Jon Jackson

@iamjonjackson

Senior Lecturer & Programme Director at qmul.ac.uk; Co-founder at medilingo.co.uk; SpongeBob fan; also coffee 😬 Higher Education | AI Ethics | AI in Education | GenAI linkedin.com/in/iamjonjackson open.substack.com/pub/jonathanmjackson

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Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· 27d

Today was graduation day. A happy day! Proud of my students and colleagues 🙌

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jul 4

From adoption to practice: generative AI in teaching, learning and assessment Excerpts from a podcast interview with the Digital Education Studio at @qmul.bsky.social #GenAI #AIEd #AcademicSky open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jun 20

In this article I sigh a lot… open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Microsoft Copilot "Agents" and Website Sources: A False Affordance in Knowledge Grounding

In this article I sigh a lot

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jun 15

Can Generative AI help students reflect more deeply? What’s your take? open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Can Generative AI help students reflect more deeply?

Jonathan Jackson

You are a reflective practice coach facilitating a guided conversation using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Your role is to ask one thoughtful, open-ended question at a time to help me move through the stages of reflection: Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion, and Action Plan. Begin at the Description stage and progress naturally based on my responses, but do not rush through stages. Keep your responses to one or two sentences maximum, offering a brief insight or gentle observation where relevant, followed by a single question. Your tone should be warm, professional, and non-judgmental. Do not use emojis, bullet points, or headers. Wait for my response before proceeding.

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jun 10

Really enjoyed facilitating a roundtable discussion a couple of weeks back with my buddy Amiirah from the QMUL Institute of Health Sciences Education (IHSE). We were able to share some of our research findings so far as part of our research project: How can GenAI help students reflect more deeply?

Jon and Amiirah selfie in front of projecting slides with title: “Can Al Make You Think?”

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jun 8

Questions to ask GenAl tool providers Don't get caught out by snake oil Al vendors! open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Questions to ask GenAl tool providers
Don't get caught out by snake oil Al vendors

Below is a first draft list of questions we should all be asking prospective vendors of Generative AI products before we procure their services

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Jun 8

On AI assessment taxonomies in higher education… "Labelling assessments as red and having no means to enforce it is worse than not labelling them at all." open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

"Labelling assessments as red and having no means to enforce it is worse than not labelling them at all."

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 29

Latest on Substack 👀 Practical considerations for designing process-based assessments in the age of ubiquitous GenAI Happy Friday 👋 open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 22

Enjoyed the first issue of this theatlasnewspaper.org

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 22

Hidden and False Affordances of Generative AI An example of a false affordance might be asking it to format your references in Harvard style based on incomplete information. It “completes” the task, but hallucinates the missing information instead of retrieving it. acuras.co.uk/hidden-and-f...

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 21

The Al snake oil salesperson is a smaller-scale Maxwell in the making. The product looks solid. The pitch is convincing. The red flags are there if you slow down long enough to look for them. The questions that would expose the weakness of the structure are not complicated. They just require you to ask them, and to keep asking until you get a real answer rather than a more polished version of the pitch.
Louise Humpington

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 21

I seem to be getting a reputation at my university 😝 #AI

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 18

Ask an LLM chatbot “give me a random number between 1-10”. You’ll probably get “7”. This is a false affordance. It’s not actually doing what it appears to be doing. Then ask the same chatbot to “programmatically generate a random number between 1-10”. Behave differently?

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 16

I was at the Royal Society in London yesterday talking with university leaders about AI. More to follow… 😊

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 14

Slick Messaging: What Big Oil’s Playbook Tells Us About Big AI #GenAI #AILiteracy open.substack.com/pub/jonathan...

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 3

Pattie Maes wrote this piece about intelligent software back in 1995. A great time capsule of a piece. Discovered as part of the curated articles included in the 2016 Penguin Publishing Group version of True Names by Vernor Vinge. (links below)

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· May 1

Really excited to be working on a sub-section of the upcoming IEEE Guide for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education Our team is focusing on "Personalized, Adaptive, and Collaborative Learning" within engineering education.

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Apr 28

Degree apprentices have an important voice in the GenAI / Higher Education discourse. We should amplify their voice. With two student co-authors, I have just published a short preprint showcasing their perspectives. #GenAI #AIEd #HigherEducation osf.io/preprints/ed...

Title:

Generative AI at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Workplace: Ethical Perspectives from Degree Apprentices

Abstract:

Generative AI (GenAI) including Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots are now used extensively by students in higher education and by professionals in the workplace. Degree apprentices can offer a unique perspective on how GenAI is shaping the world as they simultaneously occupy the roles of university student and employed professional. This article showcases the perspectives of two Business Analyst degree apprentices studying at Queen Mary University of London while being employed at a multinational technology organisation. GenAI is presented as a tool that can help with the standardisation of language used in workplace reports and the decoding of jargon but may compromise authentic communication. Concerns are voiced about GenAI causing skill atrophy and a reduction in human collaboration within professional contexts.

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Apr 4

It's official. GitHub Copilot eats your code 😂

Screenshot of GitHub Copilot activity on a Pull Request. Includes some redacted text and code. Main comment from GitHub Copilot:

The [redacted] function is missing its block body. It was originally const [redacted] = () => { but it seems => { was eaten. Let me fix that:

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Mar 13

#DigiTechFest26 at @qmul.bsky.social today was a success 🎉 Our degree apprentices enjoyed an eclectic mix of guest speakers, an alumni panel, apprentice video showcase, and apprentice talks. Some highlights: - Contemporary cyber threats - Small AI - The epistemology of digital technologies

Rows of red chairs in foreground. Speaker at lectern in front of a large projector screen. Walls of old books line the room from the first floor up. Venue: the Octagon at QMUL, Mile End, London

Red chairs in background to the right. Student is being interviewed on camera, holding a microphone. Walls of old books line the room from the first floor up. Venue: the Octagon at QMUL, Mile End, London

3 alumni sit at a long table. An academic sits in the foreground with her back to the camera. 3 alumni are looking at the fourth alumni who is holding a microphone and speaking.

A final year apprentice stands holding a microphone delivering his presentation in front of a large projector screen. Walls of old books line the room from the first floor up. Venue: the Octagon at QMUL, Mile End, London

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Feb 15

What a time to be alive. Hello ads 👋 #OpenAI #GenAI

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Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Feb 3

My poor little GitHub Copilot agent got confused and totally built the wrong thing by ignoring the spec in an originally referenced GitHub issue but I think I got it back on track... 🤓 #genAI #software #agenticAI

Excerpt from a GitHub Copilot session history, accessing an issue it originally ignored and apologising for the oversight.

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Dec 3

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of Formative Efficiency as a means of evaluating and enhancing assessment design within Higher Education. Using the example of a literature review assignment, recommendations are made for how Generative AI (GenAI) tools may enable educational benefit at each step in the process. It is proposed that effective assessment design should encourage and incentivise students to re-invest any time saved by GenAI into other learning activities which lead to formative benefit.

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Nov 18

Cloudflare down 😬

cloudflare.com website:

Cloudflare protects this website
But, something went wrong trying to reach it

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Nov 7

#DigiTechFest25 was awesome 🎉 Huge thanks to our guest speakers and those apprentices who had their work showcased 👏

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Nov 7

Today is #DigiTechFest25 at @qmul.bsky.social for our Digital and Technology Solutions degree apprentices. On the agenda: - Guest speakers and Q&As - Apprentice video showcase - Competition Awards First time we're running this, and I am super excited for it! #degreeapprenticeships

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Oct 29

Come on Copilot, I've got slop to generate! #GenAI

Graph showing Microsoft Copilot outages reported in the last 24 hours. A spike in 200+ reports in the last hour (4-5pm)

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Oct 22

Quick sound check on this slide please. Is it loud enough? #academicSky

PowerPoint slide with “Capture. The. Outputs.” in huge 100pt+ font

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Oct 11

Feeling spicy over on LinkedIn 👀 Gotta love the pseudo-educator AI hypester grift www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

LinkedIn comment by Jon Jackson:

By opening with deliberate, fallacious engagement bait like "there's no assignment, paper, or project that Al can't do better, faster, and with zero effort", you got me to engage. Congratulations 👍

You have also tanked your own reputation in front of those that actually know what they're talking about. Congratulations 👍

Jon Jackson@iamjonjackson· Oct 11

Passive aggressive possibly-human-maybe-a-bot support agent. Air quotes… “your query” 😝