I’ve spent many years referencing Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases whenever I have a hunch that a certain type of thinking is an official bias but I can’t recall the name or details. It’s been an…
Near term impact of AI on education: "Our current instructional design approaches assume that access to expertise is scarce, expensive, and delayed. That’s why we “capture” disciplinary expertise in “content” – so we can economically provide access to expertise to learners. But what if access to expertise was abundant, cheap, and immediate? If your students have access to the internet, that’s the world your students are now living in. How should that fact change the design of your instruction?"
Tagging artificial intelligence as an important focus for the country, the Chinese government plans to step up efforts in research and development, including the establishment of regional AI industrial hubs.
A provocative paper from researchers at Microsoft claims A.I. technology shows the ability to understand the way people do. Critics say those scientists are kidding themselves.
However progressive we like to think we are, our society still has a massive problem with gender bias. Chatbots hold a mirror up to the data we train them on, and the society that created that data. And, of course, it's not just gender bias we can find in these chatbots.
Last updated May 4, 2023. TLDR: Released in April 2021, the draft EU AI Act (AIA) proposes a horizontal regulation for AI systems in the EU. The AIA classifies AI use by risk level—unacceptable, high, and low/minimal—and describes documentation, auditing, and process requirements for each risk level. Currently, the EU Council provided its updated consensus draft in December 2022, and after a key April 2023 vote, the EU Parliament is expected to finalize its version on 11 May 2023. As a result, t
While many advocates of choice policies argue lower-income students also attend private schools, lower income students are the minority in these schools. The public sector educates 36% of students who represent the lowest socio-economic status bracket in Australia. This is contrasted to the Independent sector, which educates 13% of the lowest socio-economic status bracket. The proportion is higher in the Catholic sector, at 21%.
The Independent school sector receives a total of 42% of its net recurrent income from both federal and state government. This equals approximately A$8.2 billion to educate 14% of the population.
In terms of the private sector overall (incorporating both the Independent and Catholic sector) the amount of funding private schools receive annually is approximately A$12.8 billion, according to the 2017 Productivity Commission Report. The extra injection of funding by the Morrison government (A$4.6 billion for both Independent and Catholic), is a sizeable sum on top of this.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
While many advocates of choice policies argue lower-income students also attend private schools, lower income students are the minority in these schools. The public sector educates 36% of students who represent the lowest socio-economic status bracket in Australia. This is contrasted to the Independent sector, which educates 13% of the lowest socio-economic status bracket. The proportion is higher in the Catholic sector, at 21%. The Independent school sector receives a total of 42% of its net recurrent income from both federal and state government. This equals approximately A$8.2 billion to educate 14% of the population. In terms of the private sector overall (incorporating both the Independent and Catholic sector) the amount of funding private schools receive annually is approximately A$12.8 billion, according to the 2017 Productivity Commission Report. The extra injection of funding by the Morrison government (A$4.6 billion for both Independent and Catholic), is a sizeable sum on top of this.
From hospitals to schools, the courts to your council, finding out what's really going on in Victoria is increasingly, and deliberately, made difficult.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
Imagine if you could turn almost any surface into a solar panel: office windows could power the buildings that house them. Your backpack could charge the devices inside while you walk down the street. In a disaster, the tent walls of emergency shelters could generate enough energy to improve conditions for the people inside.
What if solar power was so cheap and efficient that even cloudy places like the Pacific Northwest could rely on it? Scientists at the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington are making this future a reality by developing light, thin, cheap, flexible solar panels you can print like newspaper.
April is Autism Awareness Month, and while I'd love to share all the clinical information and research findings available on autism, that feels akin to trying to summarize the entire encyclopedia in one page. Instead, I offer 10 things I wish everyone knew about autism.
1. If you've seen one child with autism, you've seen just that: one child with autism.
2. We can often diagnose autism reliably by 2 years of age, but the signs can be subtle and require expertise with this age group to recognize.
3. Autism is not caused by bad parenting.
4. So what causes autism?
5. Better outcomes are associated with earlier diagnosis.
6. At present, the evidence-based treatments for autism are educational/therapy related and not medical.
7. There are no biomedical treatments for the primary social impairment of autism, only some of its peripheral symptoms (such as hyperactivity, anxiety, mood symptoms and sleep problems).
8. There are other conditions that go along with autism.
9. Above all else, children with autism are children.
10. What does the future hold for an individual child with ASD?
Kim Flintoff's insight:
April is Autism Awareness Month, and while I'd love to share all the clinical information and research findings available on autism, that feels akin to trying to summarize the entire encyclopedia in one page. Instead, I offer 10 things I wish everyone knew about autism.1. If you've seen one child with autism, you've seen just that: one child with autism. 2. We can often diagnose autism reliably by 2 years of age, but the signs can be subtle and require expertise with this age group to recognize. 3. Autism is not caused by bad parenting. 4. So what causes autism? 5. Better outcomes are associated with earlier diagnosis. 6. At present, the evidence-based treatments for autism are educational/therapy related and not medical. 7. There are no biomedical treatments for the primary social impairment of autism, only some of its peripheral symptoms (such as hyperactivity, anxiety, mood symptoms and sleep problems). 8. There are other conditions that go along with autism. 9. Above all else, children with autism are children. 10. What does the future hold for an individual child with ASD?
Three arguments are usually advanced for private schools. One, choice. Parents should be free to choose expensive or religious education for their kids if they wish. Two, quality. Private schools offer better education and, regardless of politics, the kid's interests should prevail. Three, burden: private schools, far from siphoning wealth from the public system, lightens its load.
None of these arguments stack up. Take choice. Choice relies on comparison, product to product. But education is not shampoo. You can't try a school for a few weeks or years and know that how your kid tracks is a direct result, or how things might have been different elsewhere. So comparison is illusory.
Indeed, a new paper suggests that the focus on choice and competition may itself be distracting us from the content and purpose of education, in favour of its trappings.
Which goes directly to the quality argument. Many parents send their kids to private schools, even when they don't approve, because they think the education is better and there's at least a modicum of discipline. And yes, private schools are more able to impose order and sack teachers for non-performance. But, given that these students are already more biddable and more literate, it's impossible to prove any net educational benefit.
Three years ago, David Gillespie (author of Free Schools) argued persuasively that, once you correct for socioeconomic advantage, even the most expensive schools add nothing to educational outcome. This may be one reason why – it's now reported – more wealthy parents are choosing to put their kids in the public school system.
Across the board, though, quality is low and falling, with consistently dropping international test scores in maths and science. Even a recent and welcome improvement in reading, mainly because girls love books, still takes us only to about the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. Could do better.
And that leads immediately to the idea of burden. Does anyone suggest sport's Big Money dudes – the sponsors and gravy-trainers, the owners and big-bucks players – are taking the burden off the public sport system?
No, they're creaming off the talent, quarantining it from public access for vast private profit and getting a public leg-up on the way. This is so wrong on so many levels. What's weird is that we can see it with sport, but with schooling – where the bill is six times the size, and annual – we're blind.
But honestly – burden? According to the ABC, almost a quarter of the $53 billion funding of schools ($12.7 billion) goes to private schools – which educate roughly a third (34 per cent) of populace. So each private school student sucks almost two-thirds as much as each public one. Before the benefit of their $30,000 in fees.
In other words, for every private school student the burden decrement on the public system is fairly small, but the personal advantage is immense.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
Three arguments are usually advanced for private schools. One, choice. Parents should be free to choose expensive or religious education for their kids if they wish. Two, quality. Private schools offer better education and, regardless of politics, the kid's interests should prevail. Three, burden: private schools, far from siphoning wealth from the public system, lightens its load.
None of these arguments stack up. Take choice. Choice relies on comparison, product to product. But education is not shampoo. You can't try a school for a few weeks or years and know that how your kid tracks is a direct result, or how things might have been different elsewhere. So comparison is illusory.
Indeed, a new paper suggests that the focus on choice and competition may itself be distracting us from the content and purpose of education, in favour of its trappings.
Which goes directly to the quality argument. Many parents send their kids to private schools, even when they don't approve, because they think the education is better and there's at least a modicum of discipline. And yes, private schools are more able to impose order and sack teachers for non-performance. But, given that these students are already more biddable and more literate, it's impossible to prove any net educational benefit.
Three years ago, David Gillespie (author of Free Schools) argued persuasively that, once you correct for socioeconomic advantage, even the most expensive schools add nothing to educational outcome. This may be one reason why – it's now reported – more wealthy parents are choosing to put their kids in the public school system.
Across the board, though, quality is low and falling, with consistently dropping international test scores in maths and science. Even a recent and welcome improvement in reading, mainly because girls love books, still takes us only to about the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. Could do better.
And that leads immediately to the idea of burden. Does anyone suggest sport's Big Money dudes – the sponsors and gravy-trainers, the owners and big-bucks players – are taking the burden off the public sport system?
No, they're creaming off the talent, quarantining it from public access for vast private profit and getting a public leg-up on the way. This is so wrong on so many levels. What's weird is that we can see it with sport, but with schooling – where the bill is six times the size, and annual – we're blind.
But honestly – burden? According to the ABC, almost a quarter of the $53 billion funding of schools ($12.7 billion) goes to private schools – which educate roughly a third (34 per cent) of populace. So each private school student sucks almost two-thirds as much as each public one. Before the benefit of their $30,000 in fees.
In other words, for every private school student the burden decrement on the public system is fairly small, but the personal advantage is immense.
Pillrs aims to empower socially minded people to make a huge impact, right from their couch. So naturally, one day after a few too many hours of bug fixing and development, someone asked an interesting question:
Which college create the most altruistic students?
Having no idea – most of us went to colleges that are “the best in the world (as long as you don’t count anyone better)” – we turned to the Washington Monthly university rankings, which ranks schools on: social mobility, research, and service. It was there that we found the answer.
So without ado, here’s the map of the top school in each state for altruistic / community service minded students.
What Is the GDPR? The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted in April 2016, is a regulation that is intended to broadly and conclusively provide data privacy and security protection for residents of the EU. It becomes effective May 25, 2018. The GDPR is binding on all 28 EU member states and will immediately repeal previous data regulations, including the 1995 EU Data Protection Directive.1 The GDPR has a wider reach and broader scope than the EU Data Protection Directive. The GDPR can in many cases apply to U.S. higher education institutions if those institutions control or process data about residents of the EU. Unlike prior laws, the GDPR takes the position that residents of the EU should not be deprived of security and privacy protections solely because a business or organization that targets those residents is located elsewhere.
AI systems trained on internet data are in danger of reinforcing negative bias and causing societal harm. Salesforce's Kathy Baxter explains how to fix it.
Texas A&M University–Commerce seniors who have already graduated were denied their diplomas because of an instructor who incorrectly used AI software to detect cheating
Kim Flintoff's insight:
One of the potential hazards of predicating educational thinking on an inherent mistrust of students.
We asked some top thinkers from different fields to weigh in on what’s ahead, as the AI explosion compels businesses to rethink, well, almost everything.
Abstract Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm. In this editorial, we outline some of the key areas of tertiary education impacted by large language models and associated applications that will require re-thinking and research to address in the short to medium term. Given how rapidly generative AI developments are currently occurring, this editorial is speculative. Although there is a long history of research on AI in education, the current situation is both unprecedented and seemingly not something that the AI in education community fully predicted. We also outline the editorial position of AJET in regards to generative AI to assist authors using tools such as ChatGPT as any part of the research or writing process. This is a rapidly evolving space. We have attempted to provide some clarity in this editorial while acknowledging that we may need to revisit some or all of what we offer here in the weeks and months ahead.
Super Power Kids is an exciting initiative that will raise the profile of children with disabilities, showcasing their unique talents, strengths and indomitable spirit. It will directly challenge the deficit language often used around disability to focus on the gifts and abilities of Super Power Kids.
Over the next 12 months, Kalparrin will work closely with renowned photographer Rachel Callander, author of the international award-winning book, Super Power Baby Project to capture exquisite photographic images of children living with disability, telling their stories in a stunningly produced 200-page hardcover book to be launched at the 2019 Awesome International Arts Festival for Bright Young Things, including a photographic exhibition at the State Library of Western Australia and distribution of the book and accompanying educational resources to schools throughout Western Australia.
Using powerful imagery and storytelling and partnering with respected and high profile organisations, Super Power Kids will be intensively promoted via a 12-month campaign, using traditional and social media with the aim of educating children and adults that there is much that lies beyond initial and often negative impressions of children with disability.
Super Power Kids book and exhibition will demonstrate that children with disability have so much to teach us about themselves and ourselves – and will reveal the value, potential, abilities and beauty in all children.
Please get behind this project. Get to know our Super Power Kids and together we can change the focus, change the language and we can adopt an attitude that celebrates all of humanity.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
Super Power Kids - A Book Full of Awesomeness
Super Power Kids is an exciting initiative that will raise the profile of children with disabilities, showcasing their unique talents, strengths and indomitable spirit. It will directly challenge the deficit language often used around disability to focus on the gifts and abilities of Super Power Kids.
Over the next 12 months, Kalparrin will work closely with renowned photographer Rachel Callander, author of the international award-winning book, Super Power Baby Project to capture exquisite photographic images of children living with disability, telling their stories in a stunningly produced 200-page hardcover book to be launched at the 2019 Awesome International Arts Festival for Bright Young Things, including a photographic exhibition at the State Library of Western Australia and distribution of the book and accompanying educational resources to schools throughout Western Australia.
Using powerful imagery and storytelling and partnering with respected and high profile organisations, Super Power Kids will be intensively promoted via a 12-month campaign, using traditional and social media with the aim of educating children and adults that there is much that lies beyond initial and often negative impressions of children with disability.
Super Power Kids book and exhibition will demonstrate that children with disability have so much to teach us about themselves and ourselves – and will reveal the value, potential, abilities and beauty in all children.
Please get behind this project. Get to know our Super Power Kids and together we can change the focus, change the language and we can adopt an attitude that celebrates all of humanity.
You may have heard that “Bounce Back” expert Sonia Ricotti held a 4 hour long Global Online Transformational Event last weekend with special guests Bob...
Kim Flintoff's insight:
You may have heard that “Bounce Back” expert Sonia Ricotti held a 4 hour long Global Online Transformational Event last weekend with special guests Bob...
I’ve spent many years referencing Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases whenever I have a hunch that a certain type of thinking is an official bias but I can’t recall the name or details. It’s been an…
Progression and development are important in every profession. For teachers even more so. We'd all like to give students the best possible knowledge-base to rely on in their future professional life.
So, where should teacher improvement come from? How have seasoned teaching-masters gotten so incredibly good?
Part of it comes from pure experience and formal training. But the factor most experts point to when it comes to improving skills is receiving and acting on feedback. The thing is just that teacher receive a notoriously small amount of feedback over the duration of their career.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
Progression and development are important in every profession. For teachers even more so. We'd all like to give students the best possible knowledge-base to rely on in their future professional life.
So, where should teacher improvement come from? How have seasoned teaching-masters gotten so incredibly good?
Part of it comes from pure experience and formal training. But the factor most experts point to when it comes to improving skills is receiving and acting on feedback. The thing is just that teacher receive a notoriously small amount of feedback over the duration of their career.
Recently, Alice Campbell and I revealed the demographic traits associated with people expressing support for equal rights for same-sex couples using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey – a large, longitudinal survey that is representative of the Australian population.
My subsequent analyses of the HILDA Survey point to another important factor: cognitive ability. Specifically, there is a strong and statistically significant association between higher cognitive ability and a greater likelihood to support equal rights between same- and different-sex couples.
This may shed some light on why those who stand against equal rights may not be persuaded by evidence-based arguments in the ongoing marriage equality debate.
Kim Flintoff's insight:
Specifically, there is a strong and statistically significant association between higher cognitive ability and a greater likelihood to support equal rights between same- and different-sex couples.
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