menjawab 15 pertanyaan dari satu penguji eksternal (dari salah satu universitas di Inggris, di luar universitas saya) dan satu penguji internal, dengan ditemani oleh dua pembimbing saya (yang cuma menonton saja karena tidak boleh membantu saya menjawab sama sekali).

Kali ini saya mau berbagi proses saya mempersiapkan diri dan menjalani ujian S3, eh, siapa tahu di kalangan pembaca blog saya ada yang butuh, ya kan?

Proses ujian adalah proses yang penting dalam struktur program S3 di Manchester Institute of Education karena kelulusan dari program tidak hanya ditentukan oleh kualitas tesis tertulis tetapi juga apakah si kandidat doktor bisa mempertahankan apa yang ia tulis di tesis. Sehingga, meskipun telah berproses selama 3-4,5 tahun meneliti dan menulis, bisa saja si kandidat dinyatakan tidak lulus karena jawaban dalam ujian (atau istilah kami ‘viva’) tidak memuaskan para penguji. Tiap universitas tentu beda kebijakan soal viva, karena ada misalnya seorang teman yang viva-nya semacam perayaan saja setelah selesai proses menulis selama beberapa tahun (sungguh membuat saya iri!).

Hari 30: Lima Tempat yang Ingin Saya Kunjungi

[Hari ke-30 tantangan 30 hari menulis]

Yay! Hari terakhir! Hutang lunas!

Eh, belum ya? Sampai saya kelar menulis pos terakhir ini, tentu belum lunas hutang saya. Hari ini saya akan menulis lima tempat yang ingin saya kunjungi.

Sebenarnya saya sudah pernah menulis tentang topik perjalanan ini. Di situ saya menulis bahwa saya ingin pergi ke Bandung, Pekanbaru, Medan, Manado, Jayapura, Purwokerto, Timor Leste, Ames, Kent, San Antonio, Chile, Brazil, Canberra, Perth, St. Petersburg. Di tulisan itu saya juga menulis bahwa seringkali alasan saya melakukan perjalanan adalah karena saya punya teman-teman yang bisa saya kunjungi di kota-kota itu. Tapi setelah melancong cukup banyak empat tahun terakhir ini, saya punya alasan yang lain. Biasanya adalah karena ingin merasakan makanan-makanan di kota-kota itu atau karena kota-kota itu punya museum dan galeri seni yang bagus.