I was fired for resisting technology. It saved my career
I was not surprised by recent news that online classes have become swamped by artificial intelligence cheating, eroding academic integrity. From the second I heard about “asynchronous” studies, I thought of the word’s negative connotations: not happening or existing simultaneously, out of sync, allochronic, unsynchronized. “You have to sign up for the 20-hour Canvas computer course,” my boss had informed me. “I tried it. That software is too complicated for me and I don’t need it,” I told her. “Other teachers got permission to skip it, so I requested a waiver.” As a popular college creative writing professor who’d filled up in-person sections every term for 25 years, I worried I was too much of a Luddite to learn new cyber tricks. Yet I’d actually adapted to and enjoyed easy Zoom live video meetings, which mirrored my regular courses. I assumed I’d just get an exemption to avoid the Canvas Learning Management System requirement. Instead, when I didn’t complete the tutorial, the algorithm canceled my classes. Checking the university’s website, I saw that my list …
