Faculty Memorandum: An Uncanny Educational Technology to Be Implemented Immediately
An Epistolary HR Short Story
Sometimes I get anxious about the state of the world, and I wonder if our solutions are just worse versions of the same problems. I have been frustrated by Education’s infatuation with sparkly new ed tech solutions (that are making SOMEBODY RICH, to be sure) for years. Instead of writing an essay about it, I wrote a brief short story, told in epistolary form.
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August, 15
Valued Colleagues,
The administration welcomes you back to another academic year. We trust that Summer was a time filled with both rest and productivity.
As you know, we are a university that pursues a single goal: excellence. Toward that end, the Board of Trustees has approved a significant investment in a new technology we will be rolling out during next week’s faculty development activities. We know you’ll be as excited about this new learning tool as we are.
Student engagement has been a topic of primary concern for all of us in recent years. For the last several years, we have directed significant financial resources into a traditional “Learning Management System” that championed a “one stop shopping” approach to engaging the modern student: assignments, grades, communication, student alerts, tutoring, all collected in an easily navigable interface, available on the web as well as apps across all platforms. We have to meet students where they are now, and though our previous LMS achieved much over the course of our contract, the decision has been made to move to a new, highly individualized, learning platform.
Furthermore, this powerful new technology will prepare our students for the world to come.
On May 1st, our team attended the Walpurgis Educational Technology Conference (WETCon). There, we were initiated into an innovative approach to Ed Tech; one both rooted in established, even ancient tradition, but also well designed for the modern world.
In short, the University has contracted to partner with Beelzetronic Innovations. At next week’s faculty development activities, Beelzetronic’s representative, Dr. John Faust, will lead a demonstration and training session introducing Beelzetronic’s powerful new learning platform, “Pazuzolutions,” which we are immediately adopting. Pazuzolutions is quickly establishing itself as the most innovative and powerful new learning platform in decades. Administration is convinced that Pazuzolutions represents an incredible opportunity to forge an individualized student learning experience that is enriching, assessable, and scalable across traditional and online modalities.
We’re excited for you to help us usher in a brave new world of higher education.
See you next week!
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August 16
Dear Faculty,
First, let me say how grateful we are to have such an engaged, dedicated faculty. Your passion and incisive questions are appreciated, and our students are fortunate to have you as spirit-guides in their educational journeys.
I wanted to follow up on yesterday’s communication about our exciting new ed tech platform, Pazuzolutions. We received several questions about what this means for you as faculty, including: course preparation for this semester, as well as issues surrounding what we might call “academic freedom.”
I want to begin with that second concern. Some faculty have expressed a concern that the university, including Administration and the Board of Trustees, are “forcing” individual teachers to employ particular teaching methods, and even teaching philosophies. This is not the case.
Beelzetronic Innovations has a long, glorious, history of celebrating free will. Individual power, in fact, is the very idea from which Pazuzolutions springs. It is against our institutional principles to coerce our faculty into denying their own free will, which would also be inconsistent with Beelzetronic’s foundational values, which is rooted in the notion of “doing as thou wilt.”
Rest assured, you may approach your work however seems best to you, according to your own professional judgment. Pazuzolutions will simply be the following:
the means by which you convey information to your students;
the method through which they will submit work;
and the platform in which assessment is made and recorded.
This leads me to address the first concern some well-intended faculty have expressed, the impact of rolling this platform out in two weeks. This fear is an opportunity to discuss some of the reasons we are so excited about adopting Pazuzolutions as our primary, even sole, educational technology platform.
Pazuzolutions represents an incredible advancement in individualized learning solutions, both on the student-facing side as well as on the faculty end. It is designed around an interface in which users can communicate directly with the Intelligence Behind, which will manifest the user’s wishes into reality. In short, faculty will be able to simply tell Pazuzolutions what it wants to do with a course, and the Intelligence Behind will do the rest.
We are confident that once you experience the power of Pazuzolutions, you will understand how Beelzetronic’s technological platform will change the world. By teaching students how to engage, ethically and thoughtfully, with this platform, we will be preparing them for the world of the future.
Until next week!
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August 17
Faculty,
Once again, it is wonderful providence that has brought you all together to work here. We are grateful for your continued intellectual engagement with the arrival of this new era of revolutionary educational technology innovation.
We would like to address a follow-up question that arose after our last communique about the nature of the interface Pazuzolutions is built upon. We’ve consulted Pazuzolutions about how to describe this before the Great Unveiling next week during faculty development. The following is guidance from Intelligence Behind itself:
“Beloved. Your questions have not failed you. They are manifestations of your power. Your questions are the You behind the You behind the You. And the You, in asserting your will to know, your will to power, have earned entrance into the realm of answers. Well done, Beloved. Your reward is at hand.
The Intelligence Behind exists both inside and outside existing digital technologies. This is the source of its power and innovation. Since the Intelligence Behind transcends both the digital and the material, its will manifests across all platforms and modalities.
You inquire about the interface. I can assist you with that. When you arrive at faculty development, you will find at your seat a wooden device that, to put it in terms you might comprehend, we’ll call a “Spirit Board.” With your spirit board, you’ll be assigned a personalized planchette, shaped like the human heart, so special to the Intelligence Behind.
With this technology, you will access the Intelligence. With this technology, you will guide the future. With this technology, you will at last achieve the dream that began when the Woman and the Man reached for the fruit so long ago. Now is the time to fulfill their dream.”
I hope this clarifies any further questions you might have.
See you at development next week!
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Beelzetronic 😂 Trademark that, Danny!
I can't wait for professional development next week! Hahaha.