Linky Links

[purplecat]

A lot of these are quite old. You can tell I've been away and not posting a lot recently.

Research Check: is it true only half your friends actually like you?
Sober analysis of the research behind the "only half your friends like you" headlines.
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Wikiverse: a galactic reimagining of Wikipedia
Visualisation of Wikipedia as a galaxy. I found the navigation controls a little tricky to get to grips with but it's very pretty.
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There is much to celebrate this results day, but A-levels remain deeply flawed
Speaking as a former University Admissions Officer, post-qualification admissions would have made so much more sense than the existing system.
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Algorithms can be more fair than humans
An interesting discussion of the fact that although data-analysis algorithms have been shown to be at risk of unintentionally baking in various prejudices, they are at least also far more easily analysed for evidence of those prejudices with hopes that the algorithm can subsequently be fixed.
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Tribunal was right to order release of chronic fatigue trial data
Interesting both, I think, for people who are or have suffered from ME and people interested in Open Science in its various forms.
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Russell T Davies on Instagram: “We're back!”
Russell T Davies, instagrams a tweet I made!
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Why urban myths about education are so persistent – and how to tackle them
The whole Learning Styles thing has annoyed me immensely ever since they were foisted on my when I did my PGCHE (Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education) and they had already been debunked then! G's school has got all the children to evaluate their learning styles and she has lapped the idea up that she only learns a certain way, which I think is bad for her (though I'm sure she'll survive) as well as for teaching in general.
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Britain is falling into denial about Brexit - FT.com
Interesting, though perhaps mainly to see that these educated guesses about the key decisions faced by the government over Brexit, namely when to activate Article 50 (early next year), whether to remain in the Single Market (it would be nice but we're not going to get it without compromises on free movement of people which is a red line for many both within the government and among potential Tory voters), and whether to remain in the Customs Union (it would be nice but then what is the point of Liam Fox? - one might ask this anyway) concur with my own largely uneducated guesses.

Comments

[heliopausa]

Thanks for these links! The algorithm article was terrific, and potentially very useful. (I couldn't read the FT Brexit article - subscribers-only - but it sounded good! :D)

[purplecat]

That's odd, because I'm not an FT subscriber and I definitely read the article (though now it won't show it to me!) - possibly it was only publicly available for a limited time.

[heliopausa]

That'll teach me to be slow getting to things! :)

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't have time to read these properly today, but I was taught about learning styles on my MA as well. I'm quite surprised to hear they're a myth.

[purplecat]

The summary message is there is no evidence to suggest that people have individual learning styles (in any of the various forms in which they are peddled) and so benefit from having material presented to them in some specific way.

However, there is evidence that children benefit from being presented information in a variety of different formats, so teachers should seek to use different styles of delivery - its just they should avoid notions that child X should have stuff presented like this and child Y should have stuff presented like that.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I was taught about learning styles too, had missed they were discredited.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Those 'only half your friends like you' things always remind me of Arnold Rimmer 'I shall always think of you as... people I met' :-D

My Facebook definitely has a significant number of People I Met.

[purplecat]

Social Media has definitely introduced a lot more nuance into the concept of friend - and possibly revealed a lot of existing nuance. I think Google+ circles had the right idea, it's just a shame no one uses the place really.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Facebook created particular bizarre scenarios because for a long time in order to cooperate commercially on a Facebook application, you simply had to friend the other people working on it, regardless of how well you knew them. There seems to be a general feeling that unfriending when the cooperation ended is a little precious.

Thankfully they have now divorced the concept of 'working together on one project with a social media element' from 'friendship'.