It's the scientific method, i.e. lack of falsifying evidence. He's provided the evidence for, if nobody can find sufficient evidence against, then the hypothesis stands.
Looks like Steve Ballmer saw John Hodgman's arguments for buying the LA Clippers and took him seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Now Ballmer can have his very own herd of humans.
...and the divorce rate in Maine correlates directly with margarine consumption, and the number of people who drowned by falling into a swimming pool correlated with the number of films Nicholas Cage appeared in, etc.
If my parents chose not to vaccinate me, then I'm at risk. My parents might not even think to tell me about it or deliberately keep it from me. If I go to a doctor and there's a way that s/he can find out quickly and easily whether I've had all the most necessary vaccinations, I'd like her/him to tell me. Then I can make an informed choice instead of it being kept from me by my parents.
Also, if there's a public outbreak of a preventable disease, like there have been recently among non-immunised communities, I'd like the authorities to be able to contact everyone who isn't vaccinated who might come into contact with members of that community (basically everyone in the state and maybe the whole country) and tell them and then they can make an informed decision.
I can see a point at which other countries will refuse visas or entry to anyone who doesn't present proof of vaccination. It could also happen at hospitals, daycare, schools, hospices, retirement communities, and some govt. buildings. Unless you have no contact with modern society, the whole argument against registrations will backfire anyway.
The fact that Piketty's work describes a damning indictement of the USA's most cherished concept - free market capitalism - means that thousands of neo-liberal economists will pour over every single digit and operator in his spreadsheets looking for anything to negate the findings. If they can't find anything, they'll attack him. When you hear of character attacks against Piketty or some other diversionary tactic, you'll know his data is correct.
Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!
Re: The questions in the post...
What do these capitulations bode for future movements? - Nothing. Polical movements happen on the ground, amongst the people, with real people doing real things. A broadcast medium doesn't make a movement (unless it's PR and marketing movements like Kony2012). People are aware that public channels are monitored and use other technologies for "real" organising.
Will other platforms take Twitter's place? - Yes. if internet history is anything to go by.
Is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown? - Yes, see above.
We already have advanced, powerful, flexible learning management systems and promising new ones appearing all the time, e.g. Instructure Canvas. The better ones are easily good enough for most online learning and teaching needs and most learners and teachers only use a small percentage of the features on offer (some claim 80% using 20% of features). For all its sins, Moodle has been a pioneer in this respect and one that many are trying to emulate.
Then there's open educational resources (OER): Creative Commons licensed learning and teaching resources that anyone can download, edit, use, and redistribute with no strings attached except respectful attribution. UNESCO are leading a large co-ordinated effort to make this the new standard in education: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/c.... There are dozens of repositories of resources, worksheets, media, learning activities, and whole courses available today and the number is growing. Anyone can set up an installation of Moodle as a courseware "hub" from which other Moodle's can import learning content from. Here's Moodle.org's official hub: http://moodle.net/
So what are Microsoft and Google bringing to the table? What we already have plus PR, marketing, and wholly unethical blanket surveillance? Do they intend to "fudge" important issues and manipulate education systems to generate yet more revenue for themselves, regardless of any detrimental effects on learning outcomes? Remember that the people we're teaching today are the ones who have to take care of us and fix the messes we've created tomorrow. I'd like them to be smart, insightful, intuitive, creative, analytical and critical thinkers rather than the rather uninspiring products of common core standards and bureacractic mediocrity.
He's in a spy/security agency. It's his job to tell us that the sky's falling in. That's how he and his colleagues and minions not only get to keep their jobs but get even more money. The scarier they can make the world sound, the more money they get.
BTW, the NSA seems to be more focused on commiting industrial espionage against its trading partners and targeting legitimate political organisations than it is on terrorism. I don't think they really care that much about terrorist attacks. As long as it makes more people scared and they get more money and power out of it, it's good for them.
Yes, professional teachers have known this for decades going back further than the scope of this study (go back to John Dewey or Plato if you like), and most professional teachers typically don't just lecture, they include a whole range of learning activities to facilitate learning. The problem is, there aren't that many professional teachers in universities. Universities hire professional researchers who do teaching on the side. Want a job? Want tenure? See how far being a good teacher gets you. It's more of a bonus than a requirement. Not surprisingly, university teaching staff tend to reflect these values.
Experienced teachers are with you on this one. They've seen wave after wave of the latest fads in education come and go; at first they're a paradigm shift, a game changer, a revolution in how we should be learning and teaching, and we hear amazing and incredible success stories (and I mean incredible in the literal sense). Give it a few years, once the real (mediocre) results come in, the failures, the issues, etc., and then we're all ready for the next learning and teaching fad to come along.
Developing software is engineering, i.e. making virtual machines. If you want kids to develop their engineering skills, teach them engineering. Get them to make stuff, take stuff apart, modify stuff, repurpose stuff, solve problems. This is how you learn to engineer. Then transferring those skills and knowledge into virtual engineering is pretty easy.
Doesn't anyone see the similarity between this and Aphex Twin's video to "Come to Daddy"? - Life imitating art. The fun starts about 1:50 into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Sorry, diet is a complicated topic, so this is going to be long...
Yes, we have different carbs now. One of the most significant features of the modern diet is how we mill flour; with steel milling machines which produce finer, more doughy flour than traditional stone mills. This pushes the glycemic index (the speed at which carbs get digested into sugars and absorbed into our bloodstreams) of most bread and baked good above that of regular table sugar (sucrose).
No, fat increases obesity too. Fat contains more available calories per gramme than sugar.
Another problem is the reduced amounts of protein in modern foods. We have to eat a lot more food, i.e. we eat, get full, but get hungry again sooner, because our bodies aren't getting the protein we need. This could also explain the massive increase in meat consumption in order to compensate. However, large amounts of protein in one sitting can't compensate for an overall lack of protein. We need to eat protein with every meal/snack.
And no, you can't live without carbohydrates, you'd die of starvation. Our brains can only metabolise carbs, they cannot break down fats and proteins to use for energy like other parts of our bodies. If we don't get enough carbs in our diets, our brains start to "digest themselves" producing ketones which make your breath smell of pears. It also provokes feelings of depression and lethargy. And we've all hear of low blood sugar and how it impairs our ability to think and work.
If you don't want to get obese, don't go on calorie control diets; they just don't work and human will power isn't enough in "normal" people. If you have an eating disorder, on the other hand, yes, it'll work but you'll make yourself ill at the same time. Also, most raw vegetables have very little nutritional value; they need to be cooked (lightly) to release their nutrients and make them available to our digestive systems. The most effective approach is to cut out processed foods from your diet, although that's easier said than done; millions of years of evolution has predisposed us to select sugary, salty, fatty foods over healthier options, and most people go through a certain degree of "withdrawal" when they change their dietary habits, e.g. healthy food is less appetising, and cravings for "something else."
The quality of our carb intake makes a huge difference. Many whole grains (but not all, check them on glycemic index/load tables) are "slow release" and so keep your bood sugar at a fairly stable, moderate level for longer, so you feel the need to eat less frequently, e.g. basmati rice, oats (porridge is great for breakfast), and barley (great in soups). Steer well clear of most breakfast cereals of the whether they have sugar added or not; the grains are usually processed in ways that make them worse than sugar, e.g. puffed wheat or steamed and rolled corn.
A rule of thumb that seems to work well in most cases is, "Eat more plants, eat more non-meat protein, eat higher quality carbs."
If you want to know more about carbs from a research evidence based perspective, "The New Glucose Revolution" is a good book. However, beware of caveats such a fructose being low on the glycemic index - It's just as bad, if not worse than sucrose, as has been revealed recently in the media. In large amounts, it also overstresses your liver.
In the European Union, if one spouse is given permission to live and work, so is their spouse and dependents. This is to prevent situations where one person is the only legitimate earner in a household and so can abuse family members with impunity because if the earner gets deported or made unemployed, everyone suffers. There's a perverse incentive to endure spousal abuse and/or child abuse for fear of losing everything and being deported back to their home country and probably suffer further abuses there because of economic/societal depedency.
The EU implemented this rule because of the sheer number of abuse cases that were coming to light, including hospitalisations and murders.
BTW, you can't blame your colleagues or potential colleagues for your employers' shitty behaviour. It doesn't matter if they come from out of town, out of state, or out of country. It's not them who's making your job insecure and low paid, it's your employers. If you don't like it, start or join a union. You have the democratic right to collectivise and campaign for better treatment, working conditions, and your own dignity.
Congratulations Google!!! You've re-invented the assignment activity/module that comes with every major LMS in the world, except if teachers use it, students have no choice as to whether they can choose to reveal their studying and studying habits to Google, the world's largest and creepiest surveillance corporation (note I said "corporation", there ain't nothin' creepier than the NSA).
BTW, sorry to hear you're on Blackboard. Re: comments about D2L, the conversations I've had with faculty that have to use it range from indifferent apathy to palpable venom (I mean talking through clenched teeth and clawing at the air with his hands, not quite foaming at the mouth). Yeah, go for something else like Canvas or Moodle. In many cases, a drop-box and email is good enough for many faculty (but Google are already getting Universities in N. America to switch from their own servers to Google Docs). If you're on Backboard, you'll probably stay on Blackboard and just have Google Docs and "Classroom" integrated with it: worst of both worlds. It's university management that want to get everyone doing everything online so that they can generate statistics and pretty graphs, which often bear little meaningful correlation to learning and teaching going on in the classrooms and lecture theatres.
Is designing Angry-Birds derivative games a "Sputnik moment" for education? A simple litmus test for the educational validity: Would it sound as cool and be as well received if it were in another mode/medium, e.g. designing board games? The educational outcomes for getting children to design board games are arguably more desirable, cheaper, and more practical than getting children to do the same with code. (I've done it and read the background research on learning projects including designing board games, and I can't see how doing it virtually, i.e. with software algorithms, would be as educationally productive unless they created and developed the games first in the real world and then created and developed them into software versions later, thereby avoiding cognitive overload).
BTW, I'm all for children learning to write code but in pedagogically sound and productive ways, and at appropriate times in children's stages/levels of cognitive development.
What they really need is a webcam on everyone's TV (at their own expense or the taxpayers', it doesn't matter which) to record who's watching which shows so customers can't invite neighbours around to commit copyright infringement/breach of contract. We also need to divert more law enforcement and legal resources away from frivolous crimes like robbery, murder, and rape to stopping/preventing these heinous copyright infringement crimes that are dragging society down into immorality and depravity. Perhaps we could offer some kind of incentive to the police/courts by offering them a cut in any fines/damages awarded, something like the way they make money handing out traffic tickets. That'd definitely provide a stronger incentive to prioritise copyright infringement. If that doesn't work, we could reduce state/federal funding to those agencies to make them more dependent on their cut of fines/damages.
While we're at it, let's teach toddlers to read and write before they learn to speak. The people who write this drivel know more about writing click-bait than they do about developmental psychology.
The article seems to read, "Website services that are designed to make money attract people who want to make money." They're no more part of a "sharing economy" than Amazon or eBay or any similar enterprise. If anything, they're more about bringing down oversight, regulation, and stability.
Genuine sharing economies are small enough in scale so that people know each other personally and know their reputations/personalities (or at least can ask around among the people they already know and trust). They're co-operative, non-profit enterprises; everyone shares in the gains and everyone benfits from helping each other. Instead of going through corporate banking systems, they use barter, cash, and/or local credit unions. The concept is as old as civilisation itself and it just doesn't "scale" or operate in the way that for profit, venture captial backed startups would like.
If US PDs are welcoming the attention from the public, then why do they want to outlaw filming cops? It looks like ubiquitous cameras and the ability to copy and distribute evidence of police wrongdoing is one of the best things to happen to the police. They just haven't realised it yet: No need for cops to "rat on" each other, more effective oversight (directly by the public), and cops understanding that anything they say or do can be photographed, filmed, documented, often from multiple sources, and taken down in evidence against them. Plus, the more priviledged members of society, who generally never see any police brutality, get to see exactly what it is and why it's a problem.
BTW, search for "police brutality" + your country or city's name, and you'll more than likely find enough videos and photos to paint a pretty ugly picture.
All this publicity is the start of something good. The people responsible for police behaviour will have to change the way they do things, e.g. stop dressing them up as soldiers and teaching them how to fight.
The police and security agencies I've read about, e.g. FBI, MI5, Scotland Yard, have long and shady histories when it comes to infiltrating legitimate political organisations and trade unions and undermining them, or outright intimidating and/or ttacking them.
I've also read that the regimes in N. Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., do more than just this. Why not develop and use technology that protects political engagement and democratic paricipation?
"Shop" and physically making things in school isn't so much about training people to do manual jobs at some point in the dim and distant future. Physically manipulating materials, objects, and tools helps to develop spatial awareness (AKA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...) which is a highly valuable and broadly transferable skill. If you want your kids to be good at Math, Physics, Chemistry, as well as the arts, design, etc., get them making stuff, taking stuff apart to see how it works, etc. from a young age. It'll work wonders for their cognitive development.
"That will, in turn, enable governments and businesses to create incentive systems to 'tune' people's behavior, making society more productive and creative."
Mmm... there's this thing that most societies have, it's called education. It can be highly effective at 'tuning' people's behavior, making society more productive and creative. But something tells me that's the last thing on the USA's rulers' minds...
Public education is becoming big business as bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity investors are entering what they consider to be an âoeemerging market.â As Rupert Murdoch put it after purchasing an education technology company, âoeWhen it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone.â
Education historian Diane Ravitch says the privatization of public education has to stop. As assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, she was an advocate of school choice and charter schools; under George W. Bush, she supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. But after careful investigation, she changed her mind, and has become, according to Salon, âoethe nationâ(TM)s highest profile opponentâ of charter-based education.
On this weekâ(TM)s Moyers & Company, she tells Bill Moyers, âI think whatâ(TM)s at stake is the future of American public education. I believe it is one of the foundation stones of our democracy: So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.â
Diane Ravitch is Americaâ(TM)s preeminent historian of public education. Her newest book is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americaâ(TM)s Public Schools.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the scientific method, i.e. lack of falsifying evidence. He's provided the evidence for, if nobody can find sufficient evidence against, then the hypothesis stands.
If your IP address if favoured by our media overlords, there's a better quality version of the video here: http://www.nerdist.com/2014/05...
Looks like Steve Ballmer saw John Hodgman's arguments for buying the LA Clippers and took him seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Now Ballmer can have his very own herd of humans.
...and the divorce rate in Maine correlates directly with margarine consumption, and the number of people who drowned by falling into a swimming pool correlated with the number of films Nicholas Cage appeared in, etc.
Correlation isn't causation: http://www.fastcodesign.com/30...
If my parents chose not to vaccinate me, then I'm at risk. My parents might not even think to tell me about it or deliberately keep it from me. If I go to a doctor and there's a way that s/he can find out quickly and easily whether I've had all the most necessary vaccinations, I'd like her/him to tell me. Then I can make an informed choice instead of it being kept from me by my parents.
Also, if there's a public outbreak of a preventable disease, like there have been recently among non-immunised communities, I'd like the authorities to be able to contact everyone who isn't vaccinated who might come into contact with members of that community (basically everyone in the state and maybe the whole country) and tell them and then they can make an informed decision.
I can see a point at which other countries will refuse visas or entry to anyone who doesn't present proof of vaccination. It could also happen at hospitals, daycare, schools, hospices, retirement communities, and some govt. buildings. Unless you have no contact with modern society, the whole argument against registrations will backfire anyway.
The fact that Piketty's work describes a damning indictement of the USA's most cherished concept - free market capitalism - means that thousands of neo-liberal economists will pour over every single digit and operator in his spreadsheets looking for anything to negate the findings. If they can't find anything, they'll attack him. When you hear of character attacks against Piketty or some other diversionary tactic, you'll know his data is correct.
Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!
Re: The questions in the post...
What do these capitulations bode for future movements? - Nothing. Polical movements happen on the ground, amongst the people, with real people doing real things. A broadcast medium doesn't make a movement (unless it's PR and marketing movements like Kony2012). People are aware that public channels are monitored and use other technologies for "real" organising.
Will other platforms take Twitter's place? - Yes. if internet history is anything to go by.
Is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown? - Yes, see above.
We already have advanced, powerful, flexible learning management systems and promising new ones appearing all the time, e.g. Instructure Canvas. The better ones are easily good enough for most online learning and teaching needs and most learners and teachers only use a small percentage of the features on offer (some claim 80% using 20% of features). For all its sins, Moodle has been a pioneer in this respect and one that many are trying to emulate.
Then there's open educational resources (OER): Creative Commons licensed learning and teaching resources that anyone can download, edit, use, and redistribute with no strings attached except respectful attribution. UNESCO are leading a large co-ordinated effort to make this the new standard in education: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/c.... There are dozens of repositories of resources, worksheets, media, learning activities, and whole courses available today and the number is growing. Anyone can set up an installation of Moodle as a courseware "hub" from which other Moodle's can import learning content from. Here's Moodle.org's official hub: http://moodle.net/
So what are Microsoft and Google bringing to the table? What we already have plus PR, marketing, and wholly unethical blanket surveillance? Do they intend to "fudge" important issues and manipulate education systems to generate yet more revenue for themselves, regardless of any detrimental effects on learning outcomes? Remember that the people we're teaching today are the ones who have to take care of us and fix the messes we've created tomorrow. I'd like them to be smart, insightful, intuitive, creative, analytical and critical thinkers rather than the rather uninspiring products of common core standards and bureacractic mediocrity.
Customers should get a free Metalica t-shirt with every Nitrosomonas eutropha treatment.
He's in a spy/security agency. It's his job to tell us that the sky's falling in. That's how he and his colleagues and minions not only get to keep their jobs but get even more money. The scarier they can make the world sound, the more money they get.
BTW, the NSA seems to be more focused on commiting industrial espionage against its trading partners and targeting legitimate political organisations than it is on terrorism. I don't think they really care that much about terrorist attacks. As long as it makes more people scared and they get more money and power out of it, it's good for them.
Yes, professional teachers have known this for decades going back further than the scope of this study (go back to John Dewey or Plato if you like), and most professional teachers typically don't just lecture, they include a whole range of learning activities to facilitate learning. The problem is, there aren't that many professional teachers in universities. Universities hire professional researchers who do teaching on the side. Want a job? Want tenure? See how far being a good teacher gets you. It's more of a bonus than a requirement. Not surprisingly, university teaching staff tend to reflect these values.
Experienced teachers are with you on this one. They've seen wave after wave of the latest fads in education come and go; at first they're a paradigm shift, a game changer, a revolution in how we should be learning and teaching, and we hear amazing and incredible success stories (and I mean incredible in the literal sense). Give it a few years, once the real (mediocre) results come in, the failures, the issues, etc., and then we're all ready for the next learning and teaching fad to come along.
Developing software is engineering, i.e. making virtual machines. If you want kids to develop their engineering skills, teach them engineering. Get them to make stuff, take stuff apart, modify stuff, repurpose stuff, solve problems. This is how you learn to engineer. Then transferring those skills and knowledge into virtual engineering is pretty easy.
Doesn't anyone see the similarity between this and Aphex Twin's video to "Come to Daddy"? - Life imitating art. The fun starts about 1:50 into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Sorry, diet is a complicated topic, so this is going to be long...
Yes, we have different carbs now. One of the most significant features of the modern diet is how we mill flour; with steel milling machines which produce finer, more doughy flour than traditional stone mills. This pushes the glycemic index (the speed at which carbs get digested into sugars and absorbed into our bloodstreams) of most bread and baked good above that of regular table sugar (sucrose).
No, fat increases obesity too. Fat contains more available calories per gramme than sugar.
Another problem is the reduced amounts of protein in modern foods. We have to eat a lot more food, i.e. we eat, get full, but get hungry again sooner, because our bodies aren't getting the protein we need. This could also explain the massive increase in meat consumption in order to compensate. However, large amounts of protein in one sitting can't compensate for an overall lack of protein. We need to eat protein with every meal/snack.
And no, you can't live without carbohydrates, you'd die of starvation. Our brains can only metabolise carbs, they cannot break down fats and proteins to use for energy like other parts of our bodies. If we don't get enough carbs in our diets, our brains start to "digest themselves" producing ketones which make your breath smell of pears. It also provokes feelings of depression and lethargy. And we've all hear of low blood sugar and how it impairs our ability to think and work.
If you don't want to get obese, don't go on calorie control diets; they just don't work and human will power isn't enough in "normal" people. If you have an eating disorder, on the other hand, yes, it'll work but you'll make yourself ill at the same time. Also, most raw vegetables have very little nutritional value; they need to be cooked (lightly) to release their nutrients and make them available to our digestive systems. The most effective approach is to cut out processed foods from your diet, although that's easier said than done; millions of years of evolution has predisposed us to select sugary, salty, fatty foods over healthier options, and most people go through a certain degree of "withdrawal" when they change their dietary habits, e.g. healthy food is less appetising, and cravings for "something else."
The quality of our carb intake makes a huge difference. Many whole grains (but not all, check them on glycemic index/load tables) are "slow release" and so keep your bood sugar at a fairly stable, moderate level for longer, so you feel the need to eat less frequently, e.g. basmati rice, oats (porridge is great for breakfast), and barley (great in soups). Steer well clear of most breakfast cereals of the whether they have sugar added or not; the grains are usually processed in ways that make them worse than sugar, e.g. puffed wheat or steamed and rolled corn.
A rule of thumb that seems to work well in most cases is, "Eat more plants, eat more non-meat protein, eat higher quality carbs."
If you like an emotional/visual approach, this website's fun: http://www.sugarstacks.com/
If you want to know more about carbs from a research evidence based perspective, "The New Glucose Revolution" is a good book. However, beware of caveats such a fructose being low on the glycemic index - It's just as bad, if not worse than sucrose, as has been revealed recently in the media. In large amounts, it also overstresses your liver.
Happy and healthy eating!
In the European Union, if one spouse is given permission to live and work, so is their spouse and dependents. This is to prevent situations where one person is the only legitimate earner in a household and so can abuse family members with impunity because if the earner gets deported or made unemployed, everyone suffers. There's a perverse incentive to endure spousal abuse and/or child abuse for fear of losing everything and being deported back to their home country and probably suffer further abuses there because of economic/societal depedency.
The EU implemented this rule because of the sheer number of abuse cases that were coming to light, including hospitalisations and murders.
BTW, you can't blame your colleagues or potential colleagues for your employers' shitty behaviour. It doesn't matter if they come from out of town, out of state, or out of country. It's not them who's making your job insecure and low paid, it's your employers. If you don't like it, start or join a union. You have the democratic right to collectivise and campaign for better treatment, working conditions, and your own dignity.
Congratulations Google!!! You've re-invented the assignment activity/module that comes with every major LMS in the world, except if teachers use it, students have no choice as to whether they can choose to reveal their studying and studying habits to Google, the world's largest and creepiest surveillance corporation (note I said "corporation", there ain't nothin' creepier than the NSA).
BTW, sorry to hear you're on Blackboard. Re: comments about D2L, the conversations I've had with faculty that have to use it range from indifferent apathy to palpable venom (I mean talking through clenched teeth and clawing at the air with his hands, not quite foaming at the mouth). Yeah, go for something else like Canvas or Moodle. In many cases, a drop-box and email is good enough for many faculty (but Google are already getting Universities in N. America to switch from their own servers to Google Docs). If you're on Backboard, you'll probably stay on Blackboard and just have Google Docs and "Classroom" integrated with it: worst of both worlds. It's university management that want to get everyone doing everything online so that they can generate statistics and pretty graphs, which often bear little meaningful correlation to learning and teaching going on in the classrooms and lecture theatres.
Is designing Angry-Birds derivative games a "Sputnik moment" for education? A simple litmus test for the educational validity: Would it sound as cool and be as well received if it were in another mode/medium, e.g. designing board games? The educational outcomes for getting children to design board games are arguably more desirable, cheaper, and more practical than getting children to do the same with code. (I've done it and read the background research on learning projects including designing board games, and I can't see how doing it virtually, i.e. with software algorithms, would be as educationally productive unless they created and developed the games first in the real world and then created and developed them into software versions later, thereby avoiding cognitive overload).
BTW, I'm all for children learning to write code but in pedagogically sound and productive ways, and at appropriate times in children's stages/levels of cognitive development.
What they really need is a webcam on everyone's TV (at their own expense or the taxpayers', it doesn't matter which) to record who's watching which shows so customers can't invite neighbours around to commit copyright infringement/breach of contract. We also need to divert more law enforcement and legal resources away from frivolous crimes like robbery, murder, and rape to stopping/preventing these heinous copyright infringement crimes that are dragging society down into immorality and depravity. Perhaps we could offer some kind of incentive to the police/courts by offering them a cut in any fines/damages awarded, something like the way they make money handing out traffic tickets. That'd definitely provide a stronger incentive to prioritise copyright infringement. If that doesn't work, we could reduce state/federal funding to those agencies to make them more dependent on their cut of fines/damages.
While we're at it, let's teach toddlers to read and write before they learn to speak. The people who write this drivel know more about writing click-bait than they do about developmental psychology.
The article seems to read, "Website services that are designed to make money attract people who want to make money." They're no more part of a "sharing economy" than Amazon or eBay or any similar enterprise. If anything, they're more about bringing down oversight, regulation, and stability.
Genuine sharing economies are small enough in scale so that people know each other personally and know their reputations/personalities (or at least can ask around among the people they already know and trust). They're co-operative, non-profit enterprises; everyone shares in the gains and everyone benfits from helping each other. Instead of going through corporate banking systems, they use barter, cash, and/or local credit unions. The concept is as old as civilisation itself and it just doesn't "scale" or operate in the way that for profit, venture captial backed startups would like.
If US PDs are welcoming the attention from the public, then why do they want to outlaw filming cops? It looks like ubiquitous cameras and the ability to copy and distribute evidence of police wrongdoing is one of the best things to happen to the police. They just haven't realised it yet: No need for cops to "rat on" each other, more effective oversight (directly by the public), and cops understanding that anything they say or do can be photographed, filmed, documented, often from multiple sources, and taken down in evidence against them. Plus, the more priviledged members of society, who generally never see any police brutality, get to see exactly what it is and why it's a problem.
BTW, search for "police brutality" + your country or city's name, and you'll more than likely find enough videos and photos to paint a pretty ugly picture.
All this publicity is the start of something good. The people responsible for police behaviour will have to change the way they do things, e.g. stop dressing them up as soldiers and teaching them how to fight.
The police and security agencies I've read about, e.g. FBI, MI5, Scotland Yard, have long and shady histories when it comes to infiltrating legitimate political organisations and trade unions and undermining them, or outright intimidating and/or ttacking them.
I've also read that the regimes in N. Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., do more than just this. Why not develop and use technology that protects political engagement and democratic paricipation?
"Shop" and physically making things in school isn't so much about training people to do manual jobs at some point in the dim and distant future. Physically manipulating materials, objects, and tools helps to develop spatial awareness (AKA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...) which is a highly valuable and broadly transferable skill. If you want your kids to be good at Math, Physics, Chemistry, as well as the arts, design, etc., get them making stuff, taking stuff apart to see how it works, etc. from a young age. It'll work wonders for their cognitive development.
"That will, in turn, enable governments and businesses to create incentive systems to 'tune' people's behavior, making society more productive and creative."
Mmm... there's this thing that most societies have, it's called education. It can be highly effective at 'tuning' people's behavior, making society more productive and creative. But something tells me that's the last thing on the USA's rulers' minds...
This'll get you up to speed on what they're doing to education in the US: http://billmoyers.com/episode/public-schools-for-sale/
Public Schools for Sale?
March 28, 2014
Public education is becoming big business as bankers, hedge fund managers and private equity investors are entering what they consider to be an âoeemerging market.â As Rupert Murdoch put it after purchasing an education technology company, âoeWhen it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone.â
Education historian Diane Ravitch says the privatization of public education has to stop. As assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, she was an advocate of school choice and charter schools; under George W. Bush, she supported the No Child Left Behind initiative. But after careful investigation, she changed her mind, and has become, according to Salon, âoethe nationâ(TM)s highest profile opponentâ of charter-based education.
On this weekâ(TM)s Moyers & Company, she tells Bill Moyers, âI think whatâ(TM)s at stake is the future of American public education. I believe it is one of the foundation stones of our democracy: So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.â
Diane Ravitch is Americaâ(TM)s preeminent historian of public education. Her newest book is Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Americaâ(TM)s Public Schools.
UN: "Hey USA, you need to use less energy and reduce your greenhouse gas emissions."
USA: "Hey UN, frack off!"
BTW, carbon capture and nulcear power? Really? What are the economics and time scales on that?