tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50203689032195996272024-03-15T18:09:47.235-07:00The Learning Revolution BlogThe Learning Revolution Blog: highlighting disruptive and challenging ideas about teaching and learning.Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-14582310057743821252017-10-17T04:51:00.001-07:002017-10-17T04:51:00.275-07:00Why Finland has the best education system in the world? - YouTube<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=567&v=nHHFGo161Os">Why Finland has the best education system in the world? - YouTube</a>: <br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-40897162296945983502017-04-18T05:29:00.001-07:002017-04-18T05:29:49.734-07:00School-issued computers spy on children in US without parental consent – digital rights group<p dir="ltr">School-issued computer devices – provided to one-third of school children across the US – collect excessive amounts of highly sensitive personal data on the students without parental consent or even prior notice, a new study finds. Electronic devices distributed in US schools collect unprecedented amounts of personal data on children as young as five years old, according to a new report by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), dubbed ‘Spying on Students’ – the result of a two-year study.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/385133-school-computers-spy-children">https://www.rt.com/usa/385133-school-computers-spy-children</a></p>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-27080772355549113212017-03-15T13:42:00.001-07:002017-03-15T13:42:08.783-07:00The Very Best Learning Method Is Not Taught To Students Or Teachers - PsyBlog<a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/2016/03/the-very-best-learning-method-is-not-taught-to-students-or-teachers.php">The Very Best Learning Method Is Not Taught To Students Or Teachers - PsyBlog</a>: <br /><br />
<br /><br />
The one learning technique which works best is the one that students use the least.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Spreading out learning over time is one of the most effective strategies.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
So-called ‘distributed practice’ means breaking up learning into short sessions.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
People learn better when they learn in these short sessions spread over a long period of time.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
The reverse — cramming in a short space of time — doesn’t work that well.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Despite this, distributed practice is very infrequently used by students and may not be highlighted as a top strategy to them by teachers.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
Instead, students tend to use highly inefficient methods such as highlighting, summarising, underlining and re-reading.<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-60662010097747419982017-02-08T07:59:00.001-08:002017-02-08T07:59:03.347-08:00The truth about Finnish schools - thisisFINLAND<a href="https://finland.fi/life-society/the-truth-about-finnish-schools/">The truth about Finnish schools - thisisFINLAND</a>: "In autumn 2016 Finland’s comprehensive schools adopted a new core curriculum that has in some critical circles been described as the downfall of the world’s best education system. Educational experts respond to these claims, to explain if there is any truth in them."<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-4897489285261862442017-02-08T07:55:00.001-08:002017-02-08T07:55:23.108-08:00JUKU: The Finnish Embassy in Japan is Warning against the Fake News about Finnish Education<a href="http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2016/12/the-finnish-embassy-in-japan-is.html">JUKU: The Finnish Embassy in Japan is Warning against the Fake News about Finnish Education</a>: <br /><br />
<br /><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">The Finnish Embassy in Japan particularly points out that "some confusion has been made by misreports of the Western media" and is</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;"> warning against them.</span><br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-45914470906390332682017-02-02T09:09:00.001-08:002017-02-02T09:09:03.009-08:00Finland Will Become the First Country in the World to Get Rid of All School Subjects<a href="https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/finland-will-become-the-first-country-in-the-world-to-get-rid-of-all-school-subjects-259910/">Finland Will Become the First Country in the World to Get Rid of All School Subjects</a>: "Finland’s education system is considered one of the best in the world. In international ratings, it’s always in the top ten. However, the authorities there aren’t ready to rest on their laurels, and they’ve decided to carry through a real revolution in their school system.<br />
Finnish officials want to remove school subjects from the curriculum. There will no longer be any classes in physics, math, literature, history, or geography.<br />
The head of the Department of Education in Helsinki, Marjo Kyllonen, explained the changes:<br />
“There are schools that are teaching in the old-fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginning of the 1900s — but the needs are not the same, and we need something fit for the 21st century.“"<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-13358927836232965332017-01-09T04:54:00.001-08:002017-01-09T04:54:29.443-08:00How Finland’s youngest learners obey the rules — by fooling around in school - The Hechinger ReportSteve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-1245175137797120912016-11-22T18:34:00.001-08:002016-11-22T18:34:06.787-08:00Post-Truth and Fake News - Half an HourHalf an Hour<br />
<a href="http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2016/11/post-truth-and-fake-news.html">Link</a><br />
<div>
<div>
<p>Yes, by all means, do something about the fake news that is propagating through Facebook and Twitter. But let's not forget that we have been in the post-truth era for some time (indeed, one wonders whether we ever entered the truth era in the first place).</p>
<p>After all, the rise of the post-truth era is made possible by the failures of the education system to prepare people to identify truth for themselves, and the failure of traditional media to present the news in an honest and forthright manner.</p>
<p>It's true, Facebook could easily cut down on the torrent of fake news stories circulating through social media simply by blocking access to a few sites. We could begin with the obvious: the</p>
<a href="https://www.thebeaverton.com/">Beaverton</a>
<p>, the</p>
<a href="http://www.theonion.com/">Onion</a>
<p>, the</p>
<a href="http://themanatee.net/">Manatee</a>
<p>. That would prevent sites like</p>
<a href="http://www.infowars.com/">Infowars</a>
<p>from portraying their parody as</p>
<a href="http://www.infowars.com/proof-the-trump-protests-utilizing-paid-professional-protesters-financed-by-george-soros/">fact</a>
<p>. And we could also cut off blatant miscreants like</p>
<a href="http://therightists.com/">the Rightists</a>
<p>.</p>
<p>Some of the more prominent election memes were instigated by</p>
<a href="http://abcnews.com.co/">abcnews.com.co</a>
<p>for example: "I was paid $3000 to protest a Trump Rally"). No, it's not the ABC network. That's</p>
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/">abcnews.go.com</a>
<p>- the 'go.com' is in there because the news was lumped in with Disney's other properties for cross-promotion purposes.</p>
<p>But these 'fake news' sites are actually pretty funny. And it would be a shame to censor them. And if people can't tell the fake news from the real news, it's mostly because the real news does such an excellent job of parodying itself.</p>
<p>We would</p>
<i>like</i>
<p>to believe the real news can be trusted. But time and again it proves the opposite. Let's look at exactly the sort of thing we are faced with when truing to fine the 'truth' in traditional media:</p>
<ul>
<li><i><b>Polls and Surveys</b></i>. Yes we all love <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/">538</a> (and in Canada, <a href="http://www.threehundredeight.com/">308</a>). But that doesn't make up for the plastering of almost-daily poll results in every media outlet in the country (along with the usual made-up 'expanations' of why the polls went up or down). Polls are not news; punditry about pools is barely disguised fiction.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Anniversaries</i></b>. How much of traditional media 'news' content is filled with the observation that it was '50 years since...' or '100 years ago on this day...' and so on. We have holidays for that! But of course, the traditional media also reports that it's a holiday, same time, every year, as though it's news.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Endorsing the corporate candidate</i></b>. In an article quoting Barack Obama as criticizing fake news the <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20161112/more-and-more-people-believe-news-they-read-on-social-media">Providence Journal</a> does not even not the irony of its lede: "Hillary Clinton was the choice of nearly every American newspaper editorial board. It didn't matter." In Canada, we had a similar case where every newspaper endorsed former prime minister Stephen Harper. These newspapers are looking out for their corporate owners - and their readers see it plainly.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Uncritical reporting</i></b>. It's not just Donald Trump who was allowed to say <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2015/12/the-king-of-whoppers-donald-trump/">pretty much anything</a> without correction. The news media is full of people making preposterous claims. Where is the filter that allows us to screen out claims that Mexico will pay for the wall, or that corporate tax cuts will create jobs? </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Reliable sources</i></b>. They aren't. When factcheck.org <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/trump-ted-cruz-father-222730">analyzed the election</a>, it found that the sources of most of the lies weren't the campaigns themselves, but the supposedly trustworthy institutions like the parties' national committees. We have to learn that <i>institutions lie</i>, they lie frequently, and they lie very well, and the traditional media actually helps them do this.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Media hype</i></b>. Why do we even have a <a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp">hype cycle</a>? It's driven by the traditionmal media's propensity to make (or repeat) outlandish claims for often dubious technologies. Even inventions of some value fall victim (and are therefore unfairly criticized). The hype has a <a href="http://nextgenlearning.org/blog/has-analytics-fallen-trough-disillusionment">predictable pattern</a> than should make it clear it's not news: "a hotbed topic; a sexy, futuristic, ‘cyberpunk’ technology<b>;</b> and the potential for financial returns."<b><br /></b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Fear. Irrational fear</i></b>. I just got email from Forbes saying "what are you going to do when you lose your job in 6 months?" Never mind that this will happen to a small percentage of us (and that Forbes readers are generally able to bounce back). The purpose here is to make us terrified and afraid. Just as are the crime stories, the immigrant stories, etc.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Supermoon and other misleading trivia.</i></b> To read the traditional media, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event to see a 'supermoon'. Not counting the supermoons of <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110319-supermoon-full-moon-earth-science-space-biggest-closest-brightest/">2011</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/23/supermoon-2013-photos-tweets-live-updates_n_3472311.html">2013</a>, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/supermoon-2014-all-you-need-to-know-about-this-sundays-supermoon-9658849.html">2014</a>, to name a few. Glorifying even the most trivial (non-controversial) thing seems to be what the traditional media do. Even then, they get many of the details <a href="https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/supermoon-fact-vs-fiction-55e26f6ee140">wrong</a>. But it's far easier than reporting the news.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i><b>Advertorial</b></i> - not to be confused with advertisements that look like news stories, these are news stories that <i>are</i> advertisements. You see them on your evening television news every day - a promotion for a new restaurant, a plug for a movie, a story about the next new Christmas toy 'craze'. Or those <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/black-friday-hacks-to-maximize-your-savings-1.3168968">Black Friday</a> stories (which are really odd coming from Canadian television).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Obsessively chasing non-scandals.</i></b> For example, spending more time talking about Hillary Clinton's emails than <a data-href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/26/study-confirms-network-evening-newscasts-have-abandoned-policy-coverage-2016-campaign/214120" rel="nofollow" href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/26/study-confirms-network-evening-newscasts-have-abandoned-policy-coverage-2016-campaign/214120">all policy issues combined</a>.Even it it <i>were</i> a scandal (and it genuinely wasn't) it wouldn't have deserved this much coverage. What wasn't covered? Anything to do with <a href="http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-national-conventions/">policy</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Unnamed sources</i></b>. As Jeff Jarvis <a href="https://medium.com/whither-news/a-call-for-cooperation-against-fake-news-d7d94bb6e0d4#.6k14onx17">says</a>, "the source matters". Yet in so many cases, the source in the traditional media is not named. We don't know whether it's a campaign insider or someone posing as a campaign insider.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>The echo chamber</i></b>. We hear many complaints about social media being an echo chamber. But traditional media are the biggest echo chamber of them all. We hear from the same sources, the same spokes<i>men</i>, the same suits and the same pundits. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Fake experts</i></b>. Who <i>are</i> the experts called upon by traditional media? Often, they are sources provided by lobbyists and speakers' bureaus. As <a href="http://theconversation.com/everyones-an-expert-in-the-digital-era-fakes-need-to-be-exposed-36616">this article</a> notes, "Being published in the media sometimes provides commentators with “expert” status even if they lack expertise on the subject matter being discussed and have no relevant research on the topic." </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i><b>Reposting press releases</b></i> - when I ran the <i>Moncton Free Press</i> I would see the exact same content coming from the local newspaper site and <a href="http://www.newswire.ca/">Canada NewsWire</a>. There's nothing inherently wrong with a press release, but the newspaper was attributing it to 'STAFF' and passing it off as news, which is blatantly dishonest. The practice never slowed, not even when they were called out on it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Sloppy sloppy sloppy reasoning</i></b>. The traditional media commits logical fallacies on a regular basis. Surprisingly, when <a href="http://www.downes.ca/post/53510">I pointed this out to them</a>, they changed nothing.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Poor design</i></b>. We get reams of old articles shared through social media pretending to be articles from today. OK, sure, it was wrong of the conservative news site to <a href="https://conservativedailypost.com/breaking-maryland-refusing-electoral-college-hillary-given-presidency-as-more-states-follow/">promote</a> this article on changing the electoral college vote in Maryland. But if NBC News <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18053715/ns/politics/t/maryland-sidesteps-electoral-college/#.WDMXilxctmP">made the date</a> much more prominent, it would be impossible to fool people. But that would cut down on archive views.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i><b>Nationalism.</b></i> Being Canadian, I am exposed to a lot of <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada">nationalism</a> in media - not only our home-grown nationalism, but also <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/10/these-are-the-3-types-of-american-nationalism.html">from the U.S.</a> (of course) and even from places like <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/">Britain</a>, <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/">China</a> and <a href="https://www.rt.com/">Russia</a>. It just underlines to me how far at odd are nationalism and truth.And just how much it is relied upon by traditional media.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Think tanks</i></b>. These supposedly 'independent' voices are not. They are funded by various interests (historically from the far right but now from across the spectrum) to spead misleading research and (sometimes) outright lies. In Canada we have the <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/">Fraser Institute</a>, the <a href="https://www.cdhowe.org/">C.D. Howe Institute</a>, the <a href="http://www.aims.ca/">Atlantic Institute for Market Studies</a> and many more. These should <i>never</i> be given an uncritical platform. But this is what the traditional media gives them every day. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><i>Institution envy</i></b>. There are a few sources that make the traditional media go gaga. Thus we get 'The Harvard Study...', the 'Oxford <a href="http://qz.com/838941/the-word-of-the-year-is-post-truth-according-to-oxford-dictionaries/">report</a>...', a 'Yale analysis...' and so on. There's nothing about the source of these items that makes them more likely to be true, nor more important, yet traditional media can't get enough of them, even though they collectively exhibit a pronounced slant.</li>
</ul>
<p>As Jessi Hempel</p>
<a href="https://backchannel.com/according-to-snopes-fake-news-is-not-the-problem-4ca4852b1ff0#.6axvj4ypf">writes</a>
<p>, "In the past, the sources of accurate information were recognizable enough that phony news was relatively easy for a discerning reader to identify and discredit. The problem, (Snopes managing editor Brooke) Binkowski believes, is that the public has lost faith in the media broadly — therefore no media outlet is considered credible any longer"</p>
<p>We won't solve our problems with the truth by suppressing fake news. We see this in less democratic regimes, and it's never successful. We solve the problem only by having some news agencies that</p>
<i>get it right</i>
<p>- that are trustworthy, and can be</p>
<i>known</i>
<p>to be trustworthy.</p>
<p>And note: it's not enough to create a news media that</p>
<i>I</i>
<p>think can be trusted. The disaffected inhabit all sides of the political spectrum. The media needs to win back the Sanders supporters, the Trump supporters, and sceptical readers in Moscow and Beijing.</p>
<p>Yes, the failure of education and growth of inequality have been reported elsewhere. As Ben Williamson writes, " the statistics from the EU referendum indicate that the vote for leaving the EU was concentrated in geographical areas already most affected by growing economic, cultural and social inequalities, as well as by physical pain and mental</p>
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/11/age-pain">ill-health</a>
<p>and rising mortality rates."</p>
<p>And as he notes, "</p>
<a target="_blank" href="https://www.demos.co.uk/project/truth-lies-and-the-internet/">Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller</a>
<p>of the think tank Demos wrote a report 5 years ago that highlighted a need to teach young people critical thinking and scepticism online to ‘allow them to better identify outright lies, scams, hoaxes, selective half-truths, and mistakes.’"</p>
<p>But let's not blame the less-educated. The most educated people in society have</p>
<i>made</i>
<p>this the environment we're living in.</p>
<p>Reading</p>
<p>Backchannel -</p>
<a href="https://backchannel.com/according-to-snopes-fake-news-is-not-the-problem-4ca4852b1ff0#.6axvj4ypf">According to Snopes, fake news is not the problem</a>
<p>Code Acts in Education -</p>
<a rel="bookmark" href="https://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/social-media-and-public-pedagogies-of-political-mis-education/">Social media and public pedagogies of political mis-education</a>
<p>Digital Digs -</p>
<a href="http://alex-reid.net/2016/11/pluralism-and-the-nonmodern-nonliberal-society.html">Pluralism and the nonmodern, nonliberal society</a>
<p>FactCheck.org -</p>
<a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/">How to spot fake news</a>
<p>Fast Company -</p>
<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3065580/how-we-got-to-post-truth">How We Got to Post-Truth</a>
<p>Fast Company -</p>
<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3065806/pov/weird-fake-us-election-news-is-a-global-problem">Fake U.S. News is a Global Problem</a>
<p>Medium -</p>
<a href="https://medium.com/whither-news/a-call-for-cooperation-against-fake-news-d7d94bb6e0d4#.6d3rpnyn4">A Call for Cooperation Against Fake News</a>
<p>Quartz -</p>
<a href="http://qz.com/838941/the-word-of-the-year-is-post-truth-according-to-oxford-dictionaries/">Oxford Dictionaries declare 'Post'Truth' the word of the year</a>
<p>.</p>
<p>the Conversation (</p>
<span>Andina Dwifatm)</span>
<p>-</p>
<a href="http://theconversation.com/everyones-an-expert-in-the-digital-era-fakes-need-to-be-exposed-36616">Everyone’s an expert: in the digital era, fakes need to be exposed</a>
<p>Washington Post.</p>
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/07/13/donald-trump-is-crashing-the-system-journalists-need-to-build-a-new-one/?utm_campaign=188a285d21-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_19&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Quartz%20Morning%20Brief&utm_term=.baaaf851ecab">Donald Trump is crashing the system. Journalists need to build a new one</a></div>
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via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&site=blogger">IFTTT</a>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-39465703583444194012016-10-03T11:15:00.001-07:002016-10-03T11:15:33.302-07:00Scholars Review the Funding of the Common Core - Diane Ravitch's blogDiane Ravitch's blog<br />
<a href="https://dianeravitch.net/2016/10/03/scholars-review-the-funding-of-the-common-core/">Link</a><br />
<img title="Scholars Review the Funding of the Common Core | Diane Ravitch's blog" src="https://s0.wp.com/i/blank.jpg" /><br />
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p>This post is a scholarly analysis of the funding of Common Core: Who put up the money, who benefitted. The paper (which can be downloaded</p>
<a target="_blank" href="https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/2221-10513-2-pb-1.pdf">here</a>
<p>) was written by three scholars at Pennsylvania State University: Mindy L. Kornhaber, Nikolaus J. Barkauskas, and Kelly M. Griffith.</p>
</div>
<p>They track where the money came from and where it was spent.</p>
<p>The biggest problem for the Common Core standards was that they were released based on a hope, not on evidence or experience. They were never tested in advance, so no one could say with assurance how they would affect students, the achievement gaps, teachers, classrooms.</p>
<p>Their closing paragraph is chilling:</p>
<div>
<div title="Page 26">
<div>
<div>
<p><span><i>An analogy to the Gold Rush may be useful here: The claim stakers are the federal government and philanthropies that have staked out the Common Core for public policy. To work that stake, they incentivize states and school districts to mine the Common Core and get higher measured achievement. To do so, the miners need equipment. The vendors who sell the equipment profit in the short term, even if their tools rarely enable the miners to get the sought-after results. In essence, those who set directions for the Common Core and those who provided resources for its implementation have benefitted, even as potential benefits to schools, educators, and students are elusive, and the entire claim may ultimately be empty. </i></span></p>
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-88092423665318746792016-09-30T02:34:00.001-07:002016-09-30T02:34:17.553-07:00Bankers and Teachers: Scandals and Accountability (Part 2) - Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom PracticeLarry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice<br />
<a href="https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/bankers-and-teachers-scandals-and-accountability-part-2">Link</a><br />
<p><a href="https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/bankers-and-teachers-scandals-and-accountability-part-1/">Part 1</a> described how Wells Fargo bank and the Atlanta public schools defrauded large numbers of customers and students. At the bank, over 5,000 employees were fired. The bank’s CEO admitted responsibility for the fraud before a U.S. Senate Banking Committee yet the fine levied by federal regulators ($185 million) wasn’t even a slap on the wrist, given the $80-plus billion in revenues that the bank took in last year. Nor did the bank admit in that agreement to pay the fine any responsibility for for their actions. The CEO is still CEO.</p>
<p>The Atlanta public schools cheating scandal found evidence of 178 principals and teachers in over 40 schools tampering with student scores on state tests. Eleven teachers were indicted, tried, and convicted (over 20 other educators took plea deals). Those 11 are in prison.</p>
<p>Two questions occurred to me as I read and pondered these instances of corruption Wells Fargo and the Atlanta public schools.</p>
<p>First, <strong>why did employees scam customers with bogus bank accounts and educators tamper with test scores?</strong></p>
<p>The familiar answer is: some bad apples caused the problem–which is basically saying it was individuals acting badly not an organizational problem. Over 5,000 fired at Wells Fargo is a lot of “bad apples, however.” Over 40 schools and 178 educators is also a lot of “bad apples.” The “bad apples” answer side-steps the pervasive culture in Wells Fargo and Atlanta public schools that top leaders shaped and drove unrelentingly.</p>
<p><span>Top officials created an organizational culture of producing results at any cost</span><strong>.</strong> Ample evidence exists of top managers setting very high performance goals that were difficult to meet; the company and district created fear among employees who didn’t meet those goals. Penalties for low performance and retaliation for those who complained fostered a culture of fear. Compliance to do what expected even if it disadvantaged customers was a powerful reason to keep a job. In short, the culture caused employees to peddle bogus accounts and fix test scores.</p>
<p>But–you knew a “but” was coming–not all of the lowest paid employees engaged in the fraud. While cultural pressures can be strong and influential, they do not always determine individual action. Sure, 5,300 Wells Fargo employees were fired but many more retained their jobs by figuring out ways to perform and not defraud customers. Similarly, all Atlanta educators experienced the same intense pressure to raise students’ test scores but many principals and teachers followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do in administering and scoring tests. Yes, organizational culture surely shapes behavior but it does not determine how every individual acts.</p>
<p><span>Top officials were greedy; they thought they could get away with the fraud and cheating and boost the reputation of their organizations. </span> Over the years, bipartisan policies deregulated industries (e.g., financial companies, airlines) creating a climate where profit seeking is highly prized. Billionaires become American heroes dispensing donations, advice, and encouragement to aspiring millionaires. The language describing unvarnished greed has softened, euphemisms abound describing the unceasing chase for more and more money (e.g., “being entrepreneurial,” “individual enterprise”). Not only in the corporate sector, this profit-seeking culture has now spread across public institutions such as schools, hospitals, and prisons (see <a href="https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/10/19/how-does-profit-play-a-role-in-education/">here</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_hospital">here</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison">here</a>).</p>
<p>None of this should surprise any reader since individual profit-seeking is in the DNA of a capitalist democracy. From John Jacob Astor to John D. Rockefeller to Cornelius Vanderbilt, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/asap/1998/0824/032.html">billionaires</a> made their money in trade and real estate, oil, and railroads. They became legends in their own time. They were admired, inspiring their fellow Americans whether they were poor, working class or just got a hand-hold in the middle class to get rich In the U.S., the job of curbing the unrelenting search for profit has been the role of government, as it has in most developed countries. We have lived in a mixed economy where both business and government have interacted constantly checking and balancing one another for nearly two centuries.</p>
<p>When that partnership breaks down or one side becomes too powerful—too much government regulation or too much business influence on governmental policy then shifts in political power occur to correct that imbalance. Consider the New Deal following the Great Depression of the 1930s. Or deregulation of industries since the 1980s and reforming the tax code to benefit the wealthy. The U.S. is in such a moment now of inequalities in wealth that call for restraining the richest of the rich from re-shaping government policies to make it easier for them to become even wealthier while leaving middle class families trail far behind in increasing their salaries.</p>
<p>Second, <strong>why are there differences in holding public and private employees accountable for their crimes?<br /></strong></p>
<p>Since the late-1970s, The U.S. is in a moment when business success, corporate entrepreneurs, and keeping government regulation at arm’s length has dominated public policy. “Government is the problem,” as Ronald Reagan put it. Getting rid of government rules and bureaucracy, conservatives argue, will unleash business owners to invest and create more jobs for Americans. Anti-government rhetoric morphed into state and federal laws–e.g., tax cuts, incentives for investors to locate their monies in off-shore accounts and not pay taxes, low interest rates, fewer IRS audits– that benefited those who ran companies and had large investment portfolios.</p>
<p>Corporate leaders, backed by large sums of money, hired lobbyists to influence legislators to deregulate airlines, banks, pharmaceuticals, and other industries so that more money would flow to the already rich. To the rich, public institutions were feeding at the tax-payer trough and were not as efficient and effective as private sector companies. Accountability was needed, business leaders said, to hold public officials in schools, hospitals, and prisons to be responsible for student outcomes, curing illnesses, and punishing criminals.</p>
<p>And that is how I explain why no CEO of a company heavily involved in the chicanery of the Great Recession of 2008 has gotten convicted while some Atlanta school employees went to jail.</p>
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-12162172483020206092016-09-09T13:17:00.001-07:002016-09-09T13:17:56.208-07:00'What About Tutoring Instead of Pills?'<p dir="ltr"><u>Harvard</u> psychologist Jerome Kagan is one of the world's leading experts in child development. In a SPIEGEL interview, he offers a scathing critique of the mental-health establishment and pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of incorrectly classifying millions as mentally ill out of self-interest and greed.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-847500.html">http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-847500.html</a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>SPIEGEL</b><b>: </b>What does it mean if millions of American children are wrongly being declared mentally ill?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>Kagan</b><b>: </b>Well, most of all, it means more money for the pharmaceutical industry and more money for psychiatrists and people doing research.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>SPIEGEL</b><b>: </b>And what does it mean for the children concerned?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><b>Kagan</b><b>: </b>For them, it is a sign that something is wrong with them -- and that can be debilitating. I'm not the only psychologist to say this. But we're up against an enormously powerful alliance: pharmaceutical companies that are making billions, and a profession that is self-interested</p>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-44960032245190583282016-08-07T13:34:00.001-07:002016-08-07T13:34:11.835-07:00Why being bilingual works wonders for your brain - The Guardian World NewsSteve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-91873363380415357252016-08-05T06:37:00.001-07:002016-08-05T06:37:59.532-07:00A Heartfelt Tribute to Seymour Papert by Gary Stager | Children's Technology Review<a href="http://childrenstech.com/blog/archives/17504">A Heartfelt Tribute to Seymour Papert | Children's Technology Review</a>: "Papert’s ideas are not so much controversial as they are ignored by the education technology “community.” Papert was bad for business, If you’re a school system hell-bent on compliance or standardization, a message of student agency, creativity, and intellectual freedom threatens the status quo. When kids build, maintain, and program the software for their own personal computer, fewer gadgets and apps will be purchased. Such views are a menace to a profit-centric edtech industry and an education system Papert described as idea averse."<br /><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-13607637215043724412016-08-03T03:13:00.001-07:002016-08-03T03:13:20.673-07:00Papert - in his own words - Learning with 'e'sLearning with 'e's<br />
<a href="http://www.steve-wheeler.co.uk/2016/08/papert-in-his-own-words.html">Link</a><br />
<div><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-umB2RpIHS3s/V6CPPDp7LoI/AAAAAAAAGWY/w2K1O9Yrj3AtFB84PuJVPWTcTOVRh-R-gCLcB/s1600/Seymour_Papert_-_Grafik.png"><img height="400" width="362" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-umB2RpIHS3s/V6CPPDp7LoI/AAAAAAAAGWY/w2K1O9Yrj3AtFB84PuJVPWTcTOVRh-R-gCLcB/s400/Seymour_Papert_-_Grafik.png" border="0" /></a></div>
Seymour Papert passed away this week aged 88. His efforts to reform education through advancing social-constructivist theory will be perhaps one of his most important legacies. Papert has been widely acknowledged for developing the theory of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionism_(learning_theory)">constructionism</a>. He saw learning as an active process that involved not only social interaction, but also constructing artefacts. Learning by making became an important component of learning in the digital age, and has been used as an explanation of the rise in user generated content.<br />
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He also encouraged meta-cognition as an important pedagogical method. In his own words: <i>"You cannot think about thinking, without thinking about thinking about something."</i> That 'something' was clearly the object that could be created through thinking about thinking, about problems, about knowledge.<br />
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His work around the early computer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)">programming language LOGO</a> was also ground breaking - introducing an entire generation of learners to the idea that coding could cause direct action with objects and space. The ability to command a floor robot to do one's bidding added a new level of engagement to maths and science lessons. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert">Seymour Papert</a> understood that fundamentally, people learn because they are interested - and that engagement with a problem, construction of an object or exploration of a space was essential for deeper forms of learning.<br />
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He was a stern critic of instructional and didactic forms of education, and was a champion of student centred learning, active engagement and creativity. These ideas will continue to inspire generations of educators to come, and his influence will not be dimmed by his passing. In memory of Seymour, here are some of the most significant (and inspirational) quotes from his illustrious career as a thought leader, developmental theorist and influential pedagogue:<br />
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On video games: <i>"Every maker of video games knows something that the makers of curriculum don't seem to understand. You'll never see a video game being advertised as being easy. Kids who do not like school will tell you it's not because it's too hard. It's because it's boring."</i><br />
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On student centred learning: <i>"I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge."</i><br />
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On the role of teachers: <i>"The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready made knowledge."</i><br />
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On transferable skills: <i>"We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared."</i><br />
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On the purpose of education: <i>"The principal goal of education in schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."</i><br />
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Photo from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seymour_Papert_-_Grafik.png">Wikimedia Commons</a><br />
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<span><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png" /></a></span><br />
Papert - in his own words <span>by </span><a rel="cc:attributionURL" href="http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/">Steve Wheeler</a> was written in Plymouth, England and<span> is licensed under a </span><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a><span>.</span>
<div>Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's</div>
<img height="1" alt="" width="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/cYWZ/~4/d9549her0F8" /><br />
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-20843698916509966062016-06-17T08:39:00.001-07:002016-06-17T08:39:40.248-07:00Peak Facebook? New Study Finds Social Media App Usage Tumbles Across The Globe
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-06/peak-facebook-new-study-finds-social-media-app-usage-tumbles-across-globe">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-06/peak-facebook-new-study-finds-social-media-app-usage-tumbles-across-globe</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Facebook's Instagram saw the biggest year-over-year drop: usage was down 23.7% this year, closely followed by Twitter (down 23.4%), Snapchat (down 15.7%), and Facebook, while down the least, still saw a notable 8% decline in usage. In the U.S., where social media continue to rake in the highest CPMs and where revenue remains highest, Instagram use was also down the most, or 36.2%, Twitter was down 27.9%, Snapchat was down 19.2% and Facebook fell 6.7%.</p>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-64852076973962936352016-06-10T18:36:00.001-07:002016-06-10T18:36:01.373-07:00TEACHING APATHY How Public Schools Demand Failure And Perpetuate Poverty
<p dir="ltr">...<a href="http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/education/bg/bg-ch-5.html">research</a> shows that submission to authority is the best predictor of grades. By regimenting myriad aspects of student life, schools undermine individual agency, depriving students of autonomy, promote compliance, and keep the <u>population</u> unaware of their civil rights, which are curiously not taught in schools. The net effects are<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968613">apathy</a>, preservation of the status quo, and economic stratification.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/15/how-public-schools-demand-failure-and-perpetuate-poverty.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/15/how-public-schools-demand-failure-and-perpetuate-poverty.html</a></p>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-9937504405350703762016-06-09T19:46:00.001-07:002016-06-09T19:46:56.798-07:00Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn’t be setting America's public school agenda - Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ OLDaily RSS 2.0Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ OLDaily RSS 2.0<br />
<a href="http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=65428">Link</a><br />
<div><a href=""><img alt="files/images/la-1464825032-snap-photo.jpg" width="400" src="http://www.downes.ca/files/images/la-1464825032-snap-photo.jpg" /></a></div>
<p><br />
<a href="http://www.downes.ca/author/874">Editorial</a>, <a href="http://www.downes.ca/feed/5001">L.A. Times</a>, Jun 09, 2016</p>
<hr color="#CCCCCC" size="1" />
<p>So this is interesting. Contained in a recent report we read "This has been a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to heart. The mission of improving education in America is both vast and complicated, and the Gates Foundation doesn’ t have all the answers." The L.A. Times draws the appropriate conclusion: "Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’ t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’ s public schools." This is all the more true because philanthropists typically reward the best fundraisers, and not the best projects.</p>
[<a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-gates-education-20160601-snap-story.html">Link</a>] [<a href="http://www.downes.ca/post/65428">Comment</a>]<br />
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-54631741718022852082016-05-27T20:02:00.001-07:002016-05-27T20:02:37.475-07:00Class Of Underemployed: Nearly 50 Percent Of Recent College Graduates Are Working In Jobs Where No College Degree Is Required - Sagacious News NetworkSagacious New...Sagacious News NetworkSagacious New...<br />
<a href="http://www.sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/class-of-underemployed-nearly-50-percent-of-recent-college-graduates-are-working-in-jobs-where-no-college-degree-is-required/">Link</a><br />
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<p>(<a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/college-graduates-2016-and-underemployment-jobs-careers/" target="_blank">MyBudget360</a>) We don’t send our young into the wilderness for a vision quest as a rite of passage. There are few things in modern society that signify a transition into adulthood. Going to college is one of them. And in debt addicted America, it is no surprise that for many, <strong><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/student-debt-apocalypse-median-wages-versus-median-student-debt-college-loan-growth/">college debt is the first debt they will take on</a></strong>. <span id="more-66697"></span></p>
<p>Getting a college education is supposed to give someone a well rounded view of the world and a potential skill set. Some argue that college is not about vocational training. That to some degree is true but when students are going into <strong><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/student-debt-apocalypse-median-wages-versus-median-student-debt-college-loan-growth/">$50,000 or $100,000 of student debt</a></strong>, then what is this modern day life quest really teaching and why is the price tag so incredibly high?</p>
<p>As college graduation season comes into full bloom, many are left with the prospect of having no job lined up. It is also startling to see how many recent college graduates are working in jobs that really don’t require a college degree (so clearly the vocational piece doesn’t matter here).</p>
<p><strong>The chronically underemployed college graduate</strong></p>
<p>There are over 5,300 colleges and universities across this country from Harvard to beauty schools. The market is enormous and students now carry $1.3 trillion in debt, the biggest debt sector only behind mortgage debt.</p>
<p data-mediaconductor-processed="true">Many recent college graduates are severely underemployed and this is for the lucky group that actually finds work:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/underemployed-college-graduates.png" target="_blank"><img class="wp-image-6739 aligncenter" src="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/underemployed-college-graduates.png" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/underemployed-college-graduates.png 667w, http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/underemployed-college-graduates-300x237.png 300w" alt="underemployed college graduates" /></a></p>
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<p>“(NY Fed) The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. A job is classified as a college job if 50 percent or more of the people working in that job indicate that at least a bachelor’s degree is necessary; otherwise, the job is classified as a non-college job. Rates are calculated as a twelve-month moving average. College graduates are those aged 22 to 65 with a bachelor’s degree or higher; recent college graduates are those aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher. All figures exclude those currently enrolled in school. Shaded areas indicate periods designated recessions by the National Bureau of Economic Research.”</p>
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<p>Nearly 50 percent of recent college graduates are working in jobs where a college education isn’t typically required. So that life quest was indeed an expensive one, more so than taking drugs and roaming around in the forest. And the bills are coming due since student loans normally start being sent to graduates six months after graduation.</p>
<p>In Michigan a strip club has angered residents by posting this:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/now-hiring.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="wp-image-6740 size-full aligncenter" src="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/now-hiring.jpg" alt="now hiring" /></a></p>
<p>When strip clubs realize that college degrees are ubiquitous and many will struggle to find jobs, we really have to question the price structure of college. And I would argue that there needs to be some vocational aspect of a college education when students are paying so much to attend. This ties into many larger issues like many <strong><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/housing-bubble-set-to-pop-home-values-in-housing-bubble-real-estate-inflated/">younger Americans being unable to afford home purchases</a></strong> because they carry on so much college debt. 86% of Millennials through a Housing Pulse survey said that too much debt was an obstacle to owning a home. It is also the case that <strong><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/millennials-rich-parents-doing-well-millennials-doing-well-economy-down-payment/">Millennials that did buy</a></strong> in many cases had help from family.</p>
<p>The underemployment rate is troubling because as the cost of a college education soars beyond the typical inflation rate, the yield in the marketplace isn’t very observable. College tuition is up 145% since 2000:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/inflation-since-2000.gif" target="_blank"><img class="wp-image-6741 aligncenter" src="http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/inflation-since-2000.gif" alt="inflation-since-2000" /></a></p>
<p>It should be obvious to anyone that this structure will not last.</p>
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-87736531154092685122016-05-20T10:59:00.001-07:002016-05-20T10:59:34.698-07:00College vs. Bootcamps for Coding...<a href="http://thehustle.co/college-vs-bootcamps">The Hustle Daily - May 20, 2016</a>: <br /><br />
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Bootcamp grads match or beat college grads on practical skills (aka. understanding a problem, coming up with a solution, and rendering it in code). But when it comes algorithms, low-level systems, and how a computer actually works (aka. “deeper knowledge”), they do far worse.<br /><br />
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In other words, bootcampers learn the practical skills necessary to be productive programmers but lack an understanding that college students pick up over time...<br /><br />
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“Bootcamp grads don’t make sense for all companies.. But the significant majority of companies needs programmers to solve practical problems on the web. On this axis, we’ve found bootcamp grads totally competitive.”<br /><br />
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Overall, Triplebyte has had “roughly equivalent success” working with both groups. And while some students might still be better served by getting a traditional CS education, they believe the best bootcamp grads are on an equal playing field once they enter a life of coding.<br /><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-4479004510052385022016-05-20T05:57:00.001-07:002016-05-20T05:57:00.548-07:00HOW TO BECOME BETTER THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE
<p dir="ltr"><u><a href="http://michaelhyatt.com/peak-performance.html">http</a></u><a href="http://michaelhyatt.com/peak-performance.html">://michaelhyatt.com/peak-performance.html</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Starting at the age of four, young Wolfgang began working full-time with his father, who was also a musician, on practicing the violin, keyboard, and other instruments. By the age of seven, he had put in more hours than most students graduating from Juilliard School in New York City.</p>
<p dir="ltr">So was Mozart born with some special ability to discern musical notes in a way that most people cannot? According to science, no. Nonetheless, Mozart <i>was</i> gifted. He had the same gift we all have. He had his brain, <a href="http://michaelhyatt.com/strong-minded.html">a brain that is capable</a> of achieving a level of performance that looks a lot like magic to those who don’t understand it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The “gift” that we often talk about is your ability to learn, and grow, and adapt. And that’s a gift we all are born with. In other words, you’re closer to reaching your personal peak than you may realize.</p>
Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-70984745402359671502016-05-09T08:34:00.001-07:002016-05-09T08:34:23.055-07:00Hack Your Education University<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IPSa83JJ6xY" width="480"></iframe>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-15979555246244290182016-04-30T05:45:00.001-07:002016-04-30T05:45:57.474-07:00Has the library outlived its usefulness in the age of Internet? You’d be surprised - disinformationdisinformation<br />
<a href="http://disinfo.com/2016/04/has-the-library-outlived-its-usefulness-in-the-age-of-internet-youd-be-surprised/">Link</a><br />
<p>U.S. institutions of higher education and U.S. local governments are under extraordinary pressure to cut costs and eliminate from institutional or governmental ledgers any expenses whose absence would cause little or no...</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://disinfo.com/2016/04/has-the-library-outlived-its-usefulness-in-the-age-of-internet-youd-be-surprised/">Has the library outlived its usefulness in the age of Internet? You’d be surprised</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://disinfo.com">disinformation</a>.</p>
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-13489211746410185932016-04-19T03:24:00.001-07:002016-04-19T03:24:03.706-07:00What the great degree rip-off means for graduates: low pay and high debt | Aditya Chakrabortty - The GuardianThe Guardian<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/degree-graduates-low-pay-high-debt-students">Link</a><br />
I warned that students were being misled and was rebuked but it was true. Ministers owe them and me an apology
<p>A few years back, I got my knuckles rapped by a government minister. In public. It was 2010: David Cameron had just come to power, and he was about to thrust university students into a new regime of higher tuition fees and debt.</p>
<p>Against that backdrop, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/aug/24/degrees-willy-nilly-not-helped-economy">I’d written a column</a> criticising the way in which both Labour and Conservative governments marketed degrees as being some kind of social-mobility jetpack, zooming their wearers to more money and high-powered jobs. It was no such guarantee, I said, citing among other things Whitehall’s own <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/21/students-i-lied-to-you-desperation-graduate-premium">plunging estimates of how much more graduates earn over a lifetime</a>. Graduates, I said, would “probably end up doing similar work to their school-leaver parents – only with a debilitatingly large debt around their necks”.</p>
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Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-65781800794186974402016-04-07T11:07:00.001-07:002016-04-07T11:07:32.885-07:00Students for Sale | Foundation for Economic Education<a href="http://fee.org/articles/students-for-sale/">Students for Sale | Foundation for Economic Education</a>: <br /><br />
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“You know,” Ben interjects, “we may be looking at this all wrong. Based on this current business model, maybe students and parents are not the actual customers of your services.”<br /><br />
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Silence.<br /><br />
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He continues, but the sudden weight of the air in the room seems to pull his words to the floor before they reach my peers sitting nearby. The uncomfortable truth he spoke is so repulsive to everyone, as educators, that the very laws of nature seem to resist. There are even a couple of audible gasps as some of the teachers realize that “customer” is really some kind of entrepreneur’s code word for “people whose opinions you should value.”<br /><br />
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Here we were, professional educators, having relegated ourselves to a career of self-sacrifice and meager pay for the greater good, and this capitalist had the gall to imply that our mantra of “doing it for the children” was hollow!<br /><br />
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...But it was true. Under the current model, our students aren’t our customers. Bizarrely, they are the products being sold.<br /><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020368903219599627.post-23259699330094857692016-03-23T09:55:00.001-07:002016-03-23T09:55:24.556-07:00Barely Half of Student Loans Are Being Repaid | Foundation for Economic Education<a href="http://fee.org/articles/barely-half-of-student-loans-are-being-repaid/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fee_daily&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokvqzBZKXonjHpfsX87eopX6Cg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YEFTsB0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEBS7TYRKtst6cMUw%3D%3D">Barely Half of Student Loans Are Being Repaid | Foundation for Economic Education</a>:<br /><br />
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"...46 percent of student loans are not currently being repaid. Ten percent of student loans are delinquent, meaning the borrower has missed payments for thirty days or more. Another 13 percent are in deferment, which means payments have been postponed for various reasons. Another 14 percent are in forbearance, meaning the borrower has encountered economic hardship and had their payments suspended or reduced.<br />
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The remaining 8 percent are in default."<br /><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Steve Hargadonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17776685502090744803noreply@blogger.com0