Too protective by half?
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?
Read MoreScience 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.
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This is a round-up of views about how the decision to leave the EU might affect some of our laws pertaining to technology, such as data protection, followed by some suggestions on how one might use these notes in the classroom.
Read MoreHere's a collection of articles you may have missed, on a variety of subjects including Brexit, Master teachers and ebooks.
Read MoreIt's very important to cover the Computing curriculum in a way that relates it to what is actually going on in the real world. Here are two more discussion topics to help you to do that.
Read MoreHere'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?
A topic to discuss with your students perhaps: the hidden bias in algorithms.
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How do you learn best? The reason I ask this question is that the conventional wisdom these days seems to be that people learn best through collaboration. Hence lessons are planned with as much time for collaboration built in as possible. But is this always useful?
Lurkers – those people who hang around in forums and other online places, saying nothing but seeing everything – have a pretty poor reputation. They are generally viewed as takers rather than givers. But, as a part-time lurker myself, I think lurking has much to recommend it, and is not all bad for everyone else.
Contributing to discussions is good in my book, but there are some ways of going about it which could be counter-productive. Here are some pointers about what not to do if you can help it.
There is little I find more annoying than being lectured to by people who have all the answers, but do not engage in (rational) discussion on the subject.
For example, a deputy headteacher once informed me that his school was going to spend thousands of pounds on instruction technology known as “integrated learning systems”, and that they were going to get the least able students to work on them all day.
I told him that some recent research said that the benefits of such systems was short-lived if all you did was use them and nothing else, and that such intensive use of them was counter-productive anyway. This had no impact at all, because
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