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Rescooped by Alistair Parker from Dyslexia, Literacy, and New-Media Literacy onto Study Research Inspiration & Ideas |
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And Finland is no different. In fact, the autonomy and decentralization we see in Finland today came after more than two decades of tightly controlled, centrally driven education reform that systematically adjusted curriculum, ...
Finland—the tiny land of reindeer, snow, and more snow—burst onto the scene in the past decade as the unlikely poster child for the anti-reform movement in the United States. Hardly a week goes by that someone doesn’t implore reformers to learn from Finland—a nation with low poverty, high achievement, and virtually no standardized tests—and abandon our support for standards- and accountability-driven reform.
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We haven't blogged here for a while but the Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC) continues to work on the theme of the attention economy. We have a themed journal issue derived from Paying Attention under ... Via Vincent Longueville Delete the scoop?
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Alistair Parker's insight:
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Allan Little explores the legacy of George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. Joan Bakewell, Tim Montgomerie, Chris Mullin and Phil Collins discuss Orwell's warning that evasive language, euphemism and insincerity dominate political writing, and assess the impact of today's political diaries, blogging and tweeting.
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Beth Dichter's insight: This is a great interactive model of critical thinking. One circle has 8 elements of thought: * Question at issue * Information * Interpretation and influence * Concepts * Assumptions * Implications and Consequences * Point of View As you role over and selelct an element of thought you are hown additional information about the element. For example, if you were to select Point of View you would be prompted to understand your point of view and provided with questions to further your thinking. In addition there are also prompts for intellectual standards to consider. The intellectual standards include: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. In each of these area there is a brief definition as well a three additional questions to consider. There is also one choice (more) that provides you with additional standards you might want to consider and suggests that you think of your own. 
Beth Dichter's curator insight,
January 29, 10:43 PM
This is a great interactive model of critical thinking. One circle has 8 elements of thought: * Question at issue * Information * Interpretation and influence * Concepts * Assumptions * Implications and Consequences * Point of View As you role over and selelct an element of thought you are hown additional information about the element. For example, if you were to select Point of View you would be prompted to understand your point of view and provided with questions to further your thinking. In addition there are also prompts for intellectual standards to consider. The intellectual standards include: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. In each of these area there is a brief definition as well a three additional questions to consider. There is also one choice (more) that provides you with additional standards you might want to consider and suggests that you think of your own. 
R Hollingsworth's curator insight,
January 30, 9:33 AM
I'm thinking this is a pretty complicated model given that many of our very best critical thinking is done within the space of a blink! However, it's useful to be able to break it down and explain it for undergraduates for whom universities have great expectations in criticial thinking but don't really explain how they know what it is when they see it. And, sadly, in introductory courses too often professors don't expect critical thinking of their students - sticking too close to recall or lower levels of application thinking for their expectations of student performance.
R Hollingsworth's comment,
January 30, 9:34 AM
terrific toy for educators to play with and use - would work great in a group discussion with a faculty scholarly community...
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add your insight...There is some interisting stuff here... Delete the scoop?
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SUPPORT THE FILM: http://store.singularity.com Directed by: Raymond Kurzweil, Anthony Waller, Toshi Hoo The onset of the 21st Century will be an era in which... Via LeapMind
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If you are considering adding voice recognition to your AI or robotics project then you are probably looking for a free implementation that works well. Your other option would be to purchase a copy of what is currently considered the state-of-the-art in speech recognition, Nuance’s Dragon Naturally Speaking suite. However, before spending any money, you can also try your luck with the open source Sphinx software. 
Alistair Parker's curator insight,
January 13, 12:29 PM
You can download Shinx from http://sourceforge.net/projects/cmusphinx/ Delete the scoop?
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Complaint comes as research councils revealed to have withdrawn from supporting taught master's degrees
Alistair Parker's insight:
As a mature student I was fortunate enough to self finance myself through an MA. I was amazed at the sacrifices the kids who were my fellow students had made to further their studies and potential careers. Frightening debts and a standard of living which was less than primitive. These driven young people are the seed corn of the future. If we fail to support them we shall live to regret such a short sighted decision. Delete the scoop?
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Welcome to Sensate, a peer-reviewed, open-access, media-based journal for the creation, presentation, and critique of innovative projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Our mission is to provide a scholarly and artistic forum for experiments in critical media practices that expand academic discourse by taking us beyond the margins of the printed page. Fundamental to this expansion is a re-imagining of what constitutes a work of scholarship or art. To that end, Sensate accepts and encourages non-traditional submissions such as audiovisual ethnographic research, multimedia mash-ups, experiments in media archaeology, time-based media, participatory media projects, or digitized collections of archival media, artifacts, or maps. Sensate accepts submissions of finished projects, proposals, and reviews of works (monographs, films, exhibitions, etc). Delete the scoop?
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Alistair Parker's insight:
The last explosive change in art education came nearly a century ago, when the German Bauhaus was formed. Today, dramatic changes in the art world—its increasing professionalization, the pervasive power of the art market, and fundamental shifts in art-making itself in our post-Duchampian era—combined with a revolution in information technology, raise fundamental questions about the education of today's artists. Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century) brings together more than thirty leading international artists and art educators to reconsider the practices of art education in academic, practical, ethical, and philosophical terms. Delete the scoop?
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Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology. Delete the scoop?
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And Finland is no different. In fact, the autonomy and decentralization we see in Finland today came after more than two decades of tightly controlled, centrally driven education reform that systematically adjusted curriculum, ... Via Lou Salza, Carolyn D Cowen
Alistair Parker's insight:
Finland—the tiny land of reindeer, snow, and more snow—burst onto the scene in the past decade as the unlikely poster child for the anti-reform movement in the United States. Hardly a week goes by that someone doesn’t implore reformers to learn from Finland—a nation with low poverty, high achievement, and virtually no standardized tests—and abandon our support for standards- and accountability-driven reform. 
Lou Salza's curator insight,
December 29, 2012 1:16 AM
As Richard Elmore ( HGSE) has said many times, education in the USA is a "profession without a practice"
"....As the McKinsey study demonstrated two years ago, school systems that aren’t working don’t magically achieve greatness by merely “trusting teachers” and loosening control and regulations. And Finland is no different. In fact, the autonomy and decentralization we see in Finland today came after more than two decades of tightly controlled, centrally driven education reform that systematically adjusted curriculum, pedagogy, teacher preparation, and accountability. It was only after this top-down systemic reform moved Finland from poor to good that they shifted to a more flexible approach aimed at turning the system from a good one to a great one. And so, as we look to emulate Finland, we should more directly ask ourselves whether our state and district school systems more closely resemble the Finland of yesterday or today. A brief history of education reform in FinlandIn the 1960s, Finland’s education system looked far different than it does today. Achievement was much more uneven and not all students had equal access to quality schooling. In 1968, as part of a nationwide focus on better preparing students to compete in the knowledge economy, the Finnish Parliament enacted legislation to create a new basic education system that was built around the development of a common “comprehensive” school for grades 1–9—a system that spread to every municipality in the nation by 1977. Three things characterized the new Finnish standard: 1. The development and adoption of a mandatory national curriculum that ensured all students were held to the same rigorous standards. 2. Dramatic changes in teacher preparation and certification requirements. 3. A central state inspectorate that evaluated school-level teaching and learning 
Carolyn D Cowen's comment,
December 29, 2012 5:13 PM
Wow. Ve-ry interesting that they shifted to a more flexible approach after top-down systemic ed reform. Hmmm.. Thanks, Lou! ;-)
Lou Salza's comment,
December 29, 2012 5:58 PM
Interesting indeed how nothing really happens in schools unless someone gets focused, relentless and courageous about taking on whatever entrenched factions impede student achievement.
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Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, is a 100 percent project-based learning school. Via Lynnette Van Dyke
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There is an interesting comment on Digital Storytelling... Delete the scoop?
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Scientists are developing an intelligent music computer which can analyse a person’s brain activity when they listen to sounds and then composes new music designed to make them happy. Researchers, who believe the mood-altering music-writing software can help combat stress and depression, will unveil the first composition created by the project at a music festival in Plymouth tomorrow. (Sat) The project is being led by Dr Eduardo Miranda, a composer and professor at Plymouth University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR), and Dr Slawomir Nasuto, a professor in the Cybernetics Research Group at the University of Reading. Using Artificial Intelligence techniques, the computer will play music and analyse the brain activity of the listener for emotional indicators. Based on this feedback, and a programmed knowledge of music, it will generate new sounds that can alter these emotions. The project has been awarded a £880,000 grant by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The first public demonstration of the research will be a concert entitled ‘Symphony of Minds Listening’ on Saturday, in which the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony will be “remixed” and reassembled to reflect the brain-scanned activity of three volunteers during listening. Via Wildcat2030 Delete the scoop?
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An empirical test of ideas proposed by Martin Heidegger shows the great German philosopher to be correct: Everyday tools really do become part of ourse
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BOLLOCKS has replaced English as the UK's most commonly spoken language, it has emerged.
Alistair Parker's insight:
add your insight...Certainly applies to a book I am reading at the moment, why have so many half baked modern philosophers deserted Saxon English...? Listen to BBC Start the Week http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q8l31 Allan Little explores the legacy of George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. Joan Bakewell, Tim Montgomerie, Chris Mullin and Phil Collins discuss Orwell's warning that evasive language, euphemism and insincerity dominate political writing, and assess the impact of today's political diaries, blogging and tweeting. Delete the scoop?
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AC Grayling: New school will provide a grounding in the humanities for students to develop as well-rounded individuals - A private university college set up by the philosopher AC Grayling is bidding to open a sister state secondary school where the pupils could have access to lectures by top academics including Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and Niall Ferguson. The New College of the Humanities has applied to the education secretary Michael Gove to open a "co-educational free school for students of all backgrounds" in Camden, central London, with a specialism in humanities. When the university opened last September with its first 60 students it was widely criticised for providing an elitist education costing £18,000-a-year, twice the standard British university tuition fees. Grayling had assembled a stellar cast of lecturers, including Booker prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson and the Princeton history lecturer Sir David Cannadine but in its first year it recruited only a third of the students it intends to have in each year group. If granted permission, the free school would open in 2014 and will take students aged between 11 and 18. The curriculum will include a variety of humanities subjects at AS and A2 Level with a core curriculum including scientific literacy. Organisers said it will have smaller class sizes than other schools – the intention is to open with 100 students in Year 7 in 2014 and, when full in 2020, there will eventually be up to 740 students on the roll. The free schools policy has been championed by Gove to allow groups of parents and others to apply to set up non-selective schools to be funded by the taxpayer but not controlled by the local authority. They have been opened by faith groups and City philanthropists, Everton football club has opened a school for 14-19 year olds on Merseyside while Eton College and seven other independent schools opened a sixth form college in east London last September. The Maharishi school, in Ormskirk, Lancashire, expect pupils to practise transcendental meditation at the beginning and end of the school day. Via Wildcat2030
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Zotero is a powerful, easy-to-use research tool that
Alistair Parker's insight:
I have been using Zotero citation manager for over 4 years for my undergrad and MA dissertations. I am in the process of discovering all the amazing features of Zotero I never used before as I start on my PhD. Zotero is FREE and works with all browsers, has a standalone version and pligins for Microsoft Office, Open Office and soon LibreOffice. Delete the scoop?
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This is a demonstration of the 0.2 series of simon (0.2 beta 3 in this video). The software is developed with the main intent to provide a alternative way of... Delete the scoop?
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Academics unite to warn of looming crisis in higher education as gifted UK graduates are prevented from developing vital skills
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Wouldn't it be wonderful if those business and individuals who find themselves trying to dodge paying their taxes could consider an act of unashamed philanthropy to finance one ore even more deserving graduates through a PhD. You never know an enlightened government may even make it tax deductible. Delete the scoop?
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Does objective reality exist? Is there an underlying truth that doesn't depend on the observer? According to quantum physics, there may be no consistent reality. Not only do we change the outcome of experiments by what we choose to measure, but we can alter those results after they've already happened. In this animation, find out how our choices of what to observe can change what actually happens, and what that means for our understanding of reality. A classic experiment illustrates the conundrum by attempting to measure whether a photon behaves as a particle or a wave. It turns out that it can be either, or a mixture of both, depending on how the experiment is set up.
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This really stretches the mind... Is anything real? Delete the scoop?
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Institute of Contemporary Arts. Challenging the foundations of contemporary art
Alistair Parker's insight:
The podcast of the talk by Gary Peters is worth listening to: "Aesthetic Education in the Age of Knowledge Exchange: Some philosophical reflections on the National Student Survey" from the seminar "The Future of Pedagogy: The Concept and the Disaster" You will find the podcast on iTunes listed under the ICA. I can't find a direct link to it. Delete the scoop?
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Some interesting blog posts on the subject of presentation. Delete the scoop?
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As Richard Elmore ( HGSE) has said many times, education in the USA is a "profession without a practice"
"....As the McKinsey study demonstrated two years ago, school systems that aren’t working don’t magically achieve greatness by merely “trusting teachers” and loosening control and regulations. And Finland is no different. In fact, the autonomy and decentralization we see in Finland today came after more than two decades of tightly controlled, centrally driven education reform that systematically adjusted curriculum, pedagogy, teacher preparation, and accountability. It was only after this top-down systemic reform moved Finland from poor to good that they shifted to a more flexible approach aimed at turning the system from a good one to a great one. And so, as we look to emulate Finland, we should more directly ask ourselves whether our state and district school systems more closely resemble the Finland of yesterday or today.
A brief history of education reform in FinlandIn the 1960s, Finland’s education system looked far different than it does today. Achievement was much more uneven and not all students had equal access to quality schooling. In 1968, as part of a nationwide focus on better preparing students to compete in the knowledge economy, the Finnish Parliament enacted legislation to create a new basic education system that was built around the development of a common “comprehensive” school for grades 1–9—a system that spread to every municipality in the nation by 1977. Three things characterized the new Finnish standard:
1. The development and adoption of a mandatory national curriculum that ensured all students were held to the same rigorous standards.
2. Dramatic changes in teacher preparation and certification requirements.
3. A central state inspectorate that evaluated school-level teaching and learning