Kind: Reads

reading a book, magazine, newspaper, other physical document, or online post
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Read ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll come back’: Palestinian birdwatchers defy danger to scan the skies by Guardian staff reporter
Gathering on a wooded hilltop overlooking terraces of olive trees and vineyards, a group of ninth-grade girls from the Aida refugee camp watch as Michael Farhoud, a researcher at the Environmental Education Centre (EEC) in Beit Jala, attaches a ring to the leg of a chiffchaff. The tiny olive-brown warbler was caught in nets that morning. Farhoud explains to the schoolgirls how ringing tracks birds' movements.

I saw a chiffchaff or willow warbler with a ring the other day. I wonder if it had passed through Palestine.

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Read Generative AI and Creative Learning: Concerns, Opportunities, and Choices by Mitchel Resnick
As each new wave of technology ripples through society, we need to decide if and how to integrate the technology into our learning environments. That was true with personal computers, then with the internet, and now with generative AI technologies.

I just listened to the generated audio rather than read this.

Really powerful summary between the instructionist and constructionist approaches to AI in education. Resnick is of course the father of scratch, so is firmly on the constructionist side.

There are powerful ideas and examples of the ways AI could support a constructionist approach to learning and the 4Ps projects, passion, peers, and play.

I started to pull out quotes, but it easier to suggest you just read the whole thing.

 I worry that inertia and market pressures will push the educational uses of generative AI in this direction.

This would be the worry.

The piece finishes with

The choice is up to us. The choice is more educational and political than technological. What types of learning and education do we want for our children, our schools, and our society? All of us—as teachers, parents, school administrators, designers, developers, researchers, policymakers—need to consider our values and visions for learning and education, and make choices that align with our values and visions. It is up to us.

I do wonder if, in the mainstream, we have much choice. I don’t think that many decisions about educational technology have been very pure, the power of the big companies is massive. We should be thankful that the more open, non-commercial like scratch exists.

Read The change of the seasons by vasta
The tree in our front yard starts turning yellow in late August. By the end of September, it has shed almost all of its leaves, leaving a dusting of golden...

Nice to see this newsletter pop into my inbox infrequently. Always interesting links, ideas and poems.

Of course it is really a blog with a RSS feed 😉

This link, might be fun for schools.

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On authenticity, assessment and aspiration

Sometimes I think that authentic tasks are based on the tastes and whims of the educated elite. Is a literary podcast really authentic for a 15-year-old? Are hipster food trucks really the most efficient way to learn about business? As Doug Lemov once said, it’s our role to find the shortest path to learning.

Rebecca Birch powerfully critiques podcasting and other authentic projects used in the classroom. She is writing specifically about the secondary English classroom, I can really comment on that. It did make me think about podcasting in the primary classroom though.

Podcasting has been one of my favourite classroom activities for years.

As a teacher, do I really have the real-world skills to teach interviewing, sound editing, research and the mechanics of discursive writing, on top of critically analysing a text? If I had both the time and expertise then maybe I could justify this choice. Usually, with a task like this, the crafting of the assessment itself happens through many hours of student struggle outside the classroom. It’s difficult to justify the opportunity cost.

I certainly don’t have those real-world skills. I have podcasted a bit though.

Earlier this week I tweeted from our school account:

When I observed my class being completely absorbed in writing scripts for their podcast. Getting primary pupils to edit their writing and think about making their oral communication effective is sometimes tricky for me. Audience, or perceived audience, can make a difference. For Scottish primary teachers at least the activity of podcasting covers a large number of the experiences we are supposed to supply to our pupils.

I don’t think a podcast needs to take so much of the classes time that it would be detrimental. Especially as it give the pupils a chance to practise so many of the skills we are trying to teach.

Had I spent several weeks teaching visual design, sound production or video production skills, those students would have been several weeks further away from their ambition to undertake tertiary study.

In the primary class at least we don’t need to spend those weeks. Audio podcasting is a lot simpler than video. We are not aiming for a professional grade BBC podcast. We are trying to give our class motivation to practise their talking, listening, reading and writing. Communication with their peers and an audience. For me simple podcasting provides a great opportunity for that.

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When we talk about “the algorithm,” we might be conflating recommender systems with online surveillance, monopolization, and the digital platforms’ takeover of all of our leisure time—in other words, with the entire extractive technology industry of the twenty-first century. Bucher told me that the idea of the algorithm is “a proxy for technology, and people’s relationships to the machine.” It has become a metaphor for the ultimate digital Other, a representation of all of our uneasiness with online life.

The Age of Algorithmic Anxiety via John Naughton

Our idea of algorithm is mixed up with other types of manipulation.

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Read Searching for Kid-Friendly Searching | flower.codes
I set about trying to find a kid-friendly search engine that enabled exploration, while still protecting her from the toxicity of the greater modern web. And, guess what? I failed.

And,

If my kids want to search for dinosaurs, they should be presented with educational and otherwise appropriate websites to help them learn about dinosaurs; not a full page of ads for dinosaurs before they see the actual search results

I do not see much discussion of this from within education, I wonder why not?

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Read Mark Zuckerberg Is TNR’s 2021 Scoundrel of the Year
The nitwit founder of Facebook has created the worst, most damaging website in the world. And we’re just supposed to accept it.

Americans represent only about 10 percent of Facebook’s users, but nearly 85 percent of the efforts that the company has put toward stemming the spread of misinformation has been focused on the U.S.

Scoundrel seems a mite gentle given the content of the article.

Via jwz