Posted on 16 January 2018
Researchers at the University of York have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent.
Source: No evidence to support link between violent video games and behaviour – News and events, The University of York
This article is an update to a study that tried to answer the question: How long it takes to design one hour of instruction?
Source: How Long Does It Take to Develop One Hour of Training? Updated for 2017
This article misses the point. Assuming robotics renders many jobs obsolete AND we have the means to provide a basic living wage to all, this has the potential to free up masses of people to spend their time on things more meaningful to their lives than their jobs.
Comments on an article by Yuval Noah Harari
Monday 8 May 2017 06.00 BST
As technology renders jobs obsolete, what will keep us busy? Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari examines ‘the useless class’ and a new quest for purpose
“USELESS CLASS”? REALLY?
…it is unclear whether 40-year-old unemployed taxi drivers or insurance agents will be able to reinvent themselves as virtual-world designers.
That’s hardly the only option, AND it completely ignores the likelihood that these people have passions in their lives that are not their jobs.
The real problem will then be to keep the masses occupied and content. People must engage in purposeful activities, or they go crazy. So what will the useless class do all day?
Now, I choose to believe that this will not be a problem for MOST people. People will be able to take time to be artists, farmers, teachers; to help those who are in need, or lonely, …
This is not a problem, it is something we should look forward to.
What are YOU doing in your courses to encourage more women to enter and continue?
The president of Harvey Mudd College shares the strategies it’s used to interest more female students in computer science.
1. Make courses more engaging.
I’ve been doing this for at least 20 years: bonus points; using games AS programming assignments; inquiry-based approaches; etc. Just look over my publications, and the “gamification” posts in this blog.
What are YOU doing to make YOUR courses more engaging (for women)?
2. Build confidence and community.
Again, I’ve been doing this for at least 20 years: bonus points; re-submission; multiple pathways to completion; flexible deadlines; removing the risk to allow people to try new things; allowing and encouraging collaboration (EVEN when the assignment is NOT groupwork),….
What are YOU doing to build confidence and community (and I don’t mean “boy’s clubs”)?
3. Demystify success.
I am a sessional right now, which means I get paid to teach specific courses. I do NOT get paid to do course development (though I do that), and I don’t get paid to do extra-curricular things (though I do some).
However, when I was full-time faculty, I did these things – and even today, I talk about my experiences out in “the real world” to help connect students to the roles they are likely to fill once they graduate.
What are YOU doing to demystify success?
The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. —George Orwell
That art at least discusses ‘artspeak’ is refreshing. Education should take a lesson and take a cold hard look at ‘edspeak’ too. Ed-types are forever coining new terms that almost instantly become “THE” new thing that everyone-who’s-anyone uses and knows about.
He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. – John Ray, naturalist
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. – William Penn
A few examples:
I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who ‘ligate’ arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well. —Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94)
Note: There IS an Edspeak Jargon Generator (SHHHHHH! Don’t tell the fine folks at the Ed conferences.) It’s kind of telling that it was produced by science teacher. I’m pretty sure almost NO education academics would dare do something like this. They could never bear to expose just how thin most of their “theory” and practice actually is, and how devoid of actual meaning much of their jargon is.
The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. ~Hippocrates
ATTENTION “Educationists everywhere (but ESPECIALLY those in the Academy):
If I make a loony statement – “chronormativity both negates and releases binary hegemonies” – then follow with an in-text citation (Authority, 2017), it looks as if I am referring to established fact. But I may be referring to a sessional instructor at Simon Fraser who published in an online journal called Radical De-Everything. The source and its persuasiveness needs to be addressed in the text itself.
Let’s stop pretending this language reflects “research.” Let the reader decide whether an idea is plausible or implausible by explaining it, not by presenting it as established fact. Let’s have an end to academic artspeak – and while we’re at it, start letting art speak for itself.
The reader should decide whether an idea is plausible or implausible by explaining it, not by presenting it as established fact.
The point of this dialect, the researchers claim, is simply to show insider status, to exclude those without the proper credentials or background from the conversation.
Source: Let’s stop pretending academic artspeak reflects actual research
Academe is full of Petruchios looking for their next Kate.
Source: Abusers and Enablers in Faculty Culture
This article is absolutely bang on.
In academia:
When I was up for tenure at my “old” institution, I had to petition the “authorities” to replace my current department head by a former department head on my tenure review committee because my current department head had already spent several years making my life miserable, and there was no way he could be unbiased. I was made to feel weak by the criticism leveled at me for taking this move, and rumours started flying that I was mentally unstable. Never mind the fact that I had been teaching for about 20 years, and had had 5 previous department heads report favorably on my teaching ability and my dedication to the department.
I won tenure; the situation in my department became steadily worse (for all the reasons above, and worse), and I ultimately had to give up my tenure and quit my job. In legal circles, they often call this sort of thing “constructive dismissal“.
My faculty association told me, at the time, that I had no case, and told me to simply “keep my head down”. They were much more interested in trying to get me to change what I was doing so as not to annoy administration than they were in standing up for a union member.
They forced me into “mediation”, and told me that my prior sexual abuse was why I was unable to get along now.
I suspect this sort of strategy is pretty common among faculty associations.
By Mateus S. Figueiredo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Predictably, the typical response is to simply not allow them. I’ve got news for you all….. this won’t fix the problem.
Anything we do to try and “stop” cheating is at best, a temporary measure.
We should instead be looking much more closely at the root causes of cheating. While there are probably a few people who will try and cheat no matter *what* we do, the vast majority of students would NOT cheat if conditions were different.
My experience over the years has been that the more I trust my students, the more trust-worthy they actually become.
In my work with gamification in the classroom, I have also found that cheating is related to relative amount of (real or perceived) risk that is associated with an assignment or test.
Reduce the risk, and you WILL reduce cheating.
If we REALLY think about why we are teaching something, the approach to cheating can (and should) change.
If we are simply trying to “weed out” those that can’t do our tests and assignments, then fine. I have nothing to say to you.
However, if what we really want to do is to help people actually LEARN something, then why do we not give our students more chances to do that?
Blaming our students for cheating when we make their learning path unnaturally perilous is like me blaming my puppy for stealing that steak when I’m the one who left it lying on the floor.
Here are 5 strategies that reduce the risk associated with graded coursework:
THINK ABOUT THIS. What do you actually want your students to get out of your courses? Do you want them to learn something? If so, then HELP THEM learn it. I’m not saying we should make things easy for them. I AM saying we should provide them with plenty of opportunities to try.
Arrow and Rubic
Once we knew we would not be able to keep Rubic, we started looking for a replacement.
Rubic
This is one of the many many places where having a reputable, caring breeder comes in handy. Not only did Rubic’s breeder (Grazerie) help us find a new puppy, but she ALSO helped us find a perfect new home for Rubic (where she still lives happily ever after). I’ll write more about Rubic another time. This is (in a round about way) Arrow’s story.
Arrow (behind) and Odin (in front) in early 2014.
Enter Odin.
Odin (LGD 4.0) came from the same breeder as Rubic, and we took him knowing he was born with a number of challenges (another advantage of dealing with a knowledgeable, ethical breeder). He was not entirely sound, but that was absolutely OK.
Together, Arrow and Odin were an ideal team for a small holding like ours. Up until this spring, that is.
You see, Odin’s eyesight is not the best (he has cataracts). He gets around just fine, but he really doesn’t like going into a dark place from a light place (such as from the sunny outdoors into the dim rabbitry. That’s not really a big problem, and in some ways, it’s useful. It means I can leave the door to the rabbitry ajar and know that Arrow can get in and out, but that Odin won’t. Arrow can escape the heat and snooze in peace. He can also hide away from thunder (which he hates).
Arrow always likes to take his dinner out to the field. Perhaps he likes to eat in peace.
Arrow turned 12 years old in May 2017. Last year he had a number of tumours removed from four different places on his body – all of them benign. However, over winter, he started having occasional trouble getting up. He’s a BIG guy – about 130 lb – so helping him up is no small task.
He’s been slowing down slowly for some time, but this spring I realized he was no longer effective.
We lost 8 of our remaining 11 ducks. At least 3 of them were taken right out of the duck house while they were sitting on nests.
Arrow meets Sammy – the only duckling hatched in 2016. Note Odin (and Carlton the turkey) looking on from behind. Note also how Arrow is avoiding eye contact with Sammy. That is exactly how he should behave around his charges.
I KNOW it wasn’t Arrow or Odin. Both are exceptionally patient with the birds.
However, it is part of the job of the local predators to know when something is not adequately guarded. We don’t have bears or wolves or big cats, but we DO have foxes and coyotes.
Both have no problem coming right up to the house.
When we were struggling with Rubic and needed to confine her during the day to keep her from the turkeys, it wasn’t very long before the foxes started sneaking into the yard and trying to steal ducks.
This spring, I lost 8 ducks within a few weeks, and realized that I’d have to protect them better if I wanted to keep any.
It’s not Arrow’s fault.
I should have seen the writing on the wall sooner.
Lagoland
So now, our ducks are confined to the inner yard – the area known as “Lagoland”. This where the dogs spend most of their time and so the fox will not chance taking a duck from there. There is no easy way to get in and out without being noticed – especially not if you are carrying a duck.
Kipa (our cat) and the foxes knew and respected each other.
I have no illusions that it is fox-proof – I’ve found fox poo on TOP of the rabbit hutches – but I DO know that foxes are unlikely to push their luck too far.
So, we have a new puppy “on order”. She is another Sar (like Odin and Rubic), and should arrive sometime in October.
If Arrow is still around then, he will likely pretend she doesn’t exist – just like he has with the other four puppies (2 of them Rotties) he has helped raise.
Arrow, at about 10 weeks.
You see, if Arrow had a religion, he would be a Buddist.
He is fundamentally non-violent, and he expects us all to handle things in a calm, reasonable matter, and is deeply insulted when we fail.
If I yell at him, he simply leaves. He has, in his ENTIRE life, growled at me but once, and that was when he was about 10 weeks old and I tried to take a piece of raw chicken from him. I took it from him, of course, because I HAD to win that argument, but the only reprimand he required was for me to growl at him and hold him by the scruff of his neck. After that, he would drop any treat I offered him if he felt his mouth touch my hand.
One time, when he was grown but still young, he was pestering me to pet him. He would do this by walking beside me and pushing his head up under my hand – he is tall enough to do this easily. I obliged a few times, but then I told him to stop. He didn’t. After the 3rd or 4th time I told him to stop, I finally swatted him across the face.
Now, my Rotties would think this is perfectly fair, but Pyrenees come from a different culture and in their world, this is simply not done. I had forgotten that. There is no way I hurt him physically, but Arrow’s reaction was to stop dead in his tracks and stare at me as if to say, “SURELY, you could have figured out a more reasonable way to communicate your displeasure!”
Then he walked away and wouldn’t come near me for three days.
I learned.
In my twelve years with Arrow, I have learned a LOT.
For that, I will be forever grateful to him.
He taught me at least as much as I taught him. Perhaps more. And in return, he has kept my birds, rabbits, cats, etc., safe.
This is the fifth and probably second last in a series of posts about Arrow, and about grief.
I will write the final installment after Arrow has passed, which I do hope is not for a a while yet, but the more realistic part of me knows will likely be in the next few months.
If you are at all curious why I named this guy “Arrow”:
Listen:
