MachineMachine /stream - tagged with education

Kids, unlike adults, think technology is fundamentally human

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:13:06 -0700

With children so easy to embrace robotics, it’s clear that there’s a ton of potential for integrating intelligent technologies into learning environments. Besides, the idea of “exploring and creating” sounds a heck of a lot better than answering true/false questions out of a booklet. Clearly there are tons of new and interesting ways to learn, and technology is, in many ways, responsible for this. Taking a deeper look at the stories the children created, the survey found that unlike many adults who see technology as separate from humanness, it seems that “kids tend to think of technology as fundamentally human:…

The US schools with their own police

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:36:45 -0700

One of the most shocking stories I've ever read: the criminalisation of childhood in #Texas. http://t.co/uqiuR9Il

Blade Runner Cigarette Ad

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:02:09 -0700

The Chomsky-Foucault Debate [excerpt, part 1/2]

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:40:12 -0700

WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 1/4

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:52:22 -0700

Exclusive interview with Horror Director John Carpenter

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:16:24 -0700

Giorgio Agamben. What is a Paradigm. 2002 1/10

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:50:19 -0700

Inside the Box: Notes From Within the European Artistic Research Debate

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:13:52 -0700

The debate over artistic research, particularly its appeal to scientificity, often rests on defining one’s terms. Thus, an examination of some of the keywords deployed might be instructive, especially when their circulation is grounded on an imprecision inherent in language. The connotative meaning of a word, if I may be forgiven for stating the obvious, can diverge greatly from what are often contradictory origins, allowing ideology to reify itself on a lexical level. Let’s examine the word science itself. It derives both from the Latin, scientia, “to know”—but also from the Greek, scienzia, “to split, rend or cleave.” That art…

Humanities in the Digital Age

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:02:02 -0700

Reports of the demise of the humanities are exaggerated, suggest these panelists, but there may be reason to fear its loss of relevance. Three scholars whose work touches a variety of disciplines and with wide knowledge of the worlds of academia and publishing ponder the meaning and mission of the humanities in the digital age. Getting a handle on the term itself proves somewhat elusive. Alison Byerly invokes those fields involved with “pondering the deep questions of humanity,” such as languages, the arts, literature, philosophy and religion. Steven Pinker boils it down to “the study of the products of the…

Building Rome on a Cloudless Day (ECCV 2010)

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:38:41 -0700

Open Media (lecture series schedule)

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:54:36 -0700

The concept of openness is often employed as part of a radical critique of the closed-off worlds of what might be called ‘traditional media’. It is variously used to urge for the right to transparency, the ethics of sharing, the value of re-use and the benefits of connecting.

This series of research seminars will explore various aspects of openness. Special attention will be given to the benefits and drawbacks of openness, and to the many possibilities openness offers for the future of media production, use and critique.

Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:47:00 -0700

Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time:

In research the story is similar. PhD students and contract staff known as “postdocs”, described by one student as “the ugly underbelly of academia”, do much of the research these days. There is a glut of postdocs too. Dr Freeman concluded from pre-2000 data that if American faculty jobs in the life sciences were increasing at 5% a year, just 20% of students would land one. In Canada 80% of postdocs earn $38,600 or less per year before tax—the average salary of a construction worker. The rise…

The Shadow Scholar

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:56:00 -0700

In the past year, I've written roughly 5,000 pages of scholarly literature, most on very tight deadlines. But you won't find my name on a single paper.

I've written toward a master's degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I've worked on bachelor's degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I've written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology, theology, sports management, maritime security, airline services, sustainability, municipal budgeting, marketing, philosophy, ethics, Eastern religion, postmodern architecture, anthropology, literature, and public administration. I've attended three dozen online…

What Are Books Good For?

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:23:00 -0700

I've been wondering lately when books became the enemy. Scholars have always been people of the book, so it seems wrong that the faithful companion has been put on the defensive. Part of the problem is knowing what we mean exactly when we say "book." It's a slippery term for a format, a technology, a historical construct, and something else as well.

Maybe we need to redefine, or undefine, our terms. I'm struck by the fact that the designation "scholarly book," to name one relevant category, is in itself a back formation, like "acoustic guitar." Books began…

Will the Book Survive Generation Text?

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:17:00 -0700

Over the next 10 years, scientific experts will be dealing with "extreme weather." No one knows how weird and dangerous it will get.

Moscow already faces Bahrain-like temperatures. Downpours swamp a fifth of Pakistan. President Mohamed Nasheed, of the Maldives, worries enough about future sea levels to hold a cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear. (Don't miss this on YouTube!)

Parallel thinking should apply to a phenomenon of greater concern to readers here: "extreme academe." Think of it as the hysterical upgrading of ugly visions of the future already found in polite critiques of…

The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:47:00 -0700

Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is. It's hard to describe it in words. So, I use pictures. Read below for the illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

12 Events That Will Change Everything, Made Interactive

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:05:00 -0700

This Web-only article is a special rich-media presentation of the feature, "12 Events That Will Change Everything," which appears in the June 2010 issue of Scientific American. The presentation was created by Zemi Media. Find all our other interactive offerings here.

Losing our minds to the web

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:50:00 -0700

Enter Nicholas Carr, a technology writer and Silicon Valley’s favourite contrarian, whose book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Norton) has just come out in the US (and will be published in Britain by Atlantic in September). It is an expanded version of an essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” printed in the Atlantic magazine in 2008, which struck a chord with several groups. Those worrying about Google’s growing hold on our culture felt Carr was justified in going after it (though there was little about the search giant in the article). Those concerned with the…

"The Ignorant Schoolmaster" by Jacques Rancière

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:48:00 -0700

We are all here to speak about the virtue of masters. I wrote a work called The Ignorant Master. Therefore it falls to me to defend on this subject the most apparently unreasonable of positions: the first virtue of the master is that of ignorance. My book tells the history of a professor, Joseph Jacoto, who created a scandal in the Holland and France of the 1830s by proclaiming that uneducated people could learn on their own without a master to explain things to them, and that masters, on their side, could teach the things they themselves did not know.…

Manuel De Landa. Theory of Language. 2009 1/12

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:35:00 -0700