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Facebook's Solution To 'One of Education's Biggest Problems' Is a Dashboard
theodp writes: Gushing in July that Facebook engineers had solved one of education's biggest problems, Melinda Gates perhaps set up Segway-like expectations for Facebook's education software. And while The Verge sings the praises of what appears to be progress-tracking dashboards that connect students to mostly free 3rd-party lessons — not unlike Khan Academy or even the 50-year-old PLATO system — it's hard to get jazzed based on the screenshots (1, 2, 3) that Facebook provided in a .zip file accompanying its announcement. The "personalized learning plan" dashboards are a joint effort of Facebook and the Meg Whitman-led and backed Summit charter schools. In a nice circle-of-tech-CEO-education-reform-life twist, the first Summit high school opened in a building in Redwood City after students attending the Bill Gates-touted and backed Silicon Valley High Tech High charter there were evicted to make way, and the Gates Foundation is now spending $8M to bring HP CEO Whitman's Summit charter schools — and presumably Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personalized learning plans — to Seattle children.
And the state Supreme Court just ruled that charter schools are Unconstitutional in Washington state.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/wa...
The Gates Foundation does a huge amount of good in the world. That said, their education initiatives (at least here in the US) tend to back math and science programs that sound good in theory but in practice don't work particularly well - e.g. Common Core.
#DeleteChrome
The article summary was a bit of a hash, but a per-student dashboard that customized learning and displayed progress made would be a pretty great step up from the Mass Education we have today, that ignores student interests or rates of learning on various topics.
As a parent who would not not want a dashboard like that to keep track of what students are doing well and poorly in? Report cards do that but with less frequency and thus opportunity to correct problems as they arise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not sure if this is a total load of bollocks, or if it doesn't actually say anything at all.
The summary is oozing with cynicism. After all, if we can sneer at those trying to improve things, then it is easier to justify doing nothing.
Those trying to improve things? Seriously, you can't be that foolish (or perhaps you can). If anything improves it's an unintentional side effect. These people care about power, which of course you can't have. Isn't it amazing how this "free" application which connects you to free resources requires Facebook to access and use. Notice how this is really 2 massive stockpiles of cash moving piles between them, while of course pulling more out of society?
The simple measure for people is to look at the wealth of those involved. If the people pushing this stuff were altruistic and worried about fair distribution, they would not be gaining wealth, but either maintaining or reducing their massive stockpiles. In all cases their wealth increases, and not by just a little bit. They didn't get it worrying about fairness, and don't continue to amass wealth by worrying at all about society.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There are two things that are going to be a reality. One is that students are going to receive personalized instruction. Most schools already expect this is some way, but it is cost ineffective. Automation through software will make this personalized instruction possible, and while the technology is improving, it is far from adequate for some subjects. For instance physics is increasingly taught through exploration and modeling. Just letting some students listen to a lecture and other students read and then pass a multiple guess test does not teach physics. Students have to go through certain labs. The personlization might be how a lab is set up, which still requires significant human intervention and discussion with a live professional, though eventually an AI might be able to do it. Second, despite what the luddites say every student is going to have a computer and every student is going to need to learn to use it. While there are some jobs that require limited computer literacy, those jobs are going to become fewer. I mean everyone says how great education was in the 50's but what did they really need to get a well paying job? Not as much as today. As students get computers, they will be used to personalize when possible. Otherwise they will be used to teach kids the skills they need to get a job.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Or, in the case of your typical business executive: one dashboard. Business executives sure love their dashboards. Every walk of life should have one. How does anyone know what's going on without a dashboard?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
And what they are forced to teach. I mean, if you are teaching creationist nonsense, then you really do not have any other real problem besides selection of teaching material (and that teachers are willing to tech it instead of finding other jobs). Technology addresses zero teaching problems. Technology only addresses the issue that some companies want to make even more money.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The Gates Foundation does a huge amount of good in the world.
The Gates Foundation does a huge amount of good for Bill Gates. See:
Through the foundation, Bill, Melinda and Microsoft maintain pharmaceutical patent investments, tobacco investments, investments in alcoholic beverages, petroleum investments, investments in experimental and controversial crops, and even investments in news/media. Gates need not even pay tax, though he keeps control of the assets and uses that control to influence private and public policy. Money talks and politicians can in turn be persuaded to buy from Microsoft. This dependence/lock-in cascades down to businesses and homes, creating a revenue stream that would not exist in a free market. Gates is also able to bring public money to himself through energy and public health policy. As Gates has diversified, his corrupting influence has spread to other portions of the economy.
Read more: http://techrights.org/wiki/ind...
lucm, indeed.
The Gates Foundation is routinely crushing existing NGOs and bending public policy to their will.
In 2008 the WHO’s head of malaria research, Aarata Kochi, accused a Gates Foundation ‘cartel’ of suppressing diversity of scientific opinion, claiming the organization was ‘accountable to no-one other than itself’.
That Foundation is basically hubris and greed with a nice front.
lucm, indeed.