Lecturer of Writing and Rhetoric, I founded the Mississippi AI Institute for Teachers, Assistant Director of Innovation at the University of Mississippi, coauthor of the Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching. marcwatkins.org, https://marcwatkins.substack.com/https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mvfoasngnk2bA few weeks ago, I argued education should adopt a duty of care approach for conversations about AI in the classroom. Now the senate is debating a duty of care framework for AI safety for frontier labs. Missing in these conversations is how little regulation covers current uncensored AI. https://marcwatkins.substack.com/p/when-ai-developers-regulate-themselves?r=1z9b3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web13 Sep 2026 13:11 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvfoasngnk2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3muirsqih2k24I wonder daily where AI is ultimately going. Behind the marketing of safe and responsible AI is a seedy red light district where the lack of guardrails and censorship are exactly what people are looking for. And, no, there are no hard boundaries.02 Sep 2026 01:27 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3muirsqih2k24https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mucixzeyy22nAI trials for students have become a perennial ritual timed with the start of the fall semester. We can choose to cultivate experiences where learning matters intentionally with technology and without it, but that requires moving from a mindset of passively allowing AI to happen to us. https://marcwatkins.substack.com/p/college-students-get-free-premium-ad2?r=1z9b3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web30 Aug 2026 13:33 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mucixzeyy22nhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mubbgw7u5c2oBoth Google and OpenAI are battling for college students. ChatGPT Plus is free to college students for the entire fall semester, while Google is offering Gemini Pro for a full year. Meanwhile, most faculty have little understanding what advanced AI can do vs. the free versions.30 Aug 2026 01:46 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mubbgw7u5c2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mua3u5pzfc2gThe amount of time, effort, and resources campuses are pouring into dealing with AI academic integrity cases is staggering. Assessment redesign is the answer, but at what cost and where will the $ come from? How much are we willing to lose fretting over that before doing it? https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/college-cheating-ai-plagiarism-legal-us-hts98p02r29 Aug 2026 14:33 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mua3u5pzfc2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mu5caw4jwk22It’s not fun being tasked with this sort of thing. [contains quote post or other embedded content]28 Aug 2026 11:50 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mu5caw4jwk22https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mu5awxcc3c2eThe MIT report on AI in education mentions the phrase "AI-Aware" some 13 times. @anetv.bsky.social , @derekbruff.bsky.social , and I wrote a book about what being AI aware means for faculty, students, and universities--The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching. Out now as an eBook. In print next month.28 Aug 2026 11:26 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mu5awxcc3c2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mttj6zz5yk2aThe Gary Provost What Sentences Sound Like exercise for close active reading is a wonderful exercise for students. I used Fable to map sentence length of well-known authors, added sound, and built an interface for students to see and hear how a machine maps their words.24 Aug 2026 14:27 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mttj6zz5yk2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mtqrucfhf22kOur approaches to AI should be rooted in asking what our duty of care is to our students right now and what our campuses owe faculty. A duty of care is an obligation in strict legal terms, but for educators, it is an ethos that forms the unspoken compact that governs our mission. https://marcwatkins.substack.com/p/our-duty-of-care-in-the-age-of-ai?r=1z9b3o&selection=59b21625-a6bd-41b0-9917-9f4da9f4ff9d&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web&aspectRatio=square&bgColor=%23FFFFFF&textColor=%231a1a1a23 Aug 2026 12:24 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtqrucfhf22khttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mtj4qysefs2hThe dream of a web-based OTA service died in the courts with Locast. Imagine a free network rebroadcasting each city's OTA signal. I built this interface using iptv's database. What would you do if you didn't have to pay an $80 cable bill each month?20 Aug 2026 11:18 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtj4qysefs2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mtel6blzrk2dI make countless video walkthroughs for my online students about how to navigate our LMS. Panopto and Loom are cumbersome & overkill, so I had GPT 5.6 and Fable create a simple screen recorder, with visual actions to highlight via clicks. Took me 30 minutes. It's remarkable what you can create now.18 Aug 2026 15:53 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtel6blzrk2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3msr4mtnkk223Very interesting development. Anthropic is implementing watermarking of AI generated text to comply with new EU laws. It is unclear if watermarking will be standard on models launched elsewhere, including within the US or outside of the EU. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content10 Aug 2026 22:12 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3msr4mtnkk223https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3msq34x2qrs2hI wrote about how the digital ecosystems we communicate with are being rebuilt upon a foundation of generative code and few appear to acknowledge or examine the implications this has for us all. if you can now build something practical using natural language, what would it be? https://marcwatkins.substack.com/p/ai-is-quietly-changing-who-gets-to10 Aug 2026 12:12 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3msq34x2qrs2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3msdhvylw4k27Clay Shirky's piece in the Chronicle aptly addresses the wicked problem of AI in higher education. Instead of a solution, he revitalizes what campuses do best-face disagreement and uncertainty. My main criticism is we have stopped managing these challenges and instead endure them. https://www.chronicle.com/article/ai-is-a-wicked-problem-thats-the-universitys-specialty05 Aug 2026 11:56 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3msdhvylw4k27https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3msb3n6wpus2kWhy isn't the Dept. of Edu calling on AI developers to ensure their tools "incentivize rigor in the age of AI," instead of putting that onus on campuses? The power imbalance is shocking and such a move will surely pass responsibility to faculty in the classroom. https://www.ed.gov/media/document/national-call-action-university-presidents-and-governing-boards-114351.pdf04 Aug 2026 13:11 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3msb3n6wpus2khttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mraakqdils2hI made Reading Faulkner in the Age of Thinking Machines as a gambit of sorts—could I make something using AI that students would want to engage with and read and not offload to AI? https://open.substack.com/pub/marcwatkins/p/reading-in-an-age-of-thinking-machines?r=1z9b3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web22 Jul 2026 11:42 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mraakqdils2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mqz3uqmkys2qI created an illustrated version of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. 59 image plates, interactive student reading experience w/ annotations and voice recording students can create/share with their professor, downloadable PDFs and ePub. It's a whole new ball game for digital humanities!19 Jul 2026 15:29 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqz3uqmkys2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mqk27lbsks2dFable does an excellent job of creating physics for an interactive 3D board with connected string and motion. Very interesting to see how it reacts to implied gravity. For this demo, each note card is a nested site I developed, so it serves as a gallery of experiments. Bonus Always Sunny meme13 Jul 2026 15:50 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqk27lbsks2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mqfpcfvf7s2kOne thing I'm trying to do with my students this fall is focus on local topics that are meaningful to them, like the cost of housing on campus. I used Claude + real sources to create an interactive city builder, including reflective elements, and a survey about housing for their peers.11 Jul 2026 22:24 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqfpcfvf7s2khttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mqez43vcr22uIt's a trope at this point, one wearing thin on readers. There's little nuance or variation within these articles. I'll also add that it is a shrewd decision that goes beyond fetish to drive clicks and likes across socials. Provocations should do more than decry change. [contains quote post or other embedded content]11 Jul 2026 15:46 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqez43vcr22uhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mqc65pe7w22cApp smashing will likely become the norm for AI usage. I designed a prototype of a creepy carnival midway about how higher edu is failing to deal with AI. 1) GPT 5.5 for design/site layout images 2) Gemini 3.1 image to video 3) Fable 5 to code the site Lots of possibilities to consider here!10 Jul 2026 12:39 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqc65pe7w22chttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mq56lnqejs26Analog learning is a response to AI that education should consider. But if it becomes just another way to police student AI use, it will fail. The better goal is creating intentional spaces to help students understand when AI supports their learning or thinking, and when it quietly replaces it. https://open.substack.com/pub/marcwatkins/p/analog-is-having-a-moment-but-is?r=1z9b3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web08 Jul 2026 13:03 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq56lnqejs26https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mq3yuovw4k2yClaude Code can make a static image interactive. In this case, I had Gemini sketch a reduced distraction classroom, where AI is limited (I know, the irony!) The mouse snaps to areas, zooms in, and guides the viewer around the room. Really simple use case that makes a design pop.08 Jul 2026 01:48 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq3yuovw4k2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mq2hvtg7as2rIs it cheating if AI guesses the answers to a test? Students upload course materials to ChatGPT and create a practice test to study. The concepts and themes of the actual questions/answers are nearly identical to the actual test. Proctored assessment isn't a moat against AI.07 Jul 2026 11:12 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mq2hvtg7as2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mphfguopbc2iCome read along with us! The ebook of the The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching launches 7/1 and you can join 500+ educators for Perusall's 4-week virtual book club. https://www.perusall.com/events/norton-guide-to-ai-aware-teaching-engage#Registration-form29 Jun 2026 21:07 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mphfguopbc2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mp535vzm4s24There are useful things you can create with AI code that function without AI and allow students to think about their values before turning to a chatbot. One example: I adapted the Pause Before Your Prompt activity from BU for my online classes, to include reflection and a visual PDF export.25 Jun 2026 18:37 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mp535vzm4s24https://bsky.app/profile/marcwatkins.bsky.social/post/3mozuorcdt22kWe’ve talked extensively in education about the harms and impact of AI through critical AI literacy and how to use AI responsibly through AI fluency, but it feels like few people have had the opportunity to explore the creative possibilities of using these frontier models to code https://open.substack.com/pub/marcwatkins/p/context-is-all-you-need?r=1z9b3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web24 Jun 2026 12:03 +0000at://did:plc:kiurzaew24tcczz34dphil7d/app.bsky.feed.post/3mozuorcdt22k