Charles Logan

@charleswlogan

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Responsible Technology, Policy, and Public Dialogue at Northwestern University - Civics of Technology Board Member - Dad Life - he/him

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Charles Logan@charleswlogan· 18d

A screenshot of the cover of the book "More Work for Mother" by Ruth Schwartz Cowan. The cover states, "Winner of the 1984 Dexter Prize given by the Society for the History of Technology".

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· 24d

Picked up another sticker - this one from Bookends & Beginnings, my local book store - today for the collection.

A photograph of my right hand holding a circular sticker that reads, “MADE BY HUMANS” around the edges. In the sticker’s center is “AI” crossed out in red.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· 28d

OMFG

An excerpt from the article that reads, "The classroom marks a new venture for Realbotix, a Toronto-based robotics company formerly known as Tokens.com, that helped customers use cryptocurrency to rent “digital land” in the Metaverse. In April 2024, the company acquired Simulcra, the Las Vegas parent company behind RealDoll, which has spent decades creating hyperrealistic sex dolls and later expanded into sex robots that remain on the market today."

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jul 10

Packing up and this comic book from @learnsolidarity.bsky.social, @vea.bsky.social, and co-authors translating research “with different activists into a more useful resource that explains sociocultural theories of learning” and how they're useful in organizing spaces is such a wonderful compilation.

A photograph of a comic book titled, “Learning to Engage: Movements and Sociocultural Theories of Learning”. The comic book’s cover includes illustrations of people engaged in various acts of civil disobedience and protest, including disabled people crawling up the steps of the Capitol Building, people standing in front of an ICE truck, and people holding up signs that read “Divest”, “Black Lives Matter” and “Abolition Now”.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jul 9

An important article for learning scientists that’s also a reminder that Roger Schank’s and Daniel Edelson’s “A Role for AI in Education: Using Technology to Reshape Education” (1990) was funded by DARPA (and those trustworthy consultants at Arthur Andersen!).

A screenshot stating that, “This work was conducted at the Institute for the Learning Sciences supported by the Arthur Andersen Worldwide Organization and the Advanced Res. Projects Agency of the Dept. of Defense monitored under the Office of Naval Res. and Air Force Office of Scientific Research”.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jul 4

Nbd but I am as they say an artiste

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 29

Larson describes a semester-long, experimental workshop at Syracuse University led by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and community volunteers titled, “Computer Automated Disruption”. What, I wonder, would be required to organize a workshop like this on our campuses in 2026?

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 25

New education resource from Planetary AI and Techworker Community Africa: 10 illustrations to "confront not only the hidden costs of technological developments but also to reimagine and rethink our AI futures." Find the resource at: planetaryai.net/wp-content/u... ht: @tamigraph.bsky.social

A screenshot showing ten illustrations from the document “Planetary AI”. The illustrations are titled, “Beyond the Screen”; “The Surveillance Equation”; “The Deal”; “Lonely Exhaustion”; “Low Battery Mode”; “Beyond the Screen II”; “The Vacuum Equation”; “Displacement without Development”; “Power Hungry AI”; and “Re-xistence”.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 23

let’s goooo

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 19

also lol we’ve made some progress since 2022

A tweet from Merriam Webster on July 26, 2022. The tweet shares the #WordOfTheDay. The word is “Luddite” and the dictionary defines the word as, “someone opposed to technological change”. The image attending the definition shows an older white woman holding a smartphone and looking confused.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 19

Good morning from Disco Shark and Lake Michigan!

A rock covered in small white mirrors and painted to look like a shark with his mouth open. The blue waves of Lake Michigan are in the background.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Jun 4

Alpha School’s marketing team also makes clear that AI technologies are as much an ideology for achieving specific visions of society as a collection of technical components. In this case, that vision is using AI (which "'doesn't enhance education’”!) to demean and deprofessionalize teachers.

Since “disruptive AI positioning” gets an “engagement premium” on social media, the document says, “the most compelling narrative isn't technology as helper but as revelatory force exposing traditional education as theatrical rather than functional.” In other words: “AI doesn't enhance education, it exposes most teaching as performative ritual.” In her public appearances, Price often describes the one-teacher-many-students model of education as inefficient. With software serving as the one-on-one tutor, there's no need for the outdated performance at the front of the classroom. “Instead of being the sage on the stage, they are the guide on the side,” Price has said.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· May 20

What a day for AI resistance resources! 1) The AI Resist List from @karenhao.bsky.social and colleagues at DAIR at airesistlist.org 2) The Luddite Lab from @alexhanna.bsky.social and colleagues at DAIR at labor.dair-institute.org

A screenshot that reads, "The AI Resist List" with the subtitle, "Actions against the empire of AI".

A screenshot of the Luddite Lab homepage. The homepage has the tabs: Case Studies; Primers; Resource Library; Contact Us; About. The webpage also has the text, "The Luddite Lab Resource Hub provides resources for unions, labor organizations, and worker-organizers fighting AI and automation at work. The lab provides strategies for worker-led governance and oversight of new technology through case studies, primers, and a resource library."

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· May 19

Thanks, Jon! Perhaps Dr. Laats and I can go around campus bursting edtech hype as I tried to do in a recent talk with the help of his most recent book and good old B. F. Skinner.

A slide with the header, "Part II: A Brief History of Technology Democratizing Education". The left side of the slide has subtitle that reads, "Mr. Lancaster's System". Beneath the subtitle is a drawing of four students sitting at a desk, standing on a bench, standing next to a desk, and standing behind the desk. Beneath the image is an excerpt from Adam Laats' book "Mr. Lancaster's System" that reads, "“The same words kept cropping up: ‘scientific,’ ‘efficient,’ ‘perfected,’ ‘economical,’ and ‘modern.’ Lancaster promised a complete prepackaged educational success, one that could be implemented anywhere by anyone” (Laats, 2024, p. 36)." On the right side of the slide is the subtitle "Teaching Machines". Beneath the subtitle is a photograph of a pigeon in a box and a photograph of a child pressing a button on a machine. Beneath the photographs is an excerpt from an essay by B. F. Skinner; the excerpt reads, "“The purpose of a teaching machine can be simply stated: to teach rapidly, thoroughly and expeditiously a large part of what we now teach slowly, incompletely and with waste effort on the part of both student and teacher. Some of the machines also hold the promise of teaching behavior of a kind and subtlety that until now has seemed beyond the reach of explicit teaching methods” (Skinner, 1961, p. 92)."

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· May 10

In 1983, Ruth Schwartz Cowan published the book More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· May 7

Checking in on the Northwestern Canvas site…and…ah yes the scheduled maintenance that just so happens to coincide with a massive hack nothing to see here what a relief!

A picture two cartoon robots fixing a cartoon rocketship. Beneath the illustration are the words, “Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Check back soon."

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 30

#PairedTexts from yesterday and today. I am here for the growing coalitions fighting Big Tech and its extractive political economy while also demanding more democratic governance over the technologies in our schools and broader society.

A screenshot from a New Times article written by Natasha Singer published on April 29, 2026. The headline reads: "In Backlash Against Tech in Schools, Parents Are Winning Rollbacks” and the sub-headline reads, "From Salt Lake City to New York City, parents are demanding more sway over the digital tools that schools give children."

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 27

Giving a talk in a class on critical issues in literacy tonight and I get to share a favorite quote from Audrey Watters. Read Audrey’s piece at: hackeducation.com/2020/07/29/l...

“A Luddite pedagogy is a pedagogy of subversion and transgression. It is a pedagogy of disobedience and dismantling. It is a pedagogy of refusal and of care.”

- Audrey Watters
“‘Luddite Sensibilities’ and the Future of Education”

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 23

And look at this bullshit from the VP of Google for Education. So much of teaching is relational, and offloading that work of connection and imagination to a chatbot reveals Google's endgame: insert its product as mediators of all interactions in the name of "personalization". No. I refuse.

The question of what a child finds relevant or irrelevant also arose in my conversation with Sinha, of Google for Education. I asked him for a few A.I. best-use cases that an elementary-school teacher might consider. “You could use Gemini to create a children’s story that isn’t just an arbitrary children’s story,” he said, “but you could bring in context of your classroom, or even pictures, and work with Gemini then to say, ‘Hey, here’s a storybook that we can all read together that makes it a little bit more relevant, a little bit more personalized.’ ”

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 21

“This Time It’s Personal” by John O’Connor. When I taught first-year writing at CUNY, I used John’s book to help me reframe the traditional research paper into a me-search paper. There’s a longer excerpt at: cdn.ncte.org/nctefiles/re...

A screenshot of the book “This Time It’s Personal: Teaching Academic Writing Through Creative Nonfiction” by John S. O’Connor.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 18

Grilling in April to feel alive

A screenshot of a weather app showing the weather in Evanston, Illinois. The temperature states it “Feels Like 39 degrees.”

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 10

My fellow dads: don’t be a ChatGPT dad (or a Gemini dad, Claude dad, etc etc). From @aubreyhirsch.bsky.social at aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/chatgpt-dads

A comic illustration showing a white man with brown hair and a blue shirt. He is holding his phone. On the man’s lap is his daughter. She is saying, “Can you tell me a story?” The man responds, “Yeah…let me just think of a prompt.” Above the two people are the words, “If ChatGPT dads use ChatGPT as a substitute for engaging in the mental work of parenting, they will continue to de-skill themselves as fathers and partners.”

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 10

Come join @civicsoftech.bsky.social's May book club on Wed, May 20, at 7pm ET. I'll be leading a discussion of @fractalecho.bsky.social's Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We Are Wrong About AI - and Dr. Williams is joining too! Register at: www.civicsoftechnology.org/book-clubs

The cover of Rua M. Williams' book "Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We Are Wrong About AI". The cover image is a spiral of yellowish orange leaves set against a red background.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 7

Let's check in on this ratio...😬

A post by Randi Weingarten that reads, "No matter how you feel about AI, its use is growing widespread and it's important that educators understand how they could integrate it as a tool in their classrooms. Hear from three educators who have been experimenting with AI in this American Educators article." The post has 4 reposts, 112 quote posts, 15 likes, and 242 responses.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 2

Whenever I’m reminded of Google and the company’s greenwashing, I also think of their Google Urban Forest outside Santiago, Chile.

A photograph showing a fenced off area with twenty dried shrubs. The photo’s caption reads, “The Google Urban Forest was built about 10 miles from central Santiago to offset the air pollution caused by the company’s data center. The forest is currently closed to visitors, and contains mostly dry shrubs.”

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Apr 2

Update: we're collecting surveys until April 12. I'm collaborating w/ @alliethrall.bsky.social and Tony Talbert to explore why and how caregivers challenge ed-tech in their child's/children's K-12 school/s in the US. Caregivers doing this work can complete our survey at tinyurl.com/CaregiversEd...

Our research study's recruitment flyer. The flyer reads, "Call for Research Participants! Caregivers Challenging Ed-Tech in Schools. Across the United States, caregivers are pushing against educational technologies (ed-tech) in K-12 schools. We want to know why and how caregivers are questioning technology in the classroom. Who can participate? Caregivers with one or more children attending K-12 school in the United States, who...Currently and/or in the past worked to challenge the purposes and roles of ed-tech in your children's K-12 schooling. What is involved? Complete one ~15-minute survey. Participate in one ~60-minute recorded Zoom interview (optional). Questions? Contact our Research Team. Dr. Charles Logan. Northwestern University. charles.logan1@northwestern.edu. Dr. Tony Talbert. Baylor University. Tony_Talbert@baylor.edu. Allie Thrall. Baylor University. Allie_Thrall@baylor.edu. To participate, please complete our survey here: https://tinyurl.com/CaregiversEdTech

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Mar 31

I have questions about this Between Two Ferns reboot

A picture of a payphone between two potted ferns.

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Mar 28

A new proposed law in Illinois - the Student Educational Technologies Rights Act - looks promising!

Creates the Student Educational Technologies Rights Act. Provides that it is the policy of the State that a student and the student's parent have the right to: opt out of school-issued personal electronic devices, electronic textbooks, electronic required reading, or electronic or online assignments; request a human teacher review any automated scored grade or scored grade generated by artificial intelligence; and opt out of predictive analytics systems without academic penalty. Amends the School Code. Removes language allowing school districts that collect biometric information from students to adopt specified policies. Prohibits a school district from purchasing or otherwise acquiring biometric systems to use on students

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Mar 26

Tomorrow is apparently National AI Literacy Day, so I was curious to learn more about the organization putting on the event. This is the image on the homepage. I wonder how many lessons will interrogate the weaponized use of "robot dogs" in the service of power?

A photograph from the National AI Literacy Day website showing a robot "dog" surrounded by people. At the top of the image are the words, "Welcome to National AI Literacy Day" and in the middle of the image are the words, "Learn How AI is Shaping Our World".

Charles Logan@charleswlogan· Mar 25

I offered some thoughts about what caregivers, parents, and students should consider beyond the cost of tuition. Is the cost of constant surveillance worth whatever benefits Alpha School and MacKenzie Price promise?