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20 December, 2018
30 November, 2018
Newington College has joined a growing number of schools banning mobile phones, saying they lead to lower concentration, higher stress and "warped views on reality". The inner west school told students to keep phones in their lockers from the beginning of term four after an attempt to encourage boys to use them responsibly failed. But bans remain divisive, with both the NSW P&C and teachers union telling a NSW government review into smartphones in schools that they were useful for learning and educators should help students use them constructively.
27 November, 2018
People think my 99-plus ATAR qualifies me to be a bona fide genius, but I assure them that the longer they get to know me, the more they’ll realise this: in the HSC, I just played the system. I don’t think I’m necessarily any smarter than anyone else; I just did exactly what the markers wanted. This approach works for me at university, too. I’m about to graduate with a science degree that I don’t feel I deserve, because I can recall barely any of the content I’ve studied in the past four years.
Global Teacher Prize: Eddie Woo on reducing students’ maths anxiety. ‘Sometimes it will take me a whole month of working with students and actually telling them it’s okay to be slow with mathematics. The most important thing in mathematics is not speed, it’s the ability to slow down and ask the right questions. It’s okay to make mistakes. Actually, mistakes are so wonderful because you make a mistake, you learn from it and that’s the most important thing
16 November, 2018
A trial conducted by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Data61 unit of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has proven that blockchain-powered smart money possesses immense social and economic benefits for Australia’s insurance scheme for persons living with disabilities. By attaching conditions, the 'smart money' knows what it can be spent on, who it can be spent by and when it can be spent.
Labels:
Blockchain,
ICT Capability,
Sustainability
15 November, 2018
Roughly 60 percent of the top free mobile VPN apps returned by Google Play Store and Apple Play Store searches are from developers based in China or with Chinese ownership, raising serious concerns about data privacy, a study published today has revealed.
Labels:
Asia Connection,
Cybersafety,
Ethical,
Privacy
Console video games are becoming more diverse as old barriers like needing to produce games on plastic discs continue to fall away, says Microsoft's Chris Charla, director of the self-publishing program ID@Xbox. The program, which assists independent developers big and small in getting their games onto the digital storefront on the Xbox One console, last month reached a total of 1000 games. Xbox also says the program has brought in $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) in revenue for developers, and currently comprises more than 3000 studios making games across 67 countries.
Labels:
Game,
ICT Capability,
ICT Career
Drone delivery service to fly to Canberra's northern suburbs. Plans for the permanent delivery service - which Wing is spruiking as a world first - come after the ACT Assembly last week agreed to launch an inquiry into the Bonython trial, which has been plagued by community angst over noise, privacy concerns and a perceived lack of government and regulatory oversight.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/act/drone-delivery-service-to-fly-to-canberra-s-northern-suburbs-20181108-p50erl.html
Labels:
Cybersafety,
Robotics
12 November, 2018
26 October, 2018
Google Is Teaching Children How to Act Online. Is It the Best Role Model? The tech giant is positioning itself in schools as a trusted authority on digital citizenship at a moment when the company’s data-handling practices are under growing scrutiny.
Labels:
Cybersafety,
Education,
Ethical,
ICT Capability
Apple and Samsung are being fined €10m and €5m respectively in Italy for the “planned obsolescence” of their smartphones. An investigation launched in January by the nation’s competition authority found that certain smartphone software updates had a negative effect on the performance of the devices.
Labels:
Ethical,
ICT Capability,
Sustainability
23 October, 2018
14 October, 2018
A new font released by RMIT could help people remember more of what they read as thousands of students begin to study for exams. It was developed in a collaboration between typographic design specialist and psychologists, combining psychological theory and design principles to improve retention of written information.
Economist Paul Romer, a co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics, is many things. He is one of most important theorists on the drivers of economic growth. He is an ex-World Bank chief economist. He is a supporter of clear academic writing. He is the chief evangelist for charter cities—small jurisdictions within a country that operate autonomously of the national government—as a way to encourage better governance. But perhaps most notably for a 62-year-old economist of his distinction, he is a user of the programming language Python.
Labels:
ICT Capability,
Numeracy,
research
12 October, 2018
27 September, 2018
21 September, 2018
Google’s Chinese Search Engine Reportedly Links Results to Phone Numbers. “This is very problematic from a privacy point of view, because it would allow far more detailed tracking and profiling of people’s behavior,” said Cynthia Wong, senior internet researcher with Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept. “Linking searches to a phone number would make it much harder for people to avoid the kind of overreaching government surveillance that is pervasive in China.”
Labels:
Asia Connection,
Ethical,
Privacy
19 September, 2018
17 September, 2018
14 September, 2018
Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms. Last week Victor Stinner, a Python developer who works for Red Hat, published four pull requests seeking to change "master" and "slave" in Python documentation and code to terms like "parent," "worker," or something similarly anodyne.
Labels:
Catholic Worldview,
Ethical,
History
13 September, 2018
11 September, 2018
A new front in the education wars is set to break out over whether schools should focus on skills such as problem solving over teaching facts and figures as the state government begins the biggest overhaul of the curriculum in a generation. Advocates of so-called soft skills such as critical thinking argue they are more relevant in an age when facts can be easily found on the internet, but opponents say hard knowledge is an essential foundation of higher-order thinking.
30 August, 2018
28 August, 2018
NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes has scrapped the state's most controversial education policy and will no longer force year 9 students to score three band 8s in NAPLAN to qualify for the HSC. Under the changes, HSC students will still have to meet a minimum standard through short online tests in reading, writing and numeracy.
27 August, 2018
The HSC will go online for the first time next year in a move that has been described as "keeping up with the times". The NSW Education Standards Authority has decided a computer exam is the best way to conduct the final assessment for the new, high-level science extension course, in which students will answer questions about their research project.
Labels:
Education,
ICT Capability,
research
23 August, 2018
21 August, 2018
13 August, 2018
Three potential suppliers of equipment to Australia’s next generation 5G network have connections to China’s Communist Party. While the Turnbull Government has been strongly lobbied by federal MPs and security officials to ban Chinese-owned Huawei from involvement in the 5G network, there has been little focus on the Chinese-connections of two other likely 5G participants, Nokia and Ericsson.
07 August, 2018
01 August, 2018
Parents are rushing to enrol their children in a revolutionary new state school that will scrap year levels, school bells and the word 'classroom'. Lindfield Learning Village won't be the kind of school most adults recognise. Teaching will happen around 'waterholes' or 'campfires'. Students will take responsibility for their own learning. And high schoolers will mentor kindy kids.
That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape
Labels:
Catholic Worldview,
Ethical,
ICT Capability,
Sustainability
21 July, 2018
04 July, 2018
03 July, 2018
How LG avoided consumer guarantees, and didn't break the law. Under Australian Consumer Law and irrespective of any manufacturer warranty, consumers are entitled to a repair, replacement or refund if goods or services are considered faulty and it is "reasonable" that the products should still be in a functioning quality considering their typical lifespan. Say you have a one-year manufacturer's warranty on a TV, for instance, the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) still applies after that lapses, and it is still likely you would be entitled to a repair, replacement or refund if: 1) you ask for your case to be looked at under Australian Consumer Law; 2) it is deemed to be a manufacturing fault that caused the television to malfunction, and; 3) the length of time for which it is "reasonable" for the product to be used remains in place.
schools should move away from “an overemphasis on teaching,” Abbott says, and instead view teachers as imaginative, knowledgeable guides. “Any kid can read a textbook — they don’t need a teacher standing over them telling them to do so,” he points out. “They need teachers to inspire them to think about things in a much bigger way than they’ve done before.” It should be based on the biological system of weaning — i.e., gradually reducing children’s dependence on teachers.
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/34658/to-advance-education-we-must-first-reimagine-society
Labels:
Education,
Personal / Social Capability
26 June, 2018
OpenAI is announcing today (June 25) that its newest AI bots can hold their own as a team of five against human gamers at Dota 2, a multiplayer game popular in e-sports for its complexity and necessity for teamwork. The AI research lab is looking to take the bots to Dota 2 championship matches in August to compete against the pros.
Labels:
Artificial Intelligence,
Ethical,
Game,
research
25 June, 2018
n late 2017, at the Imperial War Museum in London, developers applied modern artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to break the “unbreakable” Enigma machine used by the Nazis to encrypt their correspondences in World War II. Using AI processes across 2,000 DigitalOcean servers, engineers at Enigma Pattern accomplished in 13 minutes what took Alan Turing years to do—and at a cost of just $7. I have long been fascinated by the Enigma machine and its impact on World War II. Aside from being a huge history geek, my father-in-law went over to Normandy on D+3 (three days after the Omaha beachhead was established). He served in an advance corps, finding ways for the army to move across the country, and as such, they were the first to come across one of the concentration camps and liberate it. None of that would have been possible without Enigma.
Labels:
Artificial Intelligence,
History,
ICT Capability
WHO classifies 'gaming disorder' as mental health condition. there are three major diagnostic features or characteristics of gaming disorder. "One is that the gaming behavior takes precedence over other activities to the extent that other activities are taken to the periphery," he said. The second feature is "impaired control of these behaviors," Poznyak said. "Even when the negative consequences occur, this behavior continues or escalates." A diagnosis of gaming disorder, then, means that a "persistent or recurrent" behavior pattern of "sufficient severity" has emerged, according to the ICD. A third feature is that the condition leads to significant distress and impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational functioning,
Labels:
Cybersafety,
Ethical,
Game,
Personal / Social Capability,
Sustainability
20 June, 2018
BitTorrent, an early mover (and currently the largest player) in decentralised computing architecture to distribute and store data, is being sold for $140 million in cash to Justin Sun and his blockchain media startup Tron, TechCrunch has learned. one shareholder we spoke to says there are two plans. First, it will be used to “legitimise” Tron’s business, which has met with some controversy: it has been accused of plagiarising FileCoin and Ethereum in the development of its technology. And second, as a potential network to help mine coins, using BitTorrent’s P2P architecture and wide network of users.
Labels:
Asia Connection,
Blockchain,
Social
Apple Australia fined $9 million for misleading customers in ‘Error 53’ lawsuit by ACCC. The unprecedented action against the multibillion-dollar US company and its Australian arm could also have further ramifications too, after the Court found Australians were legally allowed to get third-party repairs without voiding warranties, and could request brand new replacement devices rather than refurbished models.
Labels:
Ethical,
Sustainability
19 June, 2018
THE END OF DYSLEXIA Innovations in brain research and AI-fueled assistive technologies could level the playing field for those with language-based learning disabilities. Grammarly, a free cloud-based software extension that you add onto a web browser. The plug-in is billed as a "writing assistant," but I mostly used it as a spell-checker, a task at which it proved nearly omniscient. Grammarly could help me spell even the words that regularly flummoxed MS Word and Google.
14 June, 2018
12 June, 2018
French school students will be banned from using mobile phones anywhere on school grounds from September, after the lower house of parliament passed what it called a “detox” law for a younger generation increasingly addicted to screens. The centrist president Emmanuel Macron had promised during his election campaign that he would outlaw children’s phones in nursery, primary and middle-schools, until around the age of 15.
an iPad app for basketball coaches called HomeCourt. You don’t have to be a pro; using the app is as easy as pointing an iPad’s camera at action on the court. Then the tricky stuff happens automatically. HomeCourt uses the support for machine learning added to Apple’s mobile operating system last year to analyze the video. The app tracks each time a player shoots, scores, or misses, and logs the shooter’s location on the court. Each event is indexed so a particular play can later be viewed with a single tap. HomeCourt is built on tools announced by Federighi last summer, when he launched Apple’s bid to become a preferred playground for AI-curious developers. Known as Core ML, those tools help developers who’ve trained machine learning algorithms deploy them on Apple’s mobile devices and PCs.
Parents are losing their sons to Fortnite, the hottest game in the world. Described by the New York Times as a cross “between Minecraft and The Hunger Games’’, Mr Adair says boys were becoming addicted and suffered genuine withdrawal symptoms including “mood swings, urges, and headaches’’. Others were also refusing to go to school because they couldn’t cope with not playing Fortnite.
Labels:
3D,
Cybersafety,
Game
07 June, 2018
05 June, 2018
On stage at Apple’s annual developer conference on Monday, executive Craig Federighi showcased ARKit 2 capabilities, including a mode called Persistence that lets users drop a virtual object in an environment and then return to it later in that specific place. Another feature, Shared Experiences, allows multiple users to play a single augmented-reality game together. In a demonstration, the company showed a Lego game and displayed how two iPhone users could play at the same time from different locations.
Labels:
3D,
Game,
ICT Capability
28 May, 2018
Uber's self-driving Volvo SUV, which observed Herzberg six seconds before the crash, didn't know "what" she was at first. The software originally classified her as an unknown object, then a vehicle, then a bicycle, the report said. At 1.3 seconds before the crash, the self-driving system realized emergency braking was needed to prevent a crash. But Uber had disabled the feature to reduce the potential for unwanted braking, such as for a plastic bag in the road. Some self-driving car companies use teams of two in their test vehicles. A person behind the wheel monitors the road, and someone in the passenger seat takes notes on a laptop.
Labels:
Artificial Intelligence,
Ethical,
research,
Robotics
24 May, 2018
Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code Of Conduct. "Don't be evil" has been part of the company's corporate code of conduct since 2000. When Google was reorganized under a new parent company, Alphabet, in 2015, Alphabet assumed a slightly adjusted version of the motto, "do the right thing."
Labels:
Catholic Worldview,
Ethical,
History
14 May, 2018
Beyond NAPLAN: MLC's test is called Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). It was developed in the United States, and is widely used in Canada, Singapore and the UAE. If that testing program is just part of teaching and learning - it happens often but without stress, without media attention, without pushing schools into this perverse competitive dynamic - then all the better for our kids and all the better for learning."
Labels:
Asia Connection,
Education,
ICT Capability
10 May, 2018
The Uber self-driving car that struck and killed a woman crossing a roadway in March appears to have seen the victim and her bicycle with the car’s multiple sensors. But the car — the car’s software algorithms — apparently determined she was not in the car’s path, or she wasn’t a danger to the car. In other words, the car’s sensors generated what the car considered a false positive.
Labels:
Artificial Intelligence,
Cybersafety,
Ethical,
ICT Capability,
research,
Robotics
07 May, 2018
Blockchain benefits: using cryptocurrencies for social good. PowerLedger is an Australian company that aims to use blockchain technology to create a peer-to-peer platform where individuals can trade, buy, and sell renewable energy. Another Australian company, Horizon State, has developed a way to use the blockchain to record a vote. Ethically Sourced Tuna Bubba Cook is the manager of a WWF project, Blockchain Supply Chain Traceability Project, that aims to curb illegal fishing and human rights abuses in the tuna industry.
School teachers and principals are "drowning in paperwork", costing them critical time for preparing classes and threatening their core job of educating children, research has found. A University of Sydney study of more than 18,000 public school teachers and principals across NSW found 97.3 per cent reported an increase in administration duties over the past five years. More than 95 per cent were spending more time on analysing and reporting data.
Labels:
Critical + Creative Thinking,
Education
03 May, 2018
With Vista, some machines ran at a snail’s pace. There were issues with driver and software incompatibility, and Vista consumed lots of memory. Windows 8 brought an unpopular Metro interface and the Start button disappeared, to global dismay. These days, we don’t get complete new versions of Windows. Instead, Windows 10 is progressively updated. Last month’s update is the fifth major Windows 10 upgrade.
Labels:
History,
ICT Capability
30 April, 2018
Malcolm Turnbull backs Gonski report call to move from mass learning to tailored education. Too many Australian children are failing to reach their potential at school because of the restrictive nature of year-level progression, the report said.
Labels:
Education,
History,
Literacy,
Numeracy,
Sustainability
28 April, 2018
By design, Facebook often feels like a public forum rather than an advertising platform run by a corporation. Even Ted Cruz mistakenly told Zuckerberg that the law mandates Facebook be neutral, which isn't true. It’s Diamond and Silk’s First Amendment-granted right to speak untruths—and their followers have every right to spread them. Yet it’s Facebook’s role to determine just how much impact its users have, which they will do in whatever way is befitting to their bottom line. Facebook will never be the free expression forum we want it to be: It’s a private company, with algorithms that move in mysterious, often biased ways. Maybe it’s time we accepted that.
25 April, 2018
Telstra gave ABS mobile data to track Canberrans' locations. Privacy advocates have slammed the study and how the ABS had dealt with the data. Chair of Digital Rights Watch Tim Norton said the study was "irresponsible" by the ABS in light of controversy over the 2016 census. "The ABS received aggregate level telecommunications data from a telecommunications company to inform estimates of temporary populations. No individual information was provided to the ABS. Only aggregated counts of mobile telephone transactions were supplied in broad geographical areas," the ABS spokesman said.
The report noted that only five out of 37 universities required intermediate or advanced maths to get into a Bachelor of Science, while only one out of 34 institutions offering engineering degrees required advanced maths. n other words, a student who should be doing advanced or extension mathematics might pick the easier option because they’re more likely to excel at it. It’s thus more likely to contribute to a higher overall ATAR ranking, at the expense of necessary knowledge. A Mitchell Institute study released last month cast doubt on the relevance of the ATAR ranking, reporting that just one in four undergraduate students were admitted into university based on their ATAR results last year. Instead, universities are turning to aptitude tests, interviews, bonus point schemes, essays, portfolios and auditions to assess a candidate’s value.
23 April, 2018
The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) - the world governing body for motorsport - reached out to Yamauchi and his team to collaborate and help develop a digital racing licence that could translate to a real-life racing licence, at the same time acknowledging Gran Turismo Sport as a legitimate type of motorsport. There are two FIA-certified Gran Turismo eSport tournaments set to take place in 2017. There is even further potential for winners of online tournaments to receive trophies alongside real-life race winners in F1, the World Endurance Championship and World Rally Championship.
04 April, 2018
A new teaching method, where explanations of a subject are delivered online at home and the usual homework becomes classwork, could be piloted in NSW high schools within two years. The inverted model of teaching, best exemplified by the teachings of maths ''super teacher'' Eddie Woo, is being trialled among 70 preservice teachers at Macquarie University
23 March, 2018
20 March, 2018
Maths illiteracy has led to Trump and Brexit: Eddie Woo. "Another part of the problem is the way the subject is taught. We move forward in lockstep fashion where, if you haven't gotten algebra in the two weeks I spend on it in year 7, you'll never learn it again. Next year, you'll still be trying to wrap your head around it but I'll have moved on.
22 February, 2018
13 February, 2018
06 February, 2018
When post-production meets AI and the tools become available to anyone, some scary things happen. I was reading about “deepfakes” where an original actor’s face can be replaced by another in motion video. The results are very convincing and will only get better, raising a plethora of legal and moral issues. In the near future, it may well be that you can only be sure what you are witnessing is “true” if you are physically present!
Labels:
3D,
Artificial Intelligence,
Ethical,
ICT Capability,
Privacy,
Robotics
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