1. Two recommendations from Gary Motteram to start with today: thanks, Gary!

A MOOC from FutureLearn, AI in Education, which explores “how AI is reshaping education and reflect(s) on how you could respond critically or reimagine educational practices”.  https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ai-in-education Free to join unless you want a certificate.

Plus, a podcast series on AI and Education from Manchester University, Generative Dialogues: Generative AI in Higher Education, hosted by Helen Beetham and Mark Carrigan. A recent episode looked at AI in Education: Critical Perspectives and Future Challenges https://open.spotify.com/episode/05mw2mUmikyK9i6qNC9QrD

The conversation centers on how AI has disrupted the traditional “contract” between educators and students, with participants debating whether we’re educating for the future society students will inhabit, or for idealized past standards. Felix poses the crucial question: “Are we educating people to become productive members of the society of the future? Or are we educating people to live in a society that we believe should be?”

2. The Reform Party here in the UK have completely spooked (defined by Merriam Webster as to make frightened or frantic) the Labour government into radical (and very un-Labour-like) reform of the immigration system. Here’s the key points https://www.gov.uk/government/news/immigration-white-paper-to-reduce-migration-and-strengthen-border and here’s the white paper, Restoring Control over the Immigration System https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf PDF below as well. I shall feel a bit ashamed when I visit my mother’s nursing home tomorrow.

3. This piece for The Conversation by Elliot Doornbos and Angus Nurse makes it clear that the smugglers of tiny ants make good money: Insect trafficking poses a risk to wildlife and human health https://theconversation.com/insect-trafficking-poses-a-risk-to-wildlife-and-human-health-255273

Four men were recently arrested and fined for attempting to smuggle more than 5,000 ants out of Kenya. Aiming to sell them as part of the exotic pet trade, these ants were being stored in individual test tubes and syringes with small amounts of cotton wool for transportation.

Who do they sell the ants to?

4. It’s the virtually here that intrigues me in the title of this Bill Gates blog post, My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/save-lives/reader/20-years-to-give-away-virtually-all-my-wealth Virtually = all but the odd billion.

One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today. In the essay’s most famous line, Carnegie argues that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” I have spent a lot of time thinking about that quote lately. People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that “he died rich” will not be one of them.

5. And, finally, a gift article from The New York Times, The Best Books of the Year (So Far): the nonfiction and novels we can’t stop thinking about https://tinyurl.com/dvn46ty5

I’ve so far read (and enjoyed) only one, Flesh by David Szalay, and have just ordered We Do Not Part by Han Kang. I’m now wondering, though, how Istvan, the hero of Flesh, can be, according to the NYT review, simultaneously coarse and boorish and surprisingly sensitive.