Purpos/ed is a non-partisan platform for discussion and debate about the purpose(s) of education.
The organisation is holding its first event at Sheffield Hallam University’s Conference21 facilities on Saturday 30th April 2011.
They say that the format of the day “will very much be participatory with those who come along being expected to contribute either by discussing, debating or presenting.”
The organisers have announced an extension until April 10 for submissions to the PLE2011 conference taking place at the University of Southampton. UK, from July 11th to 13th 2011. The PLE Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experience and research around the development and implementation of PLEs – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise. Full details from the conference website.
Sounds of the Bazaar is planning a live internet radio broadcast from the German Moodlemoot conference, to be held in Elmshorn from 14-15 April, 2011. More details to follow
Many of the presentations from the he ‘Mobile learning: Crossing boundaries in convergent environments’ Conference, held in Bremen last week can now be found on the Cloudworks site. If you would like to add anything please feel free or if you need help just send us an email.
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.