January, 2017 | Education Technologies

Why girls are put off studying computer science from @ConversationUK

Despite the phenomenal rise in computing over the last 50 years, the birth of the internet, and our ever increasing reliance on technology, women are still not engaging with computer science at the same rate as men.

This has been outlined in a recent report from the University of Roehampton, which reveals that only 9% of girls schools offer computing at A-level, compared with 44% of boys schools, and 25% of mixed-sex sixth forms and colleges.

The report shows that in 2016 only a minority of schools (29%) entered pupils for GCSE computing – despite it being a foundation subject on the national curriculum. The figure is even lower at A-level, with only 24% of schools entering their students for the qualification.

Things don’t fair any better in further education either, with the Digest of Education statistics revealing the percentage of females who took an undergraduate degree in computer science in 1970-71 was 14%. This rose to 37% in 1983-84 but gradually declined to 18% in 2010-11.

In the current age, these statistics are depressing, especially as being a “computer scientist”, rather than “computer literate”, is becoming increasingly important. And as deep learning, machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence enter common usage, it is useful for all genders to have an appreciation and engagement with these technologies – not just the boys.

Source: Why girls are put off studying computer science

Understanding intellectual property rights in a digital world | @Jisc

Intellectual property law provides tools that can enhance an institution’s ability to capitalise on the value of its expertise and help it exploit innovative opportunities. Having an appreciation of the significance of intellectual property law for further and higher education is essential.

In an increasingly competitive environment where more and more learning content is digital, institutions need to know how to maximise the value of their own assets as well as how to make the best use of resources they licence. They need to be able to share and protect their own intellectual outputs while not infringing the rights of others.

Source: Intellectual property rights in a digital world | Jisc

Setting Up a Raspberry Pi Web Server | Ben Walters – Blog

Ever since it’s introduction early 2012, the Raspberry Pi has proven itself to be an extremely capable little machine. For less than $30, you get a credit card-sized computer capable of automating home systems, powering robots, or even serving as a basic desktop computer.

This tutorial however, focuses specifically on getting your Raspberry Pi set up to run as your very own web server. In addition, we’ll cover how to set up Dynamic DNS records, so you can access your sites/files even when you’re away from your home network without having to remember an always-changing IP address.

“That’s cool and all…but what am I going to do with my own web server?”

Great question! The quick answer is: Whatever you want! To be more specific, you can:

Set up your own, private Dropbox-style cloud storage for your personal files/videos/images

Create a site that interfaces with your home security cameras and check them remotely

Host your own low-traffic webpages

Etc.

Beyond the web server-specific functions, a Pi with dynamic DNS set up can be used to:

Host your own Minecraft server (tutorial)

Run your own Git server (tutorial)

And much more!

Disclaimer: The Raspberry Pi is great as a lightweight web server for personal use and experimenting. However, if you are interested in hosting a heavily trafficked site like a blog, I’d highly recommend hosting your content on a third-party web host. In addition, most ISP‘s aren’t particularly interested in letting their customers host their own web servers, and a self-hosted web server with a lot of external requests can raise some flags and even slow down your home network connection.

With all that out of the way, let’s get started!

Source: Ben Walters – Blog

The Feynman Technique Helps You Study Faster and Retain More Information via @lifehacker

You can read something and hope that it’ll all be beamed into your brain for future application. Or you can read it and write down what you just learned, as if you were teaching someone else, and actually retain it. This is called the Feynman Technique.

In other words, implement a more “active” way of learning, which obviously takes a lot more work than it sounds. Ideally, when you write down your learnings, you’d also repeat what you wrote aloud, like a teacher instructing a class. With this method, you discover all the areas that need improvement and can go back to focus on those weak points. Repeat this until you can explain the topic or idea in full and simple details. “Once you can explain an idea in simple language, you have deeply understood it, and will remember it for a long time,” the video explains.

Source: The Feynman Technique Helps You Study Faster and Retain More Information

The broken edtech ecosystem investors once avoided is changing | @TechCrunch

Is it worth creating your own education technology software?

Is there a market and, if there is, can they afford to pay you?

“Don’t go into education technology, no one makes any money,” was the advice I once got from an early founder of an edtech startup that failed.

It used to be an all too common sentiment that once deterred many prospective investors from backing some of the most promising edtech ventures conceived.

Previously considered risky investments, it’s true that many edtech startups — commonly founded by “teacherpreneurs” hell-bent on mending the broken social and cultural framework of education through tech innovation — either tank or fail to achieve true scale.Why is this the case, when basic reasoning leads us to believe there is no other professional better placed to address the issues facing education than an actual teacher?

The broken ecosystem of selling to schools educational software rather than the actual technology is what often consigns many edtech ventures to the dustbin.

Of the few teacher-entrepreneurs who do succeed in the startup world to become true scale-up businesses, these mold-breakers are developing solutions to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in education — challenges that are leading many of the industry’s talent to leave the profession completely and a disproportionate number of children to underachieve.

In a digitized world where tech innovation has revolutionized nearly every corner of our life, the negligible impact it has made in our classrooms is woeful.

Source: The broken edtech ecosystem investors once avoided is changing | TechCrunch

Watch Footage from the Psychology Experiment That Shocked the World: Milgram’s Obedience Study (1961) | @OpenCulture

Any student wondering why ethics compliance is so strict need only look at one of the most infamous experiments ever undertaken to understand where the issues might arise.

For decades following World War II, the world was left wondering how the atrocities of the Holocaust could have been perpetrated in the midst of—and, most horrifically, by—a modern and civilized society. How did people come to engage in a willing and systematic extermination of their neighbors? Psychologists, whose field had grown into a grudgingly respected science by the midpoint of the 20th century, were eager to tackle the question.

In 1961, Yale University’s Stanley Milgram began a series of infamous obedience experiments. While Adolf Eichmann’s trial was underway in Jerusalem (resulting in Hannah Arendt’s five-piece reportage, which became one of The New Yorker magazine’s most dramatic and controversial article series), Milgram began to suspect that human nature was more straightforward than earlier theorists had imagined; he wondered, as he later wrote, “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”

Source: Watch Footage from the Psychology Experiment That Shocked the World: Milgram’s Obedience Study (1961) | Open Culture

Free ebook supplement: Microsoft System Center DPM VMware Private Cloud Protection – @MicrosoftPress blog

English: M in blue square (similar to seen on ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager has a new feature that provides protection for Virtual Machines running on the VMware platform. Learn about this feature in the following supplemental chapter for the free ebook Microsoft System Center Data Protection for the Hybrid Cloud. Download the ebook here.

Source: Free ebook supplement: Microsoft System Center DPM VMware Private Cloud Protection – Microsoft Press blog

Transforming assessment and feedback with technology | @Jisc

JISC has created a new guide that provides ideas and resources to help colleges and universities enhance the entire assessment and feedback lifecycle.

This guide has been designed to help you make better use of technology to manage the assessment and feedback process. It will help you improve academic practice and the business process that support this.

Throughout the guide we use the term electronic management of assessment (EMA) frequently. This describes the way technology can support the management of the entire life cycle of assessment and feedback activity, including the electronic submission of assignments, marking, feedback and the return of mark

Source: Transforming assessment and feedback with technology | Jisc