iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Exactly. But we need a less rejective University to follow suit or we run a risk of exaccerbating unequal access to worthwhile learning and degrees. Which the strategic planning committee I have somehow been assigned to is going to get sick of hearing

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Funny. My first reaction is that it's odd to ban such a specific smoking habit, but who am I to judge?

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I'm working more with undergrads now, and one theme screams out from their reflections: they crave human interaction. They enjoy working with pen and paper. And most of their other classes seem to be chalk and talk/screen and screed. It's not that hard, folks.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Hey Delaware, are we going to let NY have all the fun?

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

All while the *students* are sleeping because by making education solipsistic instead of social, there's really no need to bother, is there?

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

NYT running strong for Correction of the Year: "An earlier version of this obituary misstated the location of Central, S.C., the town where Senator Lindsey Graham was born. It is in the western part of the state, not the eastern part. " www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/u...

nytimes.com

Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator and Trump Ally, Dies From ‘Sudden Illness’

He died from “a brief and sudden illness,” his office said. Over more than two decades in the Senate, he consistently pushed for the use of U.S. military power overseas.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Nah, that won't happen because the aliens would be caught in the offside trap. Let me explain...

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

A colleague tried to get two different "AI" products to simplify a task for me today, and they screwed it up in two different ways. Beautiful.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

*lede. Bloody autocorrect. Burying the Leder is my alt-rock band

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Fascinating piece. But mostly props for not burying the Leder with this phrase that describes more than just a building in Wilmington: "so aggressively bland that it almost begs not to be noticed" www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/m...

nytimes.com

Elon Musk’s Feud With Delaware May Transform Corporate America

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

This is the most wonderfully German thing I've seen all year. Herzlich Glückwunsch, Brötchen!

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

If I hear one more piece on NPR on whether it's called soccer or football... literally no one cares, and no one gets confused except NPR editors, it seems

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Local friends should absolutely read the News Journal's article about the new statue that "towers over" the UD campus as symbol of, something, and then go find the diminutive bronze chicken that is surrounded by taller buildings and trees. It's ... yeah, whatever.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Exactly - a silent classroom is one where learning is superficial. Toss out the chromebooks and invest in whiteboards, markers, and teachers! www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The High Cost of Silent Classrooms

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Nice timing for UD's faculty senate special meeting today that's considering a resolution that would hopefully prevent this kind of self-sabotaging disaster scenario. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/m...

nytimes.com

A University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Exactly. What. We. Predicated. But this becomes labeled as "one side" in a "polarized " "debate" rather than the evidence based status quo. It's exhausting to be a good educator www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Writing Is Fundamental to How We Think

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

There's no magic to standardization. It is most a statistical mirage

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

And, yes, as a parent and educator, I care more about human teachers' evaluations of kids' performance than a "standardized " test.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Can someone PLEASE explain to the NYT that NAEP is not a "national trst" and that it gives no information about an individual child's performance because each child does not take the entire test

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Another day, completely ignorant op ed about educational policy written by non educators. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | It’s Becoming Impossible to Know How Your Kid Is Doing in School

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

If you had "Vatican has clearer AI policy than university IT department ", you won the jackpot

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

At a faculty meeting today, colleagues bemoaned the "polarization" of opinions on "AI". It's not polarization. It's realization.

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Reposted by Nigel Caplan

Dr. Heather Leslie @heatherleslie.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Elitism is always about limiting opportunities for the many

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Personally, the number of As in my class is always proportional to the number of times lessons are disrupted by the sound of loud motorcycles speeding down Main Street. Quiet semester? Sucks for you. Seems about as reasonable as 20%* (*plus 4 because reasons)

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Please don't let economists make and explain educational policy. This is a beauty: "We know our answer isn't very good, but at least it's easy to implement and short enough for a headline in the NYT." Sounds like someone wants an easy A. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | 60 Percent of Grades at Harvard Were A’s. Enough Is Enough.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

As a professor at what literally nobody calls the Harvard of the upper bit of the Delmarva peninsula, I will give as many damn As as my students merit based on evidence of their learning. That's the job isn't it, not to create artificial rankings?

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

How lead pipes challenge child development. What schools should know

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

The justification? I plagiarized as a warning to others. Lies and laziness. The book should be pulped www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...

nytimes.com

Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

My spam folder is unusually on point today.

Email senders: "AI for Developing / The Charlatan"

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Repeat after me: I will not report snapshots of different cohorts as longitudinal trends in student performance on a meaningless test that kids have no incentive to take seriously among all the other inconsequential tests they take. Sigh.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

What is that image? Ironically we aren't the ones destroying education, knowledge dissemination, and human endeavor with a great big hammer Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI

Researchers say they have their reasons for avoiding AI tools — and they’re sick of arguing about it.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

New meme for higher ed just dropped. Is the lorry Canvas, senior administration, an ad hoc committee, or ...? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

theguardian.com

Lorry gets stuck in hole it was sent to fix in Somerset

Lorry left at near 45-degree angle after ground gave way on road near Walton

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

But don't worry: they got an 'assurance “that no Instructure customers will be extorted as a result of this incident, publicly or otherwise.”' If you didn't laugh out loud at that, then I have an AI generated bridge to sell you

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

In other news, Instructure is pushing unis to purchase its anti educational "AI" slop add ons, presumably so it can (a) harvest and sell data, (b) pay ransom for the next inevitable hack, or (c) both. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/u...

nytimes.com

Maker of Canvas Learning Platform Strikes Deal for Hackers to Return Data

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Tell me you've never read the book without ...

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

I asked academic technology services about the Canvas hack this morning, our campus site went down this afternoon, and my evening class think I manifested it

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Tired: Last week of the semester. Wired: Last week of the semester, but do it with no access to your LMS because it just got hacked!

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Meanwhile Instructure is trying to push a suite of "AI" features/products into Canvas - mostly paid, of course - and I'm sure it's entirely because they support teaching and learning and not at all in order to scrape, steal, and monetize faculty and student content. www.404media.co/asu-atomic-a...

404media.co

University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up and Turned Into AI Slop

ASU Atomic, a new tool in beta at Arizona State University, takes faculty lectures and chops them into extremely short clips, that AI then attempts to turn into learning materials.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

However can we know if a majority of faculty support the (unannounced) deployment of an "AI" product? Um, I dunno, ask them? It's not as if the university has never heard of a survey.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

The canards are quacking. "How many people have to consent to an AI *tool [*product] before we turn it on?" But any discussion of anti-AI products... oh no, those have to be piloted. And they don't ask the faculty about "AI" products so they can claim ignorance about sentiment outside the bubble

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

This is exactly the illogic from a hearing on my university's "AI" policy. The policy itself has many strengths. But it doesn't matter b/c someone in IT flicked a switch to give the whole campus access to Gemini and Notebook without consent or consultation. www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

newyorker.com

What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools?

“I find myself speaking with my kids about A.I. in the same terms that we might discuss a creepy neighbor who lives down the block,” Jessica Winter writes. Read her report on the push for A.I. in educ...

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

For all those who lack the imagination to believe that harmful corporate power is not inevitable: I grew up in England in the 80s and 90s when it was impossible to go anywhere (restaurants, pubs, college campuses, airplanes) without 2nd-hand smoking a pack or two. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...

nytimes.com

Proposed Lifetime Smoking Ban to Become Law in Britain

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

The humanities are leading the way - rejecting "bite-sized" so-called English curricula (if you see "pre-AP English" on your 9th grader's schedule - RUN and SHOUT) and expanding the canon. But the forces are arrayed against us - publishers, ed tech corps, and the Taylorized massification of ed.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

This is almost right IMO. Yes, we need to put education on a restrictive tech diet of intentionally selected ethical platforms and replace screens with human interaction. But we can't do so without recognizing the pernicious forces driving ed's tech addiction. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | You Can’t Game Your Way to a Real Education

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Ways to describe 21 hrs: barely a day / about twice the running length of the LOTR extended cut movies / one and half performances of Wagner's Ring Cycle / 5-6 rounds of golf / a tenth of a historic space mission / not as long as a Yom Kippur fast / one and a bit day shifts at The Pitt / a marathon.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

One of the great things about humans writing human language is the active choice you have to frame readers' responses among, say, they talked for 21 hours / a day / one day / less than a day/ a grueling marathon session (a trained teen can run a marathon in 4 hours). The more you know.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Some journals in my field do require these declarations but I would like to see them distributed with the abstract so I can decline to provide free labor to them in the first place.

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Nigel Caplan @nigelc.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I am going to insist on seeing these "AI declarations" before agreeing to review in future. Save everyone wasted time. The article I reviewed this week that had been "edited" using AI slop was abysmal.

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