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The Algorithmic Future of Education

from Diigo http://ift.tt/1jX3BNt
via IFTTT

This article highlights the problems encountered with teaching methodology based on technological instrumentalism.

It also draws attention to the marketisation of education and how much money is now being spent in venture capital investment in education.

Another aspect it looks at is how a utopian view of technology, like students being able to have their own private tutor in a machine, overlooks the human/emotional side that is so strongly accompanies real student-teacher interaction.

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How algorithms shape our world

We live in a world run by algorithms, computer programs that make decisions or solve problems for us. In this riveting, funny talk, Kevin Slavin shows how modern algorithms determine stock prices, espionage tactics, even the movies you watch. But, he asks: If we depend on complex algorithms to manage our daily decisions — when do we start to lose control?

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I thought this TED talk was interesting as Slavin indicates that the way humans and algorithms interact is an ‘ecosystem’, a complex interconnected system when one facet cannot survive in the same way without the others. This supports the idea that ‘spaces…cannot be entirely controlled by teachers, students, or the authors of the software’ Knox (2014).

References

Knox, J. K. (2014). Active algorithms: sociomaterial spaces in the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC. Campus Virtuales, 3(1): 42-55.

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Pinned to Technology on Pinterest

Just Pinned to Technology: What are algorithms? (Infographic): http://ift.tt/1XjFBFc http://ift.tt/2mWSfPw
I’m trying to understand how algorithms work, how they came into existence and how they will be relevant to the future of education.

I thought I would pin an item from Pinterest into my feed because while browsing for my content there were quite a few articles from users who were very unhappy about the algorithmic changes Pinterest made to the way pinners interact with their audience and other pinners.

Below is an article that talks about how you can outsmart the Pinterest algorithm.

Another blog on how Pinterest algorithm changes and how they affect users.

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Diigo: Community participation and its relationship to Community Development

ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to define the relationship between community participation and community development. The paper illustrates the weakness of existing interpretations, arguing that they are flawed because they concentrate on the failings of community development without analysing why successful community development succeeds. The paper concludes that community development is actually a specific form of community participation, the success of which is determined by two key factors: firstly, the role of the state; and secondly, the complexity of the decision-making taking place at the core of the community participation process.

http://ift.tt/2lhhYS9

As I reflected this week, I wanted to find out more about what we mean by ‘community’. Is community a group of people grouped together by a commonality, like race, religion or ethnicity? Or ido individuals involved have to have some kind of shared value system or interest? What makes a community? Are those engaged within it responsible for community development or should it grow organically? This paper did quite answer all those questions but it added to my thinking on the subject.