I am sure you have heard about Pussy Riot by now. Their brave stance in a show trial against the authoritarian regime of Putin in Russia has sparked solidarity protests around the world. But how many of you have listed to their music? This reminds me of the best days of early punk!
This presentation by Ilona Buchem to the PLE21012 conference is based on a study on the psychological ownership of Personal learning Environments. Ilona says: “One of most interesting outcomes of the study was the relation between control and ownership. The results show that while perceived control of intangible aspects of a learning environment (such as being able to determine the subject matter or access rights) has a much larger impact on the feeling of ownership of a learning environment than perceived control of tangible aspects (such as being able to choose the technology).”
JUNGLE TOWN from bulle plexiglass on Vimeo.
Was looking around for a summer video for the front page of the site. And I found an excellent group on video arts on Vimeo including this short film which I love (I especially like the audio mix). Hope you enjoy it.
NB If you would like to recommend a video or presentation (including your own!) for the front page of this web site, please email Graham10 [at] mac [dot] com.
Festival fever is growing here at Pontydysgu HQ. Are we talking about the Olympics? No! Are we talking about the Green Man festival? No! We are, of course. talking about the wonderful San Marino festival of Music and Arts, from Friday 3 – Sunday 5 August. This is not a corporate sponsorship festival. This is a festival run by volunteers and the young people of San Marino. If you can make it up the mountain come and see us. But if not join the festival through our live radio programmes. And to get you in the mood, here is a video of the 2010 festival.
Great talk by Helen Keegan about curiosity and the pedagogy of deception (AKA lying). Don’t miss it. Helen is one of the best people I know for talking to in the pub but, if you want the official stuff, the blurb says:”her research focuses on digital culture, digital identity and literacy, and the interplay between formal and informal learning.”
At long last there is an opening up of the discussion around users own technology – both in education and in companies. Sam Gliksman says: “Schools are needing increasing amounts of expensive educational technology at a time when budgets are shrinking. Many have started to explore BYOD policies – Bring Your Own Device – as a practical solution to integrate cost effective technology into their educational programs.
With the convergence of widespread broadband and the growth of powerful, platform independent web based tools BYOD has finally arrived as an effective educational alternative to other plans that require expensive purchasing and maintenance. Viewed within a realistic perspective of both its benefits and limitations BYOD can provide a workable solution for the many schools seeking to upgrade their educational technology.”
Alan Turing His Life and Legacy from Polari Magazine on Vimeo.
A tribute to Alan Turing. As @Paul0Evans1 said on Twitter: “Turing would have been 100 today. Wish we’d put a fraction of the ‘celebration planning’ into this that went into Jubilee.”
CATASTROIKA – ENGLISH SUBTITLES von infowar
We don’t normally feature full length films on Pontydysgu. But this is an exception. Catastroika is a crowdfunded documentary released under a creative commons license at www.catastroika.com.
The film travels round the world gathering data on privatization in developed countries and analyses the shifting of state assets to private hands. Frightening, compelling and true. make sure you watch it!
Interesting presentation by George Siemens. George says: “Educators are not driving the change bus. Leadership in traditional universities has been grossly negligent in preparing the academy for the economic and technological reality it now faces. ….. Universities have not been paying attention. As a result, they have not developed systemic capacity to function in a digital networked age.”
It is well worth reading the blog accompanying this presentation where George explains his ideas.
There is nothing revolutionary in this presentation by Matthew Leingang. But it shows how easy it is to glue together Backboard, Facebook and Twitter as a social learning platform. And I like the way the slides tell their own story and form an picture book instruction manual.
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.
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.
We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.