I made this card deck because I’m a hopeful person who is currently angry, afraid, anxious, frustrated, and skeptical about generative artificial intelligence. Yet another extractive industry pushing us to produce more, more quickly, further colonizing our data and guzzling our water.

As a media researcher, I’ve studied the discourses that surround new media technologies—the corporate utopian narratives that overlook the systemic injustices baked into scaling production, as well as the moral panics that lead us all too easily into cultures of surveillance and distrust. I’ve studied the gradual decay of our digital culture, from spaces I could move through into places that enclose me within ad-infested paywalls, where my engagement is tracked and sold. My work as an educational developer is grounded in helping teachers center student voices and agency, cultivate trust and community, and foster the conditions where transformative learning can happen. At this point, I do not see a path where simply banning generative AI, pretending like it doesn’t exist, or policing student use is going to create those conditions.

As such, I guess I am approaching this card deck as a project between harm reduction and hope. While I am afraid that scaling education through narratives of “personalization” with generative AI will further erode our sense of community, belonging, and connection with our students; while I am anxious that the development of AI teaching assistants will harm our graduate student instructors, who are already overburdened and underpaid; while I am frustrated that we are moving at lightning speed to develop generative AI infrastructure without fully considering its detrimental effects on our shared Earthly ecologies; while I am skeptical that generative AI will ever love or turn pain and passion into art like we do…

Generative AI offers an opportunity for us all to revisit what, why, and how we teach, and how we build environments of curiosity and care with and for our students.

I designed Analog Inspiration to be a part of the conversation about teaching and AI, to encourage teachers to gather together and hold insightful discussions about what makes teaching and learning a worthwhile human endeavor. AI assisted me at various points throughout the process of developing the cards, most often helping me condense activity descriptions so that they fit onto a single card. As the name of the project suggests, I am hoping the deck might help folks make sense of AI by looking back to those experiences that have shaped their practices and perspectives, looking forward to possibilities of what could be, and looking inward to reflect on what really matters to and inspires them. It offers activities that disincentivize cheating, celebrate student agency and creativity, and investigate AI’s potentials, limitations, and biases.

I’m just one person selling these cards, so as you’ll see in the shop, I’m doing a limited run of 100 card decks. Or, you can download a digital version of the analog deck for $8, in which case I’ll also throw in three bonus cards I made. Or, I’ve made 47 of the activities available for free as a view-only Google Sheet. Whatever works best for your needs. While developed with higher education in mind, I hope the cards resonate with educators, students, and educational developers across all learning contexts.