Pomp, nonsense and supression
April 29th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
This just about sums it up for me….
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Clippings
Why do we place so much emhasis on grades?
April 25th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Interesting blog post by Ryan Bretag who was invited to listen to student proposals on improving education. Ryan talks about the iaaue of grading and assessment.
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Success in education necessay to excel in life?
April 22nd, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Interesting report commissioned by Demos. It just confirms the problems in the UK with education being seen as critical to success in life – especially financial success – but without the money required to pursue that education. Yet another reason to question the model of education we have developed in the UK.
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Education bubble?
April 11th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
I suspect that if I ever met him I wouldn’t like Paypal founder and venture capitalist, Peter Thiel. We would probably disagree about most things.
But I do agree with his assertion that we are now in a education bubble. Education has come to be portrayed as the answer to all of society’s ills. Young people are told they must get an education to get on in life. Older people are told they are responsible for their own lifelong learning to ensure they remain ’employable’. We threaten to cut social benefits to those that refuse to undertake retraining courses. And of course it is a lie. Many people are unemployed becuase there are simply not enough jobs. In Europe thousands of graduates, who in countries like the UK have run up substantial debts to get their degree, cannot find work. Thiel is right – education is not working. At least not the kind of education system we have now. It requires a complete rethink. What is the purpose of education?
But I do agree with his assertion that we are now in a education bubble. Education has come to be portrayed as the answer to all of society’s ills. Young people are told they must get an education to get on in life. Older people are told they are responsible for their own lifelong learning to ensure they remain ’employable’. We threaten to cut social benefits to those that refuse to undertake retraining courses. And of course it is a lie. Many people are unemployed becuase there are simply not enough jobs. In Europe thousands of graduates, who in countries like the UK have run up substantial debts to get their degree, cannot find work. Thiel is right – education is not working. At least not the kind of education system we have now. It requires a complete rethink. What is the purpose of education?
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The spread of Smartphones
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Latest predictions on smartphone growth and operating systems as reported in the Guardiian
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Turn an iPad into an Interactive Whiteboard
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
this is almost enough to tempt me into getting an iPad. But also when talking to Jenny Hughes she pointed out a big flaw in Interactive Whiteboard design in that for younger kids many of them cannot actually reach the screen. they could of course, reach an iPad.
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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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