One useful skill I learned was prompt engineering. We used the Prompt Canvas: 8 elements that will help a chatbot "understand" your request and give you more targeted responses. Crafting a pointed, contextualized prompt is worth the time. https://www.thepromptcanvas.com/

I came out with a redesigned lab for my radar meteorology class that will use an AI Python coding tutor. I'm not a CS prof. and I hate debugging student code. I still have misgivings about whether the AI Python tutor will short-circuit actual learning of Python, but it's still a work in progress.

On Day 1 of the AI Academy, the topic of AI's environmental impact (water, energy, bandwidth, data use) didn't come up until I raised my hand and brought it up. On Day 2, a panel of students brought the topic up within 5 minutes. Clearly this issue weighs heavily on the younger generation.

The AI Academy was more to reflect on AI's evolving role in our respective domains' and how we, as educators, can facilitate our students' smooth entry into that future when we were never trained on it ourselves. We may have been the blind leading the blind, but now we're slightly less blind.

For example, when one prof contemplated how she might use AI to help her grade essays in a 500-person class, we talked about the hypercapitalist model of higher ed that compels a 500-person class to exist. A better solution would be to have the correct faculty:student ratio in the first place.

We were tasked with developing (or revising) some of our existing teaching materials to deliberately integrate AI ... or why not to. I found that approach refreshing. There was no requirement to add AI (i.e., AI for AI's sake), just to think about whether it was truly the appropriate approach.

We spent time ruminating on the purpose of learning, and how we could use AI tools in a way that helped, rather than hindered, cognitive growth. (TL;DR: It's tricky.) Discourse got deep. For example, a rhetoric professor expounded on how chatbots recapitulate Aristotelian dialogues.

We collectively recognize that AI is here to stay, and we want to integrate it in a thoughtful, intentional manner that aligns with our teaching values. I connected with ~50 other skeptical-but-cautiously optimistic faculty who wanted to know more about ethical, equitable AI use, and campus AI experts.

The AI Academy did not turn me into a breathless AI evangelist. It helped me develop a framework for thinking about AI's potential roles in education, and the language to communicate that framework to my learners.

I took part in Purdue's inaugural AI Academy this week, "to support college-based teams of faculty in deepening their capacity to creatively integrate AI tools into their teaching environments and practices." Some quick reflections follow.

SPC day 1 looks slightly terrified today
https://m.ai6yr.org/@nwsspc_bot/115039418157897609

Pro tip: If you don’t want the obnoxious, often inaccurate “AI Overview” that nobody asked for with every Google search, add the tag -AR to the end of your search.
E.g. “Hurricane Erin -AR”

Okay, who ordered a tuna smoothie?
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCUAT5+shtml/161520.shtml

I see my impact whenever one of my students has a light bulb moment, or a colleague tells me they were influenced by something that I wrote or said - things that often aren’t “visible”.

This experiment revealed how easy it is to “hack” a fake (feline) scholar’s h-index via artificial citation inflation. It’s particularly problematic when you consider that metrics like the h-index are used to determine raises, promotions, and access to resources (like grants).

This cat is probably more impactful in the context of this study than any of its fake papers ever will be.

I’ve never been comfortable with using metrics like the h-index to quantify scholarly impact. Such metrics are an ill-conceived attempt to boil the often intangible, highly dimensional effects a scholar’s career down to a single number (like a GPA).
https://scim.ag/40R8iQ6 #DitchTheHIndex

“Congress has shown indications that it doesn't intend to go along with the cuts. This appears to be the administration's response to Congress: An attempt to place a major roadblock to any new funding and establish the structure that will formally exert the ideological control that it wants.” https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/new-executive-order-puts-all-grants-under-political-control/

It’s been cool enough the last few nights for us to leave the windows open, and it has been amazeballs. I love waking up to the sound of birdsong. 🐦‍⬛

The demolition of US public media will be remembered as one of the greatest cultural blunders of the 21st century.

It should also serve as a cautionary tale about how rapidly bipartisan support can vacillate to partisan recision in just a few months. (I’m looking at you, US science.)

https://protectmypublicmedia.org/blog/2025/07/18/public-media-defunded-but-the-fight-isnt-over/

The economy doesn’t determine whether greenhouse gases are harmful. Science does. https://wapo.st/3J03iSU