this would be funny if it wasn’t true…
October 6th, 2011 by Jenny Hughes
(Go see the free embed deal at http://www.andertoons.com/free-cartoons/ )
Archive for the ‘chalkface’ Category
A mile of ideas….let’s go for it!
October 6th, 2011 by Jenny Hughes
Inspired by Tom Barrett’s presentations based on one idea per slide, I just asked Graham how big a slide was. After a pitying look and a very sniffy technical response, he helpfully put up a powerpoint on his screen and we measured how wide it was with a wooden ruler. It was about 30cm. Then I went for full screen mode and stretched it to .67 metres, which is therefore the length of an idea.
Divide that into a kilometre and it comes to about 1500 (give or take a few slides that sneakily have two ideas and take away the title slides and allowing a factor for lap top size screens). Then I counted the number of ideas already published on Chalkface, including Tom’s, and found 108. That’s 72 metres of idea already – not bad, and loads to come!
Now I want an electronic thermometer thingy – like they used to have to measure the donations towards replacing the lead on the church roof – to see whether we can get a kilometre of ideas in the next year.
I admit there are some conceptual problems here because everyone knows that ideas are traditionally are measured by weight (as in ‘I’ve got tons of ideas’) or volume (as in ‘Here’s a handful of ideas’ ).
Anyway – that’s the target. A kilometre of ideas for teachers.
Bored of Pontydysgu : (
PS Graham has pointed out that tweeted ideas are smaller so if some maths teacher could work out how long 140 characters are….
Tribute to Steve Jobs….32 ways to use an iPod Touch in the classroom
October 6th, 2011 by Jenny Hughes
Last year I posted 20 Things To Do With Mobile Phones (or something!) – here’s the next generation of ideas, started by Tom Barrett. Seems a fitting tribute to Steve Jobs
31 Interesting ways of using audio in the classroom
October 6th, 2011 by Jenny Hughes
As promised – the first of the ‘mile of ideas’ topics
Interesting ways to …..
October 6th, 2011 by Jenny Hughes
Great idea from Tom Barrett who started off the series of ‘How to…’ presentations. One idea per slide, add yours on the end and keep it rolling! And loads of thanks to all those who have already contributed.
If you want to join the party, look at the last slide of any one for information on how to do this. Meanwhile, twitter their existence and alert all those over-worked, short-on-ideas teachers you know. We are going to post the whole series here.
Tom has an excellent website This is a must-read for all classroom teachers. Please note – those of you who have accessed his site before – the url has changed. (For which he blames the bullying of Doug Belshaw!!) Whatever the address, you NEED this site!
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Social Media
News Bites
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
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