Predicting students’ academic progress and related attributes in first-year medical students: an analysis with artificial
"Background Dropout and poor academic performance are persistent problems in medical schools in emerging economies. Identifying at-risk students early and knowing the factors that contribute to their success would be useful for designing educational interventions. Educational Data Mining (EDM) methods...
Source: biomedcentral.com
OpenAI announces first partnership with a university
"Starting in February, Arizona State University will have full access to OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise." "With the OpenAI partnership, ASU plans to build a personalized AI tutor for students, not only for certain courses, but also for study topics. STEM subjects are a focus and are “the make-or-break...
Source: cnbc.com
AI will be deeply disruptive to Higher Education
Paul LeBlanc and George Siemens are teaming up to explore how AI is going to change higher education. "LeBlanc transformed SNHU from 2500 students in 2003 to over 200,000 students in 20 years by using technology to switch delivery online." Siemens is one of the proposers of connectivism - a theory...
Remembering the people
Please suggest some technology that might help ... but remind me who you are first. What do you use to keep track of everyone that you work with, live near, party with, study with, or just share time with? Mere humans can only maintain about 150 close relationships (Dunbar's number) so just wondering...
Source: wikipedia.org
Therese Coffey tells health workers about her 'working preferences'
New Health Secretary issues guidance telling staff of her 'working preferences' ... this includes: - stop using the Oxford comma - avoid double negatives - be 'positive' - to steer clear of 'jargon' After the incredible work that the NHS did in response to the pandemic and the sacrifices many staff...
Source: telegraph.co.uk
The UK’s (new) Bill of Rights
An authoritarian resistance to scrutiny. Very un-British.
“it is becoming abundantly clear that the true objective underpinning this Bill (and the Government’s wider project) concerns not the so-called restoration of parliamentary sovereignty or the strengthening of democracy, but the entrenchment...
Source: publiclawforeveryone.com
Development and validation of teacher and student questionnaires measuring inhibitors of curriculum viability - BMC Medical
Background Curriculum viability is determined by the degree to which quality standards have or have not been met, and by the inhibitors that affect attainment of those standards. The literature reports many ways to evaluate whether a curriculum reaches its quality standards, but less attention is paid...
Source: biomedcentral.com
Greta Thunberg aims to change how food is produced
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has set her sights on changing how the world produces and consumes food in order to counteract a trio of threats: carbon emissions, disease outbreaks and animal suffering.
Source: reuters.com
No Evidence That Associations Between Adolescents' Digital Technology Engagement and Mental Health Problems Have Increased
Digital technology is ubiquitous in modern adolescence, and researchers are concerned that it has negative impacts on mental health that, furthermore, increase over time. To investigate whether technology is becoming more harmful, we examined changes in associations between technology engagement and...
Source: sagepub.com
APOD: 2021 April 18 - Rainbow Airglow over the Azores
"A spectacular sky is visible through this banded airglow, with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy running up the image center, and M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, visible near the top left."
Source: nasa.gov
World's wealthiest (and 'business as usual') 'at heart of climate problem'
"These [polluter elite] are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they’re well insulated or not. … They’re also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels...
Source: bbc.com
Chile in 'critical' grip of second Covid wave despite one of best vaccination rates
Chile has among the world's best vaccination rates, but it also recently broke their daily Covid record as they face a second surge.
Source: nbcnews.com
Heisenberg on Helgoland - the value of spending time in natural surroundings
"It was finally time to use his strange calculus to calculate the energy of a real physical system. As his excitement mounted he kept on making mistakes and correcting them, but finally he had it. When he looked at it he was struck with joy and astonishment. Out of the dance of calculations emerged an...
Source: fieldofscience.com
Adaptive testing reduces collusion in online tests
“Rensselaer-developed method proven effective in reducing collusion among students”
“When a distanced online test is performed, students receive the same questions, but at varying times depending on their skill level. For instance, students of highest mastery levels receive each question after...
Source: rpi.edu
Using GPT-2 to generate Tweets
Last summer I blogged about using a Deep Neural Network to generate tweets but only used 3200 of my tweets. Since then I've used Twitter's archive mechanism to retrieve ALL my tweets (just over 30,000) to train a network. Not any old network - the GPT-2 model from OpenAI. This 'finetuning' of an existing...
Over 27,000 students share how colleges and universities could improve digital learning
"A Jisc survey of 27,069 higher and further education students reveals that most are pleased with their digital learning, but areas such as wellbeing, mental health and staff digital skills need more attention." Get the basics right (like college WiFi)Make learning sessions more interactive Record lessons...
Source: jisc.ac.uk
The Power of Asynchronous Video
"A set of seven articles discusses the benefits of asynchronous video and provides specific guidance about how to effectively incorporate these tools to improve learning. Unbounded by Time: Understanding How Asynchronous Video Can Be Critical to Learning Success Putting Your Best Self Forward: 6 Keys...
Source: educause.edu
The Namib Desert bears a scar from a meteorite impact.
"In the vastness of one of the world’s oldest deserts lies a relatively recent geologic feature: the Roter Kamm crater (“red comb” or “red crest/ridge” in German). An astronaut onboard the International Space Station photographed the crater while orbiting over the Namib Desert. It is approximately...
Source: nasa.gov
Private equity investment in nursing home increase mortality.
Does Private Equity Investment in Healthcare Benefit Patients? Evidence from Nursing Homes Atul Gupta. Sabrina T. Howell. Constantine Yannelis. Abhinav Gupta.
Source: nber.org
Why Are COVID-19 Case Numbers Dropping?
"We don’t know. That part is easy. Also easy is that case numbers really are falling — it’s not just reduced testing — and it’s happening pretty much everywhere. Urban areas and rural. Red states and blue. Places with broad vaccine rollouts and those with hardly any. North and South America,...
Source: jwatch.org
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