Half the comments seem to be going madly off.:)
What I remember reading on retraction watch (which everyone should follow, because it's great) is that there were problems with the study. Not that the study was completely invalid or that the outcomes were now proven false. The data has to be re-analyzed based on the problems and new, if any, conclusions should be drawn from the data. If the methodological errors can be accounted for meaningfully then perhaps new, more solid, and probably less grandiose conclusions can be drawn.
One study, no matter how convincing, is just one study. The conclusions of one study are just that. Dozens of studies and lots of replications and confirmations lead to things that are closer to accuracy, but even then...
The real problem with science is that not enough time is spent in replications. They don't get published, and you can't build a career on replications. Oh, the other problem is that no one publishes null results... that's a fail. If we had studies that published null results we'd know what not to do, which is often more important than what gets published.
What it says about a diet, in this case, is really of scant importance. One size doesn't fit all in dieting anyway.
I thought Steve's method was a great one, and Intel's is either built on it or came from a similar path. What was useful was the application for people with visual challenges like macular degeneration or retinitus pigmentosa, because, in a sense if you beamed the image onto the parts of the retina that still functioned, the brain could form the entire image... and I've seen some research to support this. I've got some photos from 2004 when I took a friend, who has RP, to see steve and try it out. I hope that at some point this method can be brought into use for individuals with vision challenges.
Images here: http://lemmingworks.org/aruney... if anyone's interested.
Are you kids crazy? Setting up Windows 3.1 and a novell network is the biggest joke. Drove me to NeXt, Solaris, Irix, and the passive aggressive hell of Linux and his spawn. (I'm writing this on a mac, cause I'm a lazy old fart who just like the thing to work.)
I remember designing Gopher sites in grad school... and during the course I asked my prof if he'd mind if I did some WWW sites. That was 94 and we'd had Gopher, Archies and Veronica servers around, oh, and wais. Everyone should check out ED Krol's the Whole internet, if you can get the 1992 edition. It is a beautiful description of everything that was out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Congratulations. Seriously. That's major work. Most of the adult autistics I know had to figure it out for themselves. There was no support or therapy when I was a kid. We don't get over autism. It is who we are. What we do learn are techniques and skills to deal with the difference between how we see the world and how more neurotypicals see the world; how to advocate for our own needs; and how to ensure that we have the conditions in place that will allow us to reduce stress and over stimulation. Those needs are the for an autistic child like yours and an autistic adult like me with 50+ years of experience.
I would recommend the book "The Spark" by Kristine Barnett. What is amazing is her understanding of herself as a parent and educator. I'm a professor of early childhood studies and I'm presently building a multisensory research lab. I'm no expert in child development or autism, per se, though. But what I saw in Kristine's story was that she had the great ability of observation and listening to the needs of her child. She realized that without allowing her child to pursue intrinsic interests and motivations, he would never grow in a social space. I've observed this with autistic children and adults. I think that everyone should focus most on their intrinsic interests and motivations in life. Even John Locke goes on about that in his own ways. But for an autistic it is a matter between being able to function and a life of anger, boredom and frustration.
Find out how to stimulate him in ways he wants to be stimulated, and then use that to improve his typical education. He will want to learn to read, write, socialize IF it is tied to things that interest and engage him. Barnett talks about that in her book too, so it is a great start and story of how to look to your child for answers to how to help him. Best of luck!
My question to you is why would you ask an autistic person to be qualified to speak on curriculum and pedagogy.:) I have a PhD in Education, and I'm autistic, and I'm still not sure what I could recommend to a parent. Beyond, of course, the admonition that anything you can do to reduce stress and encourage intrinsic interest and motivations are a good thing. But I'm only speaking from the perspective of an autistic educator, not as an expert on autism and learning.
What do you think of the problem/phenomenon of the 'shiny autistic' (http://www.autistichoya.com/2013/05/what-is-shiny-aspie.html) trope, and the impact public that these people have on public perceptions of autism. As someone who is perceived by many as a 'shiny autistic' I'm curious to know why you think it is ok for 'shiny autistics' to speak on behalf of autistics.
Don't ask computer geeks how to teach children. That's moronic. Anyone who CAN program has already internalized all the bullshit of bad pedagogy. They have a predisposition to existing styles and modes of learning and coding that are barriers to others. AND, as some boffins pontificated, they're malignant enough to just want to foster the same abuse on kids that they put up with. As someone who has worked with programmers for 25+ years, trained educators, and worked with children, you should not waste your time trying to TEACH children anything. Develop tools to help them LEARN, and if the kids don't learn it, then blame yourself for your lack of creativity and imagination for not coming up with a sufficiently flexible model that addresses the variety of interest, goals, needs, skills of the children. We don't need another lame attempt to reproduce the errors of programming culture, and inflict them on another generation. Just a thought.
bartel's not what made MUDs and MOOs important or useful... and only hipster without any sense of historical context waste time bothering with him as anything of anything. MUDs and MOOs are important tools... not the joker who coded them.
The topic, the directors, the producers and the country are bloody boring. The unions make it more so. Unions are boring. Though not nearly as boring as idiots who are anti-union. Unions are created by people who screw workers. That's a given. Makes unions boring, but necessary. Support boring unions.
It was 95 or so, and I got a computer out of the garbage that used to belong to the chair of our department (new phd student), slapped RH on it and loaded up LambdaMOO. THose were the days.
If they can't be bothered to include the 5th largest city in North America, they obviously aren't serious.:) Add Toronto to the list, and we can talk. Hooking the Northern New England corridor to the Empire corridor, as Canada builds the Quebec-Montreal-Toronto-Windsor line, then link the Windsor line with the Chicago hub network via Detroit, and you got a major network. Fun? WoW
I've taught for over 20 year, and have watched the rise of entitlement and expectation on the part of children and parents. And the inability of educators to disabuse students of this. And the media's willingness to capitalize on this. Children have been taught that this is what to expect, praised for expecting it, denied exposure to the mundane realities to follow, and inculcated into the cult of 'TV reality' that SL so rightly describes.
I can tell you... my best interns are mothers in their late 30s-40s who are looking to improve opportunities for themselves, and thereby their children.
That said, the solution is easy. And it is not merely turning post graduation employment opportunities into a nightmare of failure. We can manage expectations. We can raise the bar. We can expect more from students in high schools than standardized scores, and continue that level of expectation into college.
Rule one for anyone that I know to be a self-motivated successful individual is that failure is a requirement. They don't put it that way. If you've never failed, you have never tested yourself or pushed yourself to the extreme of your abilities. You've never tried something radically new, if you've never failed. You expect success and you anticipate the attainment of your expectations if you've never pushed yourself.
Children learn to push themselves from the models that they observe in their parents, teachers and social contacts... so if grads aren't what we expect, then we, collectively, have not been setting a good example. Blaming the victims of our collective failure is easier than our solving the problem from the ground up... and if we don't, then we're actually the same as those we're deriding.
IMHO of course.
Sigh. You just don't get it. I can't believe that people who pretend to know science are most stupid than people who don't. The average person a) doesn't know a plumb line; b) can't set it 100 miles apart in a meaningful manner (doubt people on this thread can either) and c) can't do the math. To say it is that simple is to eschew the complexities of the situation and to accordingly ascribe to the position of the flatearthers, ex officio.
just because your model is better (and I agree it is) doesn't for a moment mitigate the fact that the model and theory is being replaced for an actual experience of the thing itself. Of course western science has the best results when you want to build a bridge. But you don't believe in science based on the model without ever seeing the bridge in action. Same with the world.
And to say that science isn't about truth is ludicrous. It is a hegemonic belief structure just like any other. Just one that is really useful right now in terms of the sort of things we like doing.
But I think you're on the money when you boil it down to the important bit. It doesn't matter what is true or right, but rather what is most useful at the moment... the predictive value; a concept that most people inside science seem to think that everyone understands... which is a strange thought.:)
The problem is that people believe the stories of other people too much. Everyone says the earth is round because someone told them it is, not because they have personally done the tests or had the experience. I know people who think the earth is round, but can't say how they know except that they saw a picture or they read it somewhere. That's as stupid as creationist and their logic. I don't care if 'science' says so, or God.
My earth is relatively flat. Nothing in my personal experience shows me otherwise. I've heard some great stories that the earth is round. It is probably true, but I personally have no way of verifying that information. Only an idiot takes thinks as true on faith. Now the practical reality is that a lot of science has a practical truth. Engineering science is a good way to build stuff that works, but to suddenly go off into believing 'ex officio' everything science says is silly.
I can't wait to show myself the earth is round, as soon as I can get up the money for the flight.:)
You can't be a member unless you're american, or are willing to fake your ID. Yes, it is beta. Poor google can't to global authentication? Heh. Just another 'global' company who thinks of the world after the fact. Hegemonic? Wow!
There's no question that unless he's bored, start with scratch. I use it with senior undergrads, and we'll be looking at it in my grad class today. It is easy enough for a child, and you can do enough with it, especially if you add the robotics tools such as the picocricket module for scratch.
I've had misgivings about the OLPC since before it ever came to light, having thought about the idea of zero cost computing for almost a decade. The social politics really got to me. But now that Dvorak is out with his statement it is clear to me: OLPC is a good thing^tm. General rule of thumb: if dvorak hates it then it's gotta have something good in it, ex officio.
Many people use facebook to communicate with family members. I have two step-sisters under the age of 18, and I am well over that age. We communicate via facebook because it is where they 'hang out'. As well, I communicate with my students using Facebook, and some of them are under 18. The issue is inappropriate communication, not ageism.
I agree that parents and schools should teach children about online safety... I do that as part of my job... and this should be facilitated by a robust abuse mechanism that is transparent.
Strangely enough, I think that online anonymity is a problem. If you are over 18 and you want to keep your anonymity, which I think you should be allowed to keep, then it is reasonable to limit your communication to under aged individuals, or at least have your account flagged as such.
IMHO of course.
Most of us have enough sense, however, to have our students write the articles on a closed media wiki, and then after peer review and evaluation in the course, students are 'allowed' to up load them. Filling wikipedia with student's practice work does not make sense, but letting them think in that direction and practice elsewhere works. There are a lot of areas in wikipedia that get ignored, because the typicalwikipedite (or slashdotty perhaps:) does't consider it worthy, and this is a way to fix that.
"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship?"
Research done by Citizen Lab a few years ago showed that the US was the greatest government censor. The government forces schools and libraries that get government funding to censor information.
So spam them, and deal with your own problems first... right?
Slashdot Mirror
Half the comments seem to be going madly off. :)
What I remember reading on retraction watch (which everyone should follow, because it's great) is that there were problems with the study. Not that the study was completely invalid or that the outcomes were now proven false. The data has to be re-analyzed based on the problems and new, if any, conclusions should be drawn from the data. If the methodological errors can be accounted for meaningfully then perhaps new, more solid, and probably less grandiose conclusions can be drawn.
One study, no matter how convincing, is just one study. The conclusions of one study are just that. Dozens of studies and lots of replications and confirmations lead to things that are closer to accuracy, but even then...
The real problem with science is that not enough time is spent in replications. They don't get published, and you can't build a career on replications. Oh, the other problem is that no one publishes null results... that's a fail. If we had studies that published null results we'd know what not to do, which is often more important than what gets published.
What it says about a diet, in this case, is really of scant importance. One size doesn't fit all in dieting anyway.
I thought Steve's method was a great one, and Intel's is either built on it or came from a similar path. What was useful was the application for people with visual challenges like macular degeneration or retinitus pigmentosa, because, in a sense if you beamed the image onto the parts of the retina that still functioned, the brain could form the entire image... and I've seen some research to support this. I've got some photos from 2004 when I took a friend, who has RP, to see steve and try it out. I hope that at some point this method can be brought into use for individuals with vision challenges. Images here: http://lemmingworks.org/aruney... if anyone's interested.
Are you kids crazy? Setting up Windows 3.1 and a novell network is the biggest joke. Drove me to NeXt, Solaris, Irix, and the passive aggressive hell of Linux and his spawn. (I'm writing this on a mac, cause I'm a lazy old fart who just like the thing to work.)
I remember designing Gopher sites in grad school... and during the course I asked my prof if he'd mind if I did some WWW sites. That was 94 and we'd had Gopher, Archies and Veronica servers around, oh, and wais. Everyone should check out ED Krol's the Whole internet, if you can get the 1992 edition. It is a beautiful description of everything that was out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Congratulations. Seriously. That's major work. Most of the adult autistics I know had to figure it out for themselves. There was no support or therapy when I was a kid. We don't get over autism. It is who we are. What we do learn are techniques and skills to deal with the difference between how we see the world and how more neurotypicals see the world; how to advocate for our own needs; and how to ensure that we have the conditions in place that will allow us to reduce stress and over stimulation. Those needs are the for an autistic child like yours and an autistic adult like me with 50+ years of experience. I would recommend the book "The Spark" by Kristine Barnett. What is amazing is her understanding of herself as a parent and educator. I'm a professor of early childhood studies and I'm presently building a multisensory research lab. I'm no expert in child development or autism, per se, though. But what I saw in Kristine's story was that she had the great ability of observation and listening to the needs of her child. She realized that without allowing her child to pursue intrinsic interests and motivations, he would never grow in a social space. I've observed this with autistic children and adults. I think that everyone should focus most on their intrinsic interests and motivations in life. Even John Locke goes on about that in his own ways. But for an autistic it is a matter between being able to function and a life of anger, boredom and frustration. Find out how to stimulate him in ways he wants to be stimulated, and then use that to improve his typical education. He will want to learn to read, write, socialize IF it is tied to things that interest and engage him. Barnett talks about that in her book too, so it is a great start and story of how to look to your child for answers to how to help him. Best of luck!
My question to you is why would you ask an autistic person to be qualified to speak on curriculum and pedagogy. :) I have a PhD in Education, and I'm autistic, and I'm still not sure what I could recommend to a parent. Beyond, of course, the admonition that anything you can do to reduce stress and encourage intrinsic interest and motivations are a good thing. But I'm only speaking from the perspective of an autistic educator, not as an expert on autism and learning.
What do you think of the problem/phenomenon of the 'shiny autistic' (http://www.autistichoya.com/2013/05/what-is-shiny-aspie.html) trope, and the impact public that these people have on public perceptions of autism. As someone who is perceived by many as a 'shiny autistic' I'm curious to know why you think it is ok for 'shiny autistics' to speak on behalf of autistics.
No chance of robot overlords, if they can't get the skidmarks off your fruit of the looms.
I bet the VCs will own all the IP. Faculty will all be pundits and TED-talk allstars. And the graduates will be working for daddy.
Don't ask computer geeks how to teach children. That's moronic. Anyone who CAN program has already internalized all the bullshit of bad pedagogy. They have a predisposition to existing styles and modes of learning and coding that are barriers to others. AND, as some boffins pontificated, they're malignant enough to just want to foster the same abuse on kids that they put up with. As someone who has worked with programmers for 25+ years, trained educators, and worked with children, you should not waste your time trying to TEACH children anything. Develop tools to help them LEARN, and if the kids don't learn it, then blame yourself for your lack of creativity and imagination for not coming up with a sufficiently flexible model that addresses the variety of interest, goals, needs, skills of the children. We don't need another lame attempt to reproduce the errors of programming culture, and inflict them on another generation. Just a thought.
bartel's not what made MUDs and MOOs important or useful... and only hipster without any sense of historical context waste time bothering with him as anything of anything. MUDs and MOOs are important tools... not the joker who coded them.
The topic, the directors, the producers and the country are bloody boring. The unions make it more so. Unions are boring. Though not nearly as boring as idiots who are anti-union. Unions are created by people who screw workers. That's a given. Makes unions boring, but necessary. Support boring unions.
It was 95 or so, and I got a computer out of the garbage that used to belong to the chair of our department (new phd student), slapped RH on it and loaded up LambdaMOO. THose were the days.
If they can't be bothered to include the 5th largest city in North America, they obviously aren't serious. :) Add Toronto to the list, and we can talk. Hooking the Northern New England corridor to the Empire corridor, as Canada builds the Quebec-Montreal-Toronto-Windsor line, then link the Windsor line with the Chicago hub network via Detroit, and you got a major network. Fun? WoW
I've taught for over 20 year, and have watched the rise of entitlement and expectation on the part of children and parents. And the inability of educators to disabuse students of this. And the media's willingness to capitalize on this. Children have been taught that this is what to expect, praised for expecting it, denied exposure to the mundane realities to follow, and inculcated into the cult of 'TV reality' that SL so rightly describes. I can tell you... my best interns are mothers in their late 30s-40s who are looking to improve opportunities for themselves, and thereby their children. That said, the solution is easy. And it is not merely turning post graduation employment opportunities into a nightmare of failure. We can manage expectations. We can raise the bar. We can expect more from students in high schools than standardized scores, and continue that level of expectation into college. Rule one for anyone that I know to be a self-motivated successful individual is that failure is a requirement. They don't put it that way. If you've never failed, you have never tested yourself or pushed yourself to the extreme of your abilities. You've never tried something radically new, if you've never failed. You expect success and you anticipate the attainment of your expectations if you've never pushed yourself. Children learn to push themselves from the models that they observe in their parents, teachers and social contacts... so if grads aren't what we expect, then we, collectively, have not been setting a good example. Blaming the victims of our collective failure is easier than our solving the problem from the ground up... and if we don't, then we're actually the same as those we're deriding. IMHO of course.
Sigh. You just don't get it. I can't believe that people who pretend to know science are most stupid than people who don't. The average person a) doesn't know a plumb line; b) can't set it 100 miles apart in a meaningful manner (doubt people on this thread can either) and c) can't do the math. To say it is that simple is to eschew the complexities of the situation and to accordingly ascribe to the position of the flatearthers, ex officio.
just because your model is better (and I agree it is) doesn't for a moment mitigate the fact that the model and theory is being replaced for an actual experience of the thing itself. Of course western science has the best results when you want to build a bridge. But you don't believe in science based on the model without ever seeing the bridge in action. Same with the world. And to say that science isn't about truth is ludicrous. It is a hegemonic belief structure just like any other. Just one that is really useful right now in terms of the sort of things we like doing. But I think you're on the money when you boil it down to the important bit. It doesn't matter what is true or right, but rather what is most useful at the moment... the predictive value; a concept that most people inside science seem to think that everyone understands... which is a strange thought. :)
The problem is that people believe the stories of other people too much. Everyone says the earth is round because someone told them it is, not because they have personally done the tests or had the experience. I know people who think the earth is round, but can't say how they know except that they saw a picture or they read it somewhere. That's as stupid as creationist and their logic. I don't care if 'science' says so, or God. My earth is relatively flat. Nothing in my personal experience shows me otherwise. I've heard some great stories that the earth is round. It is probably true, but I personally have no way of verifying that information. Only an idiot takes thinks as true on faith. Now the practical reality is that a lot of science has a practical truth. Engineering science is a good way to build stuff that works, but to suddenly go off into believing 'ex officio' everything science says is silly. I can't wait to show myself the earth is round, as soon as I can get up the money for the flight. :)
You can't be a member unless you're american, or are willing to fake your ID. Yes, it is beta. Poor google can't to global authentication? Heh. Just another 'global' company who thinks of the world after the fact. Hegemonic? Wow!
There's no question that unless he's bored, start with scratch. I use it with senior undergrads, and we'll be looking at it in my grad class today. It is easy enough for a child, and you can do enough with it, especially if you add the robotics tools such as the picocricket module for scratch.
I've had misgivings about the OLPC since before it ever came to light, having thought about the idea of zero cost computing for almost a decade. The social politics really got to me. But now that Dvorak is out with his statement it is clear to me: OLPC is a good thing^tm. General rule of thumb: if dvorak hates it then it's gotta have something good in it, ex officio.
Many people use facebook to communicate with family members. I have two step-sisters under the age of 18, and I am well over that age. We communicate via facebook because it is where they 'hang out'. As well, I communicate with my students using Facebook, and some of them are under 18. The issue is inappropriate communication, not ageism. I agree that parents and schools should teach children about online safety... I do that as part of my job... and this should be facilitated by a robust abuse mechanism that is transparent. Strangely enough, I think that online anonymity is a problem. If you are over 18 and you want to keep your anonymity, which I think you should be allowed to keep, then it is reasonable to limit your communication to under aged individuals, or at least have your account flagged as such. IMHO of course.
Most of us have enough sense, however, to have our students write the articles on a closed media wiki, and then after peer review and evaluation in the course, students are 'allowed' to up load them. Filling wikipedia with student's practice work does not make sense, but letting them think in that direction and practice elsewhere works. There are a lot of areas in wikipedia that get ignored, because the typicalwikipedite (or slashdotty perhaps :) does't consider it worthy, and this is a way to fix that.
"Is it OK to send unsolicited e-mail to users in China, Iran, and other censored countries, telling them about new proxy sites for getting around Internet censorship?" Research done by Citizen Lab a few years ago showed that the US was the greatest government censor. The government forces schools and libraries that get government funding to censor information. So spam them, and deal with your own problems first... right?
I guess people creating and sharing music without having to pay the industry, or even worse, people creating, rather than buying music, is wrong.