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Machine Learning: Why Now?

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Machine Learning: Why Now?

In a 2016 Google technical conference keynote, Eric Schmidt, who is now chairman of Google’s parent Alphabet, said he has seen the future of wealth creation from the IT industry, and its name is machine learning. And earlier this year, in a Newsweek opinion piece, Schmidt wrote about the significant impact he sees machine learning having on the world. He said, “We are now entering a decade in which machine learning will come to define how we interact with technology and the world around us – and how technology helps humanity thrive.”

I agree with Schmidt’s assessment and believe that digital technologies such as machine learning have the power to change how the world creates innovative value. This powerful technology is bringing companies unprecedented insights, more accurate predictions, and the automation of routine tasks, all of which allows them to focus on higher value opportunities.

Problem-solving beyond human comprehension

No longer are programmers defining rules for computers – with machine learning, we now give them problems to solve and they learn how to accomplish this on their own. Imagine software that can observe human actions and learn how to perform them autonomously without being explicitly programmed. Imagine machines that can access, analyze, and find patterns in Big Data that is beyond human understanding. Imagine machines that can spot patterns and make connections through exposure to massive amounts of data so they become intelligent advisors and help people make better decisions.

Machine learning is doing all of this and it’s helping companies become exponential – where they have an impact that is at least 10 times greater than their competitors.’ And it’s creating intelligent enterprises where businesses are more empowered than ever before.

Why all the hoopla—and why now?

You may wonder why there is so much in the news about machine learning now. Why now, when artificial intelligence, the parent technology to machine learning, has been around for more than 50 years? The reason is because there is an extraordinary convergence of large volumes of Big Data, unprecedented computing power, and sophisticated self-learning algorithms taking place. The affordability, viability, and feasibility of these three technologies are the driving forces behind why machine learning is becoming more and more prevalent today.

Let’s look at Big Data first.

The amount of data available today – we are currently creating around five exabytes a day roughly equivalent to 500 million songs – is giving machines the possibility to become super-intelligent. Nonetheless, the amount of computing power required to process all this data takes far more computing power than that available in everyday central processing units (CPUs).

Not long ago, researchers found that instead of stacking traditional computers with CPUs in the cloud, another approach could be more effective. The graphics processing units (GPUs), which were developed to speed up the graphics in our everyday computers and especially in the gaming world, had faced a similar problem: the growing sophistication, data volume, and data speed in computer graphics. They solved the challenge by stacking a very large number of simpler computing units that would work in parallel to render the graphics.

Researchers realized the same approach could be a way to accelerate ML computations, and their talent made it work. As an indication of the power unleashed, I’ve been told that it would take 2,000 CPUs to match the power of 10 GPUs. With the ability to execute in-memory data management and their tremendous parallel processing capabilities, GPUs have given machine learning a good part of its current thrust.

If you now add to this the network effect provided by the open availability of highly sophisticated shared algorithms for ML, it’s should be easier to understand why now machines can think more accurately and independently, recognize contexts, and make better decisions on their own. What these machines will do for us is already going well beyond what predictive analytics and Big Data analytics have done for us in the past – and well beyond what any human can do in may domains!

Machine learning in the enterprise

For enterprises, machine learning can automate and prioritize routine decisions, making processes leaner and faster. Machine learning can also change traditional rules-based processes into intelligent processes by discovering and exploiting new patterns in large, unstructured data sets, making predictions about them, and adapting the processes accordingly.

In practical terms, what does this all mean? Well, for instance, when machine learning is coupled with technologies such as the Internet of Things, a machine can decide on what’s optimal to fix in the first place in a manufacturing plant. In a human resources department, machines can intelligently match resumes to open positions and recommend career paths by matching skills to future enterprise needs.

In finance, machine learning can take over lightweight finance operations and some of its highly repetitive tasks, such as checking inter-company reconciliations, invoices, or travel expenses for accuracy. It can as well interact with suppliers and provide optimal procurement recommendations to the purchasing department. Machine learning can also facilitate self-driving customer service where tickets can be created intelligently—i.e., they are created if ML thinks they are needed, even if the customer did not open them—and they can be handled by the customer care personnel guided by accurate step-by-step recommendations from the ML system.

This technology is clearly transforming applications throughout the enterprise – at exponential speed.

Author : Felipe Gomez
Degree : Masters
Major : Marketing and Advertising
Country : United States
Language : English

View Resume

A daily dose of self-care

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A daily dose of self-care

Self-care. It may seem like another trending phrase, but it’s more important now than ever, in a world constantly on the go.

But it’s not just the occasional bubble bath, or a
hearty pat on the back from you to yourself ­– self-care can take many forms,
and involves a bit of discipline and routine to ensure you don’t drop your
newly established good habits.

Feeling worn out? Here are some ways to set yourself up for better mental health, and have you feeling on top of the world – not scrambling beneath its weight.

Break the habit

Are you one of the billions who are addicted to
their phones, constantly craving a quick dopamine hit only a cat meme can
provide? Next time you put down your phone after
scanning social media, online shopping, reading the news, or whatever you’ve
been compelled into doing, ask yourself – do you actually feel any happier? If
not, all you need to do is create a few boundaries between you and your hand-held
friend.

Establish more control by restricting
your phone use until you have a good reason to, which will free your mind to contemplate
other things. While it’s tempting to Google every question that pops into your
head, try to hold off by writing them down on a notepad, to answer later in an isolated
block of ‘phone time’. Letting your phone use bleed into every aspect of your
day is the easiest way to lose control.

For some great advice, be sure to check out ‘How to break up with your phone’by Catherine Price.

Credit: Stacie Swift – https://www.stacieswift.com/

Build on something new

Maybe you’ve contemplated starting a new
hobby that taps into a skill, or unleashes your creative spirit? Well, now’s
the time to make a start. Investing time in a specific activity can enrich the
soul and boost your confidence – it could even lead to an exciting career change.

You could start with something small and simple, or just launch fearlessly into something left of field, which could become a talking point with friends and colleagues. To kill multiple birds with one stone, try something that gets you physically active, socially active, or creates something physical that can become a part of your home. It could be anything from sourdough bread baking to galaxy water painting, or Maneki-Neko making.

Leisure time doesn’t have to mean low
productivity – productivity offers satisfaction, and feeling satisfied is key
to good mental health. Setting goals (outside of your work life) gives you something
enriching to think about, plan towards, and look back on with pride.

Credit: Stacie Swift – https://www.stacieswift.com/

Book a check-up

Everyone gets in a low mood every now
and then, and understanding how to cope with these emotions is a very important
aspect of self-care.

Booking an appointment with a
psychologist or counsellor might sound a bit excessive, but just like getting regular
medical or dental examinations, checking in with a mental health professional can
be a great way to gain some perspective. Therapy can help you analyse and
reframe your thinking so you can better appreciate what is important, and how
you can work towards a better version of yourself.

Some businesses and institutions have
these services available free of charge, you’ll just need to ask around or do
some research. For those who are having an especially hard time and think they
may need on-going support, ask your local GP about setting up a mental health care plan.

Ask yourself how

Finally, ask yourself honestly – is there is anything you can do to improve your wellbeing overall? Is it more sleep that you need? A holiday? More family time? If you can build better habits, and invest more time in fruitful activities, you’ll be stronger and better equipped to deal with challenges down the track.

If you’re ever in need of help – don’t hesitate to get in touch with an OUA student advisor, who can help you find ways to better balance study, work and life.

Catching out fraud in the health industry

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Catching out fraud in the health industry

19 years and counting – that’s how long Kerrie has been working for ‘nib Health Funds’. She hopes to stay with them until retirement, as she continues to protect the integrity of the health sector.

“We look at claims leakage, so we do things like fraud investigations, audits, and clinical coding as well” explains Kerrie. A big component of her job is solving problems, which she likens to a game of sudoku. The challenge is stimulating, and more importantly, the outcome is meaningful.

Kerrie on laptop studying

What originally got Kerrie in the door at nib was her bachelor and honours degree in social science, which she gained in the 90s. But as decades went by, and the industry evolved, Kerrie found herself yearning for new knowledge. She was ready to step up to postgraduate study, to gain more industry-specific knowledge that she could put to use right away. While researching online, Kerrie came across Curtin University’s Master of Health Industry Management, online through Open Universities Australia. “I loved the content of this [course], it has great subjects that I was really interested in such as population health.”

Kerrie talking to colleague

“I had concerns about doing an online degree. I guess the age perspective – I was like, can I do this at my age?”

“I had concerns about doing an online degree,” recalls Kerrie “I guess the age perspective – I was like, can I do this at my age?”After calling up a student advisor with a few different health courses in mind, Kerrie made her decision, got her study underway, and her concerns were quick to disappear.

Now, with a process for study that flows smoothly, Kerrie feels at ease, and chooses to study at a minimum of 15 hours a week to get the most out of her experience. If she ever falls behind, she feels comfortable to contact her course coordinators. “I find that they’re very supportive – nobody’s judging you if you’re not coping” says Kerrie. “Nobody should ever hesitate to reach out for help, and that’s what I’ve always done”.

With the knowledge gained from work experience and postgraduate study, Kerrie hopes to make big changes in the health industry to ensure the safety of patients all over Australia. “I would love to come up with best practice fraud or audit framework, which was, you know, held to high esteem,” Kerrie visualises with glee. “That would be my ultimate career goal”.

Need new skills? Look no
further.

Whether you’re looking to start your career, revamp it, or simply get up to date with the latest knowledge – making a start is easy through OUA. Not only do we have degrees, but we’ve got a vast number of single subjects to get you in the right frame of mind for your next career challenge.

Through
Open Universities Australia (OUA) you can:

  • Find the right course – Choose from over 270 degrees and 1600 single subjects from universities across Australia.
  • Earn the same degree as on-campus – Enrol through us, then study online with your chosen uni (and graduate with them too).
  • Study, regardless of your history – Start with single undergraduate subjects without any entry requirements.
  • Gain credit towards your degree – Apply for credit for past study or work experience, and finish faster.
  • Feel supported from start to finish – Get help from a friendly student advisor, right through to graduation.

To express your interest in this course, or any that we offer – fill out the form on this page, and we’ll put you in touch with a friendly student advisor.

If you’re keen to explore on your own, simply head over to our website to browse the extensive catalogue of courses from universities across Australia.

Related courses through OUA:

Master of Advanced Nursing Practice – Griffith University

Master of Public Health – Griffith University

Master of Infection Prevention and Control – Griffith University

Master of Health Care Management – Murdoch University

Bachelor of International Public Health – University of New South Wales

Bachelor of Community Health – University of South Australia

Data Science Programs That Set You Up for Long-Term Success

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Data Science Programs That Set You Up for Long-Term Success

Pick from top data science courses to unlock career opportunities

There is a massive shortage of data scientists in the U.S. as companies compete for the talent necessary to unlock the benefits of big data. The University of Illinois and University of Michigan’s data science degrees provide their students with the tools necessary to take advantage of these lucrative opportunities.

Despite growing interest in data science courses across campuses nationwide, the data science pipeline is still too small to fill industries’ needs. While this is an issue for companies, it’s very clearly an opportunity for aspiring data scientists.

“There are as many as 250,000 jobs in the data sciences that will need to be filled by 2024.”

“There are as many as 250,000 jobs in the data sciences that will need to be filled by 2024,” says Professor John Hart, Director of Online and Professional Programs in the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois. “Our Master of Computer Science in Data Science degree unlocks these career opportunities.”

Thomas A. Finholt, the dean of the School of Information at the University of Michigan, sees his role as preparing students for both the immediate next step and all those that follow. “Whether their goal is professional development in a current position or a gateway to a career in this high-demand field, students will gain real-world, practical knowledge from top-ranked faculty and a degree from one of the world’s most respected educational institutions.”

To take advantage of the increase in data science jobs requires a data science degree that goes beyond quick tricks. A degree program must teach the underlying fundamentals that help students pursue a long-term career, no matter how their field changes over the years. Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng, an early pioneer and an influential member of the data science community, says Coursera degree program partners establish a high bar and set their graduates up for meaningful and durable careers.

That’s what sets the University of Michigan Master of Applied Data Science (MADS) and the University of Illinois Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) programs apart. The multitude of available boot camps and short courses often teach toolkits and languages that will be out of date in the short term. “We are trying to future-proof the students we are training so they can work in the way the world is right now, but also in the way the world will be in the next five to ten years,” says Professor Robert Brunner, the key driver of the effort to integrate data science across curricula at the University of Illinois.

Both Michigan and Illinois start with a strong cross-disciplinary approach, because data science by nature touches nearly all aspects of a business. It requires a T-shaped skill profile, in which you have general knowledge of a lot of fields and then specialize based on the specific applications needed for your job. “We give learners a broad understanding of data science approaches, and use this to understand modern techniques, as well as develop the computational skills to apply these techniques to real-world problems,” says Professor Chris Brooks, in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. “[The degree] helps students situate these new skills in the areas of work or study that are important to them.”

In addition to learning how to use data skills in the context of their profession, both Illinois and Michigan students also benefit from the diversity of peers with whom they interact. “We have to work with so many classmates from so many places—from China, from Thailand, from Canada, from here,” says Gitika Jain, a MCS-DS graduate. “Everyone has their own perspectives and we get to learn from each other. That’s really unique.”

“Everyone has their own perspectives and we get to learn from each other. That’s really unique.”

To develop such a skillset, it is key that learners receive instruction from experts in each of the disciplines. With the University of Illinois online MCS-DS, for example, data mining is taught by Professor Jiawei Han, a Michael Aiken Endowed Chair, who is a well-recognized authority in data mining and an author of the well-known textbook “Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques.”

At Michigan, too, the program is taught by core professors and is no different than what students would take on-campus.

“The curriculum was developed by our own outstanding, educators with extensive experience in designing and teaching critically acclaimed online data science courses that have been taken by hundreds of thousands of students around the world,” says Dean Finholt.

Perhaps the most important way to set students up for a durable career, however, is to provide the opportunity to apply theories and fundamentals to the real-world problems and datasets of companies. This is a focus at both Michigan and Illinois. “The main thing we learn from our MCS-DS students is that they value practice,” says Hart. “These students demand more than just fundamentals and theories. They want to see how they apply to the real world.”

Bruno Ferreira, an employee of the Brazilian government who took classes with the University of Michigan through Coursera, says the practical nature of Michigan’s data science classes is what initially attracted him when he was searching for the right machine learning course. “In Brazil, we have many theoretical courses but very few with practical application,” he says. “At Michigan, each course was related to solving real problems.”

Ferreira took what he learned through Coursera and built a machine learning model to catch fraud in the Brazilian government, winning an award for his efforts and impressing his superiors so thoroughly that they funded the Coursera-facilitated education of another 10 employees. “Thanks to Michigan, I gained a data scientist toolbox, and more importantly, I think as a data scientist now,” says Ferreira.

Vinod Bakthavachalam, a senior data scientist at Coursera, says the ability to point at specific projects is key when applying for a job. “You have to demonstrate that you can apply the knowledge you’ve learned, and if you have some projects where you’ve done that before, that’s golden,” he says.

Michigan will accomplish this through its portfolio-based curriculum. “With three capstone projects and two domain application courses, [the MADS degree] enables learners to demonstrate their knowledge of data science to others, such as potential employers or university programs,” says Brooks.

The MADS program at Michigan is taught through one of the nation’s top-ranked Information Sciences schools, and one that features a 99 percent success rate in employment for grads. The program boasts one of the world’s largest and proudest alumni networks, which is helpful to new graduates’ employment prospects. With an alumni network of 500,000 strong and growing, a student is sure to find a Michigan grad to network with, regardless of industry or location.

Illinois’ MCS-DS also offers the opportunity to tap into a sprawling global network. Illinois features a computer science program that is ranked top-five in the nation, with highly regarded faculty teaching online degree seekers from all over the world.

Illinois MCS-DS students receive a thorough grounding in the tenets of machine learning, data visualization, data mining, and cloud computing. While applicants don’t need to be computer scientists already, they should be familiar with an object-oriented computer programming language (such as C++ or Java), data structures, and algorithms, and college-level calculus and statistics.

Both programs, however, welcome students from a diversity of academic and professional worlds. The goal is to provide everyone an opportunity to pursue a top-level data science degree, and to do so in a way that fits around their schedule and life. “After this course, I changed my mindset. I am now a professional that learns and extracts knowledge in order to solve real problems,” says Ferreira. “It was the turning point of my career.”

 

Learning With: ‘Lego Is Making Braille Bricks. They May Give Blind Literacy a Needed Lift.’

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Learning With: ‘Lego Is Making Braille Bricks. They May Give Blind Literacy a Needed Lift.’

4. What is the “Braille literacy crisis?” Why have Braille literacy rates been dropping since the 1970s? How are laws requiring public schools to offer equal education to children with disabilities connected to this decline?

5. How is the process of learning Braille isolating for some visually impaired children? Why do some learners give up before they’ve achieved literacy?

6. The article concludes:

Ms. Cook Walker’s daughter, Anna, is a senior in high school now. But both mother and daughter said having Braille Lego bricks during childhood could have made a huge difference.

Anna recalled an embarrassing episode in kindergarten, when she had her own special bucket of Braille books. “When my classmates wanted to feel them, the teacher ran across the room and said: ‘You can’t touch that. Those are Anna’s,” she said.

Including both Braille and the written alphabet on the bricks would remove the notion of “otherness,” her mother said. And they could also help include sighted siblings and parents, who are often intimidated by the process of learning, said Ms. Cook Walker, who works with other families as part of a national organization for parents of blind children.

“This would be the bridge they need,” she said.

Why do you think this episode was embarrassing for Anna? What does Ms. Cook Walker mean by otherness? Do you think the repurposed Legos can serve as the bridge she talks about?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

— What’s your reaction to the story? Do you think Legos will be successful? Does the article affect how you understand the idea of literacy?

— Worldwide, there are over 200 million people with moderate to severe vision impairment and 36 million people who are blind. Braille illiteracy contributes to high unemployment rates for blind and visually impaired people, estimated to be 75 percent in Europe (according to the European Blind Union) and 70 percent in the United States (according to Cornell University’s Disability Statistics). Do you or anyone you know have a visual impairment? If yes, tell us more about your or their experiences and challenges — particularly around issues of literacy.

— If you were a parent of a visually impaired child, would you want your child to learn Braille? Why or why not? Would you want your child to use Lego Braille bricks?

— Have you ever used toys and games in school? If yes, how did they impact your learning? Do you believe that more schools should adopt a learning-through-play approach? Should toys and games be used more regularly as educational tools in classrooms? Why or why not?

Further Resources:

Braille for a New Digital Age

Learning From Legos

Building Bots and Confidence

How to Really See a Blind Person

Movie Theaters

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Movie Theaters

Last weekend, “Avengers: Endgame” took in $1.2 billion worldwide, arriving as the No. 1 movie at the box office in at least 54 countries. Did you see the movie in theaters? If so, what did you think? If not, do you plan to?

In the age of digital streaming, do you think movie theaters are still relevant? Why or why not?

How often do you go to see movies in the theater, instead of just waiting for them to come to Netflix or another streaming platform? What’s the last movie you saw in a theater? Was the experience worth it?

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to find out why so many people chose to see “Avengers: Endgame” at the theater.

Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

Word + Quiz: gravitas

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Word + Quiz: gravitas

: formality in bearing and appearance

_________

The word gravitas has appeared in 70 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 31 in the On Comedy column “Instead of Killer Punchlines, Killer Choruses” by Jason Zinoman:

Cohen is part of a resurgence of young comics making jokes you can hum, the latest to join a long tradition that includes stars from Steve Martin to Weird Al Yankovic. These days, comics are singing almost every night of the week at intimate spaces like Union Hall, Caveat and Club Cumming, packed with the kind of 20-something audiences that New York theater has long courted (mostly unsuccessfully).

… While Cohen’s act is more like a musical that breaks into song when the characters need to express something more emotional, Owens is at his best when he quickly jumps right into a song. Of all the comedians who sing, he has the most virtuosic voice, a powerful, nimble instrument that can inject a cover of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme with an ominous intensity or imbue a ballad to Oprah Winfrey with the kind of gravitas that could make you weep.

_________

Is It Selfish to Pursue Risky Sports Like Extreme Mountain Climbing?

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Is It Selfish to Pursue Risky Sports Like Extreme Mountain Climbing?

Some sports, like extreme mountain climbing, are dangerous. Since there are varying degrees of risk in most, if not all, sports (such as the possibility of concussions, broken bones and even death), how does one decide where the line might be drawn between what is reasonable and what is not? Are some sports simply too dangerous to be called a sport?

In the Opinion essay “Are Mountain Climbers Selfish?” Francis Sanzaro writes:

This month, Jess Roskelley, Hansjörg Auer and David Lama died in an avalanche while alpine climbing on the east face of the 10,810-foot Howse Peak, north of Banff, in Alberta, Canada. They were, respectively, 36, 35 and 28. In the aftermath, our community of climbers has once again laid down on the couch and resumed our conversation about mountaineering’s biggest complex: death and tragedy.

All three were at the top of their game. To climbers, the news of their deaths was the equivalent of waking up and learning that Tom Brady, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown had been killed on the gridiron. The difference is that football players don’t routinely die during a difficult game. The same can’t be said of alpinists. The graveyard in mountaineering’s most fabled playground, Chamonix, France, is filled with young men who died climbing in the massif of Mont Blanc.

… When will the deaths stop? Our collective wonders. I ask it, too, but I know better. They won’t. High-end climbing is going to get more risky, not less. The routes are becoming more technically demanding, in more remote areas, and the method of “light and fast”— minimal gear, no fixed ropes, doing the route in a single push — is now regarded as the best style. These trends, and others, have made the sport of alpine climbing very, very dangerous.

In the aftermath, blame is common. The deceased are blamed for taking so much risk. They’re called selfish. Selfish for leaving behind sons and daughters, wives and girlfriends, husbands and boyfriends, devastated mothers and fathers to pick up the pieces. Selfish, the claim goes, for not understanding that others are invested in their lives and that if they are gone, they take a piece of another with them. Some have said that if these climbers truly knew the impact of their deaths, they would pack it up.

Yes, agreed, but the climbers who died on Howse Peak and the dozens of others I know have been anything but selfish. They were or are devoted husbands, wives, selfless friends and loving fathers and mothers. And confident, determined and overly ambitious. Yes, they can be accused of that.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

— What is your take on the character traits of people like the mountaineers Mr. Sanzaro describes? Are they selfish? Are they determined? Something else?

— What qualifies as “risky,” anyway? If there are varying degrees of danger in all sports, how does one decide where the line might be drawn between what is reasonable and what is not?

— Have you ever had a pursuit thought to be dangerous to participants? If so, what was it? Did you ever think that if you were injured while participating, you would put your loved ones through pain and suffering as well?

— Mr. Sanzaro concludes his essay with the following lines:

Selfish? No. Unable to see with absolute sobriety how dangerous their path is? Likely. But again, that doesn’t make them selfish, only human. Dying happens to someone else, until it doesn’t. The people who loved them didn’t do so in spite of their love for climbing, but because of it.

One truth goes to the heart of death in our community: You can’t fall out of love with something. Having known two of the three men who died on Howse Peak, I know that climbing made them feel alive. The question is — could we feel alive enough if we stopped? Most climbers think not.

I agree.

What point does he make in this essay? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Learning With: ‘One Dead in Synagogue Shooting Near San Diego; Officials Call It Hate Crime’

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Learning With: ‘One Dead in Synagogue Shooting Near San Diego; Officials Call It Hate Crime’

5. What other acts of hatred does the author of the manifesto claim to have committed?

Finally, tell us more about what you think:

The author of the related Opinion essay “Mass Shootings Have Become a Sickening Meme” refers to a message posted before the shootings by an 8chan user identifying himself by the same name as the suspect in the attack. The message is “strikingly similar to the 8chan post left by the man accused of shooting up a mosque in New Zealand before he killed 49 worshipers in March.” He continues:

As in New Zealand, the suspected Poway shooter appeared eager to win approval for his act of violence. In his post, the synagogue shooter cites the 8chan message board for indoctrinating him, urging others to take similar action. His manifesto not only refers to the online postings of the New Zealand shooting and of the man who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October, but seems almost cribbed from past white nationalist rants.

Do you think 8chan has a responsibility to police the content posted by its users? Why or why not? Do you think the 8chan community has any such similar responsibility? Explain.

The Opinion essay also states:

Both white nationalist violence and mass shootings have long histories in America, yet the copycat nature of the recent sprees feels different — specifically, in the way they hail a very niche, very targeted audience, attempting to delight fellow extremists. As much as they’re meant to terrorize, these attacks seem designed to embolden the most unstable members of their community. Though these men are lone gunmen, they’re not alone — like the New Zealand attack, the Poway shooter’s actions were cheered on by an online audience of anonymous trolls. One of the first responses to the 8chan post suspected to be from the gunman was a user imploring, “get a high score.”

Perhaps most disturbing is the subtle iteration of the shooters’ posts. As is common on online message boards, they vie for eyeballs by attempting to outdo previous posts, constantly pushing the line of acceptable behavior to new extremes.

That’s not to suggest that the 8chan or message board culture is solely to blame for such horrific acts of violence. The medium by which a shooter is radicalized is only one component of a long path to violence, and mass shootings and anti-Semitic violence have a long, dark legacy.

And yet, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore how online hatred and message board screeds are bleeding into the physical world — and how social platforms can act as an accelerant for terroristic behavior. The internet, it seems, has imprinted itself on modern hate crimes, giving its most unstable residents a theater for unspeakable acts — and an amplification system for an ideology of white supremacy that only recently was relegated to the shadows.

Do you think online communities have the power to “embolden” people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do, whether it’s committing murder or anything else? Explain.

What, if anything, should be done about online communities devoted to or frequented by users who harbor extremist beliefs?

THE FUTURE OF CLASSROOM LEARNING: PREDICTIONS FOR 2030

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THE FUTURE OF CLASSROOM LEARNING: PREDICTIONS FOR 2030

Each year the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE)is held in Qatar. It’s the premier international platform that is dedicated to innovation and creative action in education.

The theme of the 2014 WISE summit was ‘Imagine-Create-Learn: Creativity at the Heart of Education,’ and one of the topics on the agenda was the future of classroom training. It’s an issue which we are very interested in, as we have already pointed out some of the main changes happening to classroom learning here and now.

To prepare for the event, WISE conducted a survey of over 600 experts – among whom were Professor Noam Chomsky and Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia – to establish what the future of classroom learning might look like.

QuestioningThe survey, ‘School in 2030,’ found that almost half the respondents believed that online content will become the number 1 most important source of knowledge by 2030, rather than a ‘brick and mortar’ school, which came in second. It also suggested that when it comes to classroom learning, the role of teachers will change drastically from that delivering knowledge to learners, to guiding and mentoring students through their individual learning journeys.

Interestingly, the survey also pointed out that most experts believe that classroom learning will evolve to encompass more personal, tailored learning content for learners, as opposed to the current standardised content.

We couldn’t be happier to read these findings, as they are things that we’ve believed in for the past few years! In our white paper, ‘Classroom Training Goes Tech: Bringing Technology into the Classroom,’ we explain that tutors will move on from their role of disseminating information to guiding learners, and will act as facilitators of learning rather than strictly keeping to a syllabus. We explain the importance of utilising all technology available to us to boost classroom learning, and emphasise how vital it is that learners are able to tailor their learning to their particular needs, and do so while working in teams and sharing knowledge.

Here’s an excerpt of the survey (click here to access the full document):

“No more ‘teachers’, lectures or imposed curricula: henceforth, the brick-and-mortar school will no longer be a place where students are taught theoretical knowledge, but instead a social environment where they receive guidance, enabling them to interact with their peers and build a diverse toolkit that will better prepare them for professional life. Innovation, not only technological but also social and pedagogical, will help transform the traditional ‘classrooms’ into future ‘meeting rooms’ where cooperative learning takes place and students prepare for their working future.”

classroomlearningThe use of online content as the main source of knowledge also fills us with joy: we’re passionate that online learning is the solution to a whole bunch of problems – a lack of learner engagement, poor recall, insufficient socialisation and accessibility problems to name but a few. Indeed, we suggest in the white paper that classroom learning needs to embrace technology in order to survive and flourish.

There are ways to combine online and offline learning and encourage social learning to really boost understanding, engagement, enjoyment and overall learning, as you’ll see in our white paper – just click the button below to find out how we suggest the classroom learning revolution will occur!

Author : Felipe Gomez
Degree : Masters
Major : Marketing and Advertising
Country : United States
Language : English

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