A Random Collection of sites

In their new book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek ask what it would take “take to help all children be happy, healthy, thinking, caring, and sociable children who enjoy learning and who move toward becoming collaborative, creative, competent, and responsible citizens of tomorrow?” The answer they provide is tailored specifically to a 21st century global economy.

The community rarely questions the use of incarceration as a response to crime. But this is an opportunity to ask ourselves what the purpose of a corrections system really is. Is it to punish? Detain? Rehabilitate? Shelve intractable problems?

Or should it function as a positive intervention which protects the vulnerable from further harm?

Incarceration may have been a useful policy for those in privileged positions down the ages who were keen to secure the authority of the state. For the most part, however, it’s become a stone around our necks – unfit for purpose for the majority of those it houses, and definitely unfit for the women and children we’re increasingly locking away.

I want to remind people of Donald Trump's words and what it means in the larger context of what is at stake in this election. This is from December of last year:

We're losing a lot of people because of the Internet and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them, maybe in certain areas closing that Internet up in some way.

Somebody will say, 'oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people… we've got to maybe do something with the Internet because they are recruiting by the thousands, they are leaving our country and then when they come back, we take them back.
What Donald Trump is saying here is that he would be willing to use Federal power to order the private companies that own and control most of the basic infrastructure to curb free speech in the name of security. He is being very explicit here about what he believes are the scope of the power of presidency, which is essentially limitless. This is not unusual in right wing populist circles, but I want to take a few moments to place it in a broader context. 

Read more below. 

This is part of our series on kids' health. Read the other articles in our series here.

Developmental dysplasia of the hip, sometimes termed congenital dysplasia or dislocation of the hip, is a chronic condition present from early childhood which can cause permanent disability if not identified and treated early.

Hip dysplasia affects up to 10 people in every 1,000, and is characterised by underdevelopment of the hip bones (dysplasia). This may be associated with laxity (looseness) or even dislocation of the hip joints. It may affect one or both hips.

The hips are ball-and-socket joints. These develop while a baby is still in the uterus, as well as in early childhood. In a newborn infant, most of the hip joint is cartilage, which is soft and may contribute to the laxity of the joint. During the baby’s first year, the cartilage is replaced by bone.

In normal hip development, the ball component grows faster than the socket. The development of the joint is dependent on the ball component remaining within the socket. Various factors may affect the development of the joint, along with the ligaments which support the joint and hold the two bony components together.

In hip dysplasia, the socket component (acetabulum) is underdeveloped, so the ball component is not well fixed in the socket. This means that the hip is more prone to dislocation, where the ball slides out of the socket. This can cause serious problems for the blood supply to the hip, and also affect walking.

School should be different. Teaching should be different. Learning should be different. In most cases it’s not. The pieces and parts of most schools and school days looks eerily similar to what many of us experienced decades ago but with more advanced technology. We see teachers working their tails off to push students toward content mastery squinting through some of the latest tech tools in an effort to propagate the illusion of relevance. We see students wondering why they should learn this or that content, asking when they’ll ever use it, and fighting the battle of compliance with adults who keep asking them to do work that seems to be more for the institution than the learners. It doesn’t have to be this way. Many teachers and students are aching for things to change and some in leadership positions even hire PD partners like us to help build capacity in teachers for more authentic teaching and learning.

So why aren’t we making more progress?

50 Apps That Represent 50 New Ways To Learn

Abstract
In this paper a brief review of the framework that addressed mobile learning implementation challenges (pedagogical, technological, policy and research) that was developed by Khaddage et al. (2015) is briefly discussed, followed by possible solutions that could be deployed to tackle those challenges. A unique approach is then applied to bridge the gap between formal and informal learning via MAT (Mobile Applications Technology). This approach is based on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) as subjects to be taught and the specific skills needed to achieve the RLOC (Required Learning Outcome) that can support student learning informally. This specific approach shows HOW to advance mobile learning in formal and informal settings.

And now comes the dissertation.

My research area is what the future of digital technology looks like in drama education. The title? ‘A history of digital technology in drama education and its three dimensional future’. A good title my tutor tells me. But being as this research is firmly planted in augmented realities so must I myself embrace them. Hence the blog.

Curtin University understands that high school can be stressful. So we have initiated our People Under Pressure at School or Curtin PUPS project. Have a peek: http://campaign.curtin.edu.au/pups/?u...
We’ve partnered with not-for-profit animal organisation SAFE Perth to bring stress-relieving puppies to Perth high schools!
Get ready for cuteness overload!
http://www.safeperth.com.au

A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said it was forbidden to use school facilities to spread homophobia.

"The Department of Education does not allow any group or church to use school grounds to preach homophobic messages," he told SBS, referring to the NSW Department of Education’s policy on the use of school facilities.

Berkeley Vale Public School, Lambton Public School and the Lakes Christian and Maitland Evangelical Churches did not respond to requests for comment by SBS.

Maitland Grossman High School said it did not wish to comment.

University graduates share their stories about failing to find work

Charis Chang, news.com.au
August 4, 2016 7:22am

STORIES of university graduates struggling to get work despite their qualifications have poured in to news.com.au following a story about how worthless degrees were becoming.

On Monday, Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson spoke about how the university system was now pumping out graduates with “broken dreams and a large student debt”.

“Personally we all know the barista or bartender, with an honours in law,” Ms Thomson said.

“The young guy serving in Officeworks who is a mining engineer; the young woman in the bakery with two degrees in the marketing space. None of us are happy with those outcomes.”

Ms Thomson also noted that the value of vocational study had also been eroded, with people forced to consider going to university “or be labelled a failure”.

Some transgender people may certainly experience mental health concerns, as may any person. GP referral to a mental health professional currently provides a clear pathway to services.

Transgender people who do not require support for mental health, but who wish to access support for hormones or surgery, could be referred directly to specialists rather than via a mental health professional assessment.

This would require upskilling GPs so they are able to provide appropriate referral and initial support. Some transgender people may of course wish to access support from a mental health professional, but this would be at their discretion, not as a requirement for a diagnosis.

Consider the following scenarios:

A police officer stops you on the street and asks you to empty your pockets.

A police officer stops you in your car and asks to search you and the vehicle.

Regardless of nearly all factors, one of the items recovered will inevitably be a mobile phone. But in what circumstances can police search your phone? Must they obtain a search warrant? And what will happen if you refuse to provide your passcode or fingerprint required to access your phone?

A 2014 study found that of 1,519 people surveyed, 69% secured their smartphone with a password or passcode. Perhaps one of the reasons is because in just four swipes on the interface of your phone, another person can access a wealth of your personal information.

“What I hear, I forget; What I see, I remember; What I do, I understand.”  - Attributed to Confucius

I’ve seen this quote displayed prominently in classrooms, used in books, mentioned in videos, and repeated by educators at professional development meetings. What is it supposed to convey anyway? Was the ancient thinker’s intention to express that seeing is a better way of absorbing freshly received information, and that doing something with it is even more powerful when it comes to internalizing it? Whatever the intended meaning, I believe that all of these, and other, ways of learning are important. Moreover, educational research suggests that we learn best in a multitude of ways, rather than by any one dominant means; and that different subjects lend themselves to different methods of delivery for maximized learning effectiveness, regardless of how pupils taking the subject prefer to learn.

Life is multimodal and so is learning. No single learning modality can be used effectively on a consistent basis. The ever-popular learning styles inventories and assessments are continually being used in the K-12 and higher education communities, even as they are repeatedly being proven inaccurate. The idea that each person has a preferred learning modality is not supported by evidence and is poorly correlated with achievement.

So why does this myth persist in the educational circles?

Teachers should turn to a topic-based approach to equip students with the skills they need, says Harvard professor
Our world is getting increasingly complex; so how do we know what is worth teaching and learning?

David Perkins, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is interested in how to adapt our curriculums in an ever-changing world. He believes that what is conventionally taught in our schools is not designed to produce the kinds of community members we want and need.

Perkins believes that only by reimagining what we teach our children can we lead students down the road to a more prosperous life.

Here, in a piece that first appreared on the Global Search for Education website, Professor Perkins, whose latest book is Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World, discusses what is worth learning.           

George glares at me from behind his desk. His hair is buzzed short and his mouth is set in a sneer. He asks about my prior work experience, then replies sarcastically, “Okay, well, what you’d be doing here would be a little different from that.”

This would be the toughest job interview I’ve ever been on, if it were real. Luckily, George is a digital avatar, speaking to me from a large screen. He’s part of a team of virtual job interviewers helping to train young adults with autism at the Dan Marino Foundation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Students here learn workplace skills, train for industry certifications and complete internships. With the avatars (who may or may not be in a good mood), they also practice interviewing—a hurdle that otherwise can be insurmountable for job seekers with autism.

Barack Obama just became the first sitting president to publish a scholarly article.

The article, titled "United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps," with "Barack Obama, JD" listed as the author, was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (known as JAMA) on July 11. 

It's a pretty badass move for a president, and he got a lot of love on Twitter with the hashtag #ObamaJAMA. 

Official Full-Text Publication: Advancing Mobile Learning in Formal And Informal Settings via Mobile App Technology: Where to From Here, and How? on ResearchGate, the professional network for scientists.

Transgender people and their needs remain little understood, not only by health-care providers but also more generally in society. An absence of appropriate information, together with misinformation, breeds stigma and prejudice, leading to discrimination, harassment, and abuse, with alarming consequences for transgender people’s health and wellbeing.

This Series is an effort to understand, and provide a framework to improve, the health and lives of transgender people globally. The three papers in this Series examine the social and legal conditions in which many transgender people live, clinical care considerations and service delivery models in transgender health, and the global health burden facing transgender populations, including the specific contexts and multiple determinants of health affecting them.

An artificial-intelligence lawyer chatbot has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free, showing that chatbots can actually be useful.

Dubbed as “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its 19-year-old creator, London-born second-year Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.

The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process.

The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and now New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64% appealing over $4m of parking tickets.

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