Like many English people, the most important thing to me is having a decent cup of tea. So I was delighted when we bought a variable temperature kettle. This doesn’t just heat up the water to boiling point. It lets you select the right temperature for the kind of drink you have. But how does it work?
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On This Day, by Terry Freedman
On This Day: Why I Dread The Thought Of Benign Algorithms (Updated)
What if intelligent computers decide to look after us, and protect us from ourselves?
Read MoreSummer reading #3: Algorithms
Jeff Erickson has made his book on algorithms (the title is a bit of a giveaway) available for free.
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Too protective by half?
Why I dread the thought of benign algorithms (Updated)
Science fiction writers would have us believe that intelligent machines will either enslave us or get rid of human beings altogether. But what if they were extremely benign and protective towards us? What could possibly go wrong?
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Click the cover to go to the book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Quick look: Hello World
Hello World, by Hannah Fry, offers an interesting perspective on some of the problems besetting artificial intelligence algorithms.
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Thumbnail sketch: Bad Choices: How Algorithms Can Help You Think Smarter
Here is a short review of this book about algorithms.
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Books in brief: Technically Wrong
This is one of a current spate of books about the in-built bias found in many automated processes.
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Photo from Stencil CC0 licence
Why recipes are a poor way of teaching algorithms -- and why they're not
Recipes as algorithms is one of the themes I'll be exploring in the next issue of Digital Education, which will be out soon.
Other themes include 'Is educational research worth the paper it's written on?' and much, much more.
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What I've been reading: Weapons of Math Destruction
What's worse than being governed by algorithms? Not even knowing what the algorithm is doing. This very timely and readable book lifts the lid of what goes on in many walks of life.
Read MoreWhy I dread the thought of benign algorithms
Science fiction writers would have us believe that intelligent machines will either enslave us or get rid of human beings altogether. But what if they were extremely benign and protective towards us? What could possibly go wrong? This article may be used as the basis for a discussion with your pupils.
Read MoreComputing discussion topic 2016-05-25: The algorithm that is too effective
Here's an example of a computer program that prevents people buying stuff, based on their address.
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Do algorithms have a secret bias?
Computing discussion topic 2016-05-23
A topic to discuss with your students perhaps: the hidden bias in algorithms.
Read MoreKettles and algorithms
Like many Englishmen, the most important thing to me is having a decent cup of tea. So I was delighted when we bought a variable temperature kettle. This doesn’t just heat up the water to boiling point. It lets you select the right temperature for the kind of drink you have. But how does it work?7 ways to make IT real: #0 Make IT unreal
One way to make ICT interesting is to make sure it is relevant to young people’s lives, and has a genuine connection to the “real world”. Indeed, these are required of Ofsted in order to achieve an “Outstanding” grade in ICT. I have referred to this as “authentic learning”. So, in the next few articles I will be suggesting ways of approaching this.3D Printing
Over the past few years I've written several articles about 3D printing and its potential application in education. I first came across a 3D printer at a City Learning Centre in London. That was 15 years ago at the time of writing, ie 1998. What I had not realised back then was that 3D printing had already been around for ages -- since the mid-1980s in fact.
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