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WELCOME TO THE WEIRD Wide Web – where we take a look at the week’s best offerings in tech and social media news.
(Image: Jawbone.com)
Jawbone's UP fitness-tracking wristband has made a comeback after an embarrassing first launch last year after which it had to be withdrawn over reliablilty problems, Telegraph reports. Creaters started fresh with a new design and the gadget works as a pedmoeter, monitors your sleep and even acts as an alarm which you can set through the app.
(Image: BikeSpike/Kickstarter)
Have you experienced the frustration and helplessness of a stolen bike? The BikeSpike is a simple way to prevent it from happening again. You attach a small tracking device to your bike which is linked to an app. If it's stolen you can trace its whereabouts and nail those suckers.
(BikeSpike/Vimeo)
(Image: VanderbiltUniversity/YouTube)
This humanoid robot helps to train children with autism in coordinating their attention with other people and objects in their environment. Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt University Nilanjan Sakar said that if children are" more interested in the robot than in human therapies then the robot might be able to use this engagement to some benefit". Research findings indicate that the robot could place a key role in responding to the growth in the number of people being diagnosed with autism.
Toshiba Research and Cambridge University have designed this slightly unsettling digital talking head which can express human emotions on demand. Gizmodo reports that the creators had an actress read over 7,000 different simple sentences, in different emotions while tracking facial expressions to create the avatar dubbed 'Zoe'.
(CambridgeUniversity/YouTube)
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Maybe the children should be taught That there was no famine and the country was exporting food at the time . Call it was it really was Genocide !
History should be put in a context that young people understand . If they added genealogy to part of the curriculum they could see that what happened did not not happen to strangers but to members of their own families. Then history would become more relevant to them .
@Mary Mc Carthy: A small family genealogy module would probably be a really fun and engaging activity for kids. It feels like if it’s getting special status then history should try to cover Ireland’s entire history in a broader sense and not get into the weeds too much on topics.
@Edmund Murphy: see Car Thompson’s post below for what is wrong with what you said.
Analysis of evidence and weighing up competing explanations is the nub of it.
The absence/inclusion of certain content at JC can be criticized, but the real issue is the lack of skills development. The current JC exam assesses factual knowledge more than anything else. Historians don’t just learn facts and slap them down on paper, they analyze and develop arguments in response to questions. Apart from the document analysis, which is only one section, the exam
rewards student who retain knowledge well which is more so a memory test than anything else… hopefully the CBAs will address this!
@Carl Thompson: Well said.
@Carl Thompson: indeed well said but the issue there lies less with the way things are taught and more to do with the structure of the exam.
As far as the dept is concerned, there has to be a way to test how much knowledge the student has in their head, and so we end with a rote learning system.
It certainly kills much of the creativity, for all its ‘efficiency.’
The author should be asked for their input into a new curriculum.
@Carl Thompson: That’s the old Junior Cert. This year’s Third Years are the last to do it. While there is not that much info on the exam for the new Junior Cyle, the projects, the CBAs, in second and third year will teach the students more skills and they will learn to research local history. The exam will probably be generic questions that the students twist their knowledge to suit, another skill in itself. Anyway who knows? The lack of information and the bloated size of the curriculum is still typical of the department. There is movement towards research and presentation, but also movement towards dumbing down.
@TheHeathen: CBAs are unlikely to teach students how to research properly though. Most will type their question into google and use the first couple of pages to write their CBA.
@Carl Thompson: 13-15yr olds should be learning facts, chronology, concepts, cause and effect etc. Skills like analysis of sources, marshalling facts to argue a point, critical thinking, research etc can only be developed once you have a secure knowledge base and a broad understanding of the sweep of history. If you don’t teach students factual knowledge at that age most are not likely to seek it out later you and you end up with students who have no historical knowledge and therefore no understanding of history at all and you can’t have a fully functioning democracy when a large chunk of the population have no knowledge of the past.
@Damon16: I disagree, skills and knowledge go hand in hand. You talk about students with ‘no understanding of history’… simply being able to list Martin Luther did during the Reformation isn’t real knowledge (which will get you full marks in the JC ‘essays’). 12-15 year olds are fully capable of critical thinking and analysis if taught properly.
I think there’s no harm in learning facts as I did, sometimes reluctantly, in school. I emerged with a naïve view but, as I matured and things happened, I started seeing connections and developed balanced views. You can’t teach children maturity but you can show them broad patterns, basic chronology which they can develop as they grow. In fact, in the UK, there’s been an emphasis on WW2 whereas no one can really properly understand it without a grounding in 19th century history at least.
Time is a problem in school, trying to fit in every worthy activity is impossible. I think I gained immensely from doing Latin and wonder if everyone should do Art and Home Economics for their mental and practical welfare. Conversely I question Maths being compulsory after a certain age – I say that as a retired Maths/Science teacher
The other major blind spot is the National Museum of Ireland has no exhibition to An Gorta Mor in Collins Barracks suppression by omission this is the greatest cover up in Irish and British history since the States foundation.
32 governments, 9 Presidents and 14 Taoiseach’s.
Well done.
A very good article.
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