Oops, I did slightly understate the denominator (couldn't cut-and-paste numbers), but results are close to same (actually a pinch worse). From the linked-to Google EEO-1 filing: (Current # Black Female Employees (250) - Prior # Black Female Employees (235)) / (Current Overall Total # Employees (32,527) - Prior Total # Employees (26,559)) = 35 / 5,968 = 0.0058646113, or about 0.59%.
Nothing wrong with encouraging kids to work hard, but are you comfortable with Google and Khan Academy using (presumably) tax-free money and their mysterious "grit algorithm" to determine education haves and have-nots? Btw, one of the schools whose grit "unlocked new devices [Google Chrome laptops] for their classrooms and free home internet service for eligible families, increasing student access to online learning tools like Khan Academy" was coincidentally already a Khan Academy Case Study, which one might suspects might have given them an edge over the competition. If access to computers is truly fundamental for learning, which Google and Khan Academy seem to agree with, should it not be fully-funded rather than left to the kindness of corporations, nonprofits, and their "grit algorithms"?
Seems to be well-respected - hopefully this was an anomaly. EFF Honors Paid Eolas Patent Expert Witness: Doesn't seem like Felten's ongoing efforts as a paid expert for Eolas that helped return a $521M judgment against Microsoft for infringing on a web plug-in patent jibe too well with the EFF's raison d'etre, which includes Patent Busting. In a letter to the USPTO, previous Pioneer Award recipient Tim Berners-Lee termed the Eolas patent 'a substantial setback for global interoperability and the success of the open Web.'
And from the linked-to Code.org PowerPoint slide: "We CAN make this an issue like climate change." Btw, in a Reddit AMA at the time of Microsoft-backed Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is also responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work.
MR. SMITH: "One of the things I've learned from all of the various anti-trust and intellectual property negotiations I've handled over the years is this, sometimes when a small problem proves intractable you have to make it bigger. You have to make the problem big enough so that the solution is exciting enough to galvanize people's attention..."
Not a bad idea. Might want to include a refresher on rudimentary statistics in that orientation, so they know they're apt to be identified as outliers if they cheat.
So, Arkansas Is Leading the Learn to Code Movement: "Currently, he [AR Governor Asa Hutchinson] says only about 20 teachers in the entire state are âoeproperly preparedâ to teach these new courses..."
Yes, as edX notes, this is an anomaly, but it isn't really clear to me what prompted the decision. Are they opening up edX to all corporations and vocational training? Do they feel PowerPoint is the future of open source-based education frameworks? Was any money or other consideration involved?...
Public Disclosure Commission records show that five of those who signed the letter calling for increased WA State spending - Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Director Brad Smith, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi, Madrona VC and Amazon.com Director Tom Alberg, Ignition Partners VC Brad Silverberg, Trilogy VC John Stanton - contributed money in 2010 to defeat I-1098, an initiative for a WA state income tax. Other contributors to Defeat 1098 included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon exec and Code.org Director Jeff Wilke, Microsoft Corporation, and other Microsoft execs, including then-CEO Steve Ballmer. After I-1098 went down in flames, Ballmer announced plans to sell $2B of Microsoft stock that might have been subject to as much as $180 million in state taxes under the quashed proposal.
No profit left behind: Across the country, Pearson sold the Los Angeles Unified School District an online curriculum that it described as revolutionary - but that had not yet been completed, much less tested across a large district, before the LAUSD agreed to spend an estimated $135 million on it. Teachers dislike the Pearson lessons and rarely use them, an independent evaluation found.
New UW Study: "College undergraduates who were not computer science majors (in order to focus on recruitment) entered a classroom in t(he computer science department at Stanford University, which was decorated in one of two ways (Cheryan et al., 2009). For half the participants, the room had objects that other undergraduates associated highly with computer science majorsâ"Star Trek posters, science fiction books, and stacked soda cans. For the other half of participants, the room contained objects that other undergraduates did not associate with computer science majorsâ"nature posters, neutral books, and water bottles. Women in the room that did not contain the stereotypical objects expressed significantly more interest in majoring in computer science than those in the room that did fit the stereotypes. For men, the environment did not affect their interest in computer science (Cheryan et al., 2009)."
Every 9-year-old kid who plays basketball outside in winter can tell the NFL that temperature affects air pressure. Whether this is the sole factor at work here, is another question.
Actually, if my math and data entry is correct, based on the EEO-1 numbers, women's share of Microsoft's U.S. force (including all ethnicities) is still only about 24%.
Why we need $400 million to teach K-12 CS: 1. "Only 10 percent of schools teach it [CS]." 2. "No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States." 3. "Currently, only 25 states allow computer science to count as a mathematics or science credit towards graduation."
Right, so if H-1B workers are included in the EEO-1 reports, comparing U.S. college populations to Facebook's 15%+ H-1B workforce, as FB's Sheryl Sandberg did, is kind of apples-to-oranges, no?
EMPLOYER: "If you're qualified, then where are your digital badges?" KID: "Digital Badges? We ain't got no digital badges. We don't need no digital badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' digital badges!" EMPLOYER: "Next!"
The MacArthur Foundation, not McCormick, is the nonprofit listed on the Chicago City of Learning page, and is the foundation that teamed up with Gates and on The Badges for Lifelong Learning and Mozilla on The Badge Alliance. The Presidents of both the MacArthur and McCormick Foundations are on the Thrive Chicago Leadership Council (the McCormick Foundation is the one listed as a "contributor"). Sorry for the confusion!
Slashdot Mirror
TWINS OR NOT? Score for Caitlyn Jenner & Jessica Lange = 93%, "almost identical".
Oops, I did slightly understate the denominator (couldn't cut-and-paste numbers), but results are close to same (actually a pinch worse). From the linked-to Google EEO-1 filing: (Current # Black Female Employees (250) - Prior # Black Female Employees (235)) / (Current Overall Total # Employees (32,527) - Prior Total # Employees (26,559)) = 35 / 5,968 = 0.0058646113, or about 0.59%.
...poached Professors Chang and Slater from Greendale Community College!
Nothing wrong with encouraging kids to work hard, but are you comfortable with Google and Khan Academy using (presumably) tax-free money and their mysterious "grit algorithm" to determine education haves and have-nots? Btw, one of the schools whose grit "unlocked new devices [Google Chrome laptops] for their classrooms and free home internet service for eligible families, increasing student access to online learning tools like Khan Academy" was coincidentally already a Khan Academy Case Study, which one might suspects might have given them an edge over the competition. If access to computers is truly fundamental for learning, which Google and Khan Academy seem to agree with, should it not be fully-funded rather than left to the kindness of corporations, nonprofits, and their "grit algorithms"?
Fun with Paintbrush: Teddy Ruxpin + Google Glass = Sergey Ruxpin
The presence of a BillG look-alike kid in the pro-Common Core ad made by recent $3.7M Gates Foundation awardee the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is a nice touch!
Seems to be well-respected - hopefully this was an anomaly. EFF Honors Paid Eolas Patent Expert Witness: Doesn't seem like Felten's ongoing efforts as a paid expert for Eolas that helped return a $521M judgment against Microsoft for infringing on a web
plug-in patent jibe too well with the EFF's raison d'etre, which includes Patent Busting. In a letter to the USPTO, previous Pioneer Award recipient Tim Berners-Lee termed the Eolas patent 'a substantial setback for global interoperability and the success of the open Web.'
And from the linked-to Code.org PowerPoint slide: "We CAN make this an issue like climate change." Btw, in a Reddit AMA at the time of Microsoft-backed Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is also responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work.
MR. SMITH: "One of the things I've learned from all of the various anti-trust and intellectual property negotiations I've handled over the years is this, sometimes when a small problem proves intractable you have to make it bigger. You have to make the problem big enough so that the solution is exciting enough to galvanize people's attention..."
Not a bad idea. Might want to include a refresher on rudimentary statistics in that orientation, so they know they're apt to be identified as outliers if they cheat.
So, Arkansas Is Leading the Learn to Code Movement: "Currently, he [AR Governor Asa Hutchinson] says only about 20 teachers in the entire state are âoeproperly preparedâ to teach these new courses..."
She tweeted the following test question, "Is George Orwell's '1984' fiction or non-fiction?" :-)
Yes, as edX notes, this is an anomaly, but it isn't really clear to me what prompted the decision. Are they opening up edX to all corporations and vocational training? Do they feel PowerPoint is the future of open source-based education frameworks? Was any money or other consideration involved? ...
Check out The BASIC Book, an oldie-but-goodie by Seymour Simon. Nice-and-simple 32-page illustrated intro to BASIC!
...the burner phones. :-)
http://www.quora.com/Why-does-...
Public Disclosure Commission records show that five of those who signed the letter calling for increased WA State spending - Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Director Brad Smith, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi, Madrona VC and Amazon.com Director Tom Alberg, Ignition Partners VC Brad Silverberg, Trilogy VC John Stanton - contributed money in 2010 to defeat I-1098, an initiative for a WA state income tax. Other contributors to Defeat 1098 included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon exec and Code.org Director Jeff Wilke, Microsoft Corporation, and other Microsoft execs, including then-CEO Steve Ballmer. After I-1098 went down in flames, Ballmer announced plans to sell $2B of Microsoft stock that might have been subject to as much as $180 million in state taxes under the quashed proposal.
No profit left behind: Across the country, Pearson sold the Los Angeles Unified School District an online curriculum that it described as revolutionary - but that had not yet been completed, much less tested across a large district, before the LAUSD agreed to spend an estimated $135 million on it. Teachers dislike the Pearson lessons and rarely use them, an independent evaluation found.
New UW Study: "College undergraduates who were not computer science majors (in order to focus on recruitment) entered a classroom in t(he computer science department at Stanford University, which was decorated in one of two ways (Cheryan et al., 2009). For half the participants, the room had objects that other undergraduates associated highly with computer science majorsâ"Star Trek posters, science fiction books, and stacked soda cans. For the other half of participants, the room contained objects that other undergraduates did not associate with computer science majorsâ"nature posters, neutral books, and water bottles. Women in the room that did not contain the stereotypical objects expressed significantly more interest in majoring in computer science than those in the room that did fit the stereotypes. For men, the environment did not affect their interest in computer science (Cheryan et al., 2009)."
Every 9-year-old kid who plays basketball outside in winter can tell the NFL that temperature affects air pressure. Whether this is the sole factor at work here, is another question.
Actually, if my math and data entry is correct, based on the EEO-1 numbers, women's share of Microsoft's U.S. force (including all ethnicities) is still only about 24%.
Why we need $400 million to teach K-12 CS: 1. "Only 10 percent of schools teach it [CS]." 2. "No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States." 3. "Currently, only 25 states allow computer science to count as a mathematics or science credit towards graduation."
Right, so if H-1B workers are included in the EEO-1 reports, comparing U.S. college populations to Facebook's 15%+ H-1B workforce, as FB's Sheryl Sandberg did, is kind of apples-to-oranges, no?
Will Pig Latin be a misdemeanor or felony? :-)
EMPLOYER: "If you're qualified, then where are your digital badges?" KID: "Digital Badges? We ain't got no digital badges. We don't need no digital badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' digital badges!" EMPLOYER: "Next!"
The MacArthur Foundation, not McCormick, is the nonprofit listed on the Chicago City of Learning page, and is the foundation that teamed up with Gates and on The Badges for Lifelong Learning and Mozilla on The Badge Alliance. The Presidents of both the MacArthur and McCormick Foundations are on the Thrive Chicago Leadership Council (the McCormick Foundation is the one listed as a "contributor"). Sorry for the confusion!