Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points ā including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isnāt the only platform struggling with its algorithm ā YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
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Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups ā 18.8 percentage points ā is the widest itās been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
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Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
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News from 1994
This is from a Tweet. In 1994 Stephen Heppell wrote in something called SCET” “Teachers are fundamental to this. They are professionals of considerable calibre. They are skilled at observing their students’ capability and progressing it. They are creative and imaginative but the curriculum must give them space and opportunity to explore the new potential for learning that technology offers.” Nothing changes!
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Hi Graham,
I really enjoyed taking part in your show for “guerillas in education” š . Sorry for being a DAU ( dümmster anzunehmender User) for not switching off the radio when talking to you – but I also was quite a bit nervous, this being my first time on the radio š
I hope I did not give the impression that MOSEP was a problem for the participants, not at all, we had a great time together struggling with philosophy, technology, material load but working together in this group brought a lot of benefits for all of us and put us “on the move” hopefully.
For anyone intested in the MOSEP project, here is the linK:
http://www.mosep.org/
Graham has contributed valuable content with his videos- one even in German!! Thanx again!
Sigi
Well, it took me quite a while to be able to write a short feedback but life being a new father can be pretty busy!
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you Graham since it has been rather fun and interesting to talk on a live web radio show through a skype phone with rolling waves background. A short update on the Iniziative Giovani experience: through the simple cooperative interface of our forum (www.iniziativegiovani.eu) we were able to train 4 groups of youngsters on how to write an application for the Youth In Action Program and projects have been submitted the first of June. I will let you know if they will be approved. Funny thing is that one group’s idea is the building of a youth web radio. š
Ciao for now.
Jan