By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Gavagai and TZQQA
Mark Liberman, Language Log, 2017/02/07
I thought this was a fun post. Quine's thesis on the indeterminacy of translation is that in the case of a radical translation - that is, a translation of a completely unfamiliar language - we don't have sufficient evidence to be certain of the meaning of any specific word - 'gavagai', say - in the other language. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Algorithms and insults: Scaling up our understanding of harassment on Wikipedia
Ellery Wulczyn, Dario Taraborelli, Nithum Thain, Lucas Dixon, WikiMedia Foundation, 2017/02/07
I've seen this type of result before, but it's worth reiterating. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. An Ethics Primer
Stephen Downes, Feb 04, 2017.
Many readers will find this section unnecessary, but for many others the range and variety of ethical theories extant may be new to them. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Graham Brown-Martin
Graham Brown-Martin, Learning {Re}imagined, 2017/02/03
I'm generally sympathetic with the aims of this post but I can't get past his use of corporate logos and branding (specifically, the whole Star Wars motif) to animate his call. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Is It OK to Punch Nazis? Here’s What Philosophers (Including Slavoj Žižek) and Ethicists Have to Say
Dan Colman, Open Culture, 2017/02/03
I'm happy to say that the philosophers are lining up on the correct side of this discussion. "No, you do not get to punch people even though they’re ideologically despicable." More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. HEBOCON World Championship 2016
YouTube, 2017/02/03
As usual, the essence of understanding technology can be found in understanding what makes for bad technology. "Hebocon is a robot contest for the technically ungifted. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Call for Diversity in Ed Tech Design
Jade E. Davis, DML Central, 2017/02/03
Part of the problem with e-learning technology is that it is designed with the wrong consumer in mind. Designers picture the typical online student as a stereotypical college student with deep pockets attending a traditional midwestern university studying the liberal arts More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Is ‘fake news’ a fake problem?
Jacob L. Nelson, Columbia Journalism Review, 2017/02/01
Not to keep harping on this, but I wonder whether the failure of traditional news to come to terms with fake news is a failure to understand what fake news is. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The University and Student Learning: A System in Conflict?
Janet Adkins, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 2017/02/01
According to this article, the globalization of the education system "creates tepid universities all doing the same thing and producing similar results." This results from the primacy of the market-driven economic model at the core of globalization, which eliminates specialization and favours standardization and commodification. More...
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Inspirational teaching in higher education: What does it look, sound and feel like?
James G. Derounian, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching, Learning, 2017/02/01
In a paper tht could have used a good edit James G. Derounian identifies factors associated with inspirational teaching in the literature and then validates the findings through a study of actual practice. More...
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