The State of Tech Education in the AI Age
I’ve been reading a few concerning things about tech education recently.
Namely:
- Cassie Evans took down her site
- Salma (whitep4nth3r) stopped streaming, and it’s going dark too
The state of affairs for tech education is bleak. Even popular course producers like Josh Comeau reported that his course sales are about 1/3 of what they used to be.
This sort of thing isn’t new.
Earlier in May, Geoff wrote an article attempting to describe the state of things, and also to pick everyone up.
All these make me wonder whether I should continue doing tech-ed. Or maybe I should put all my energy into other things instead.
I’m A Poor Quitter So Far
I’m oddly stubborn, or persistent, if you’d like to paint that in a brighter light, that I don’t really quit things.
I try to complete goals I set out to accomplish. Even if I fail, I tend to trudge along the same path until I finish it up…
In the past, I’ve set myself a goal to teach HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Node. I’ve done that through Essential CSS, Learn JavaScript, and the Node Workshop.
I faltered for a while after completing those goals. Because I didn’t know what else I really wanted to do.
Now, I’m working to share Unorthodox Tailwind and Practical Astro. Sometimes, I wonder if Unorthodox Tailwind or Practical Astro will make a dent in the world, but I don’t think I’m about to give up yet.
It’s Still Business
Regardless of the form we choose to engage in, everything we do (for work) is still related to a business somehow.
I think we ought to learn how AI is changing the entire landscape. Then, shift along with the landscape. Not shut ourselves in, hoping that people will behave as they did before AI came along.
We can’t deny that AI is already good enough to handle code — to a scary extent.
So:
- perhaps we have to move towards teaching people how to use AI to code properly?
- perhaps, it’s about building tools, schemas, or resources that AI can consume?
- perhaps we need to take a step back and see who we are ultimately serving with code?
I don’t know the answer either.
But I’ve been less anxious about AI for a while now — maybe because I’ve been properly learning to use it myself (and maybe because I’ve stopped succumbing to the hype).
AI is useful.
Learning is still important.
Education still helps.
But we can’t demand attention. (We never had the ability to do that in the first place).
The question then becomes: Where is attention gathering? What’s the mindset behind that attention? How can we direct that attention towards the ultimate goals (not just selling our wares) that we wish to serve?
I guess there’s a lot more self-examination to find out what we are here to bring into the world. Then we can make the effort to bring that into existence.
