The debate goes on. Here is the latest discussion organised by the OECD. On February 1 from 1600 to 1700 CET. Go here to register. “What do we know about the impact of AI on the labour market? Will it further automate jobs and, if so, which ones? Will it improve job quality, or worsen […]
Read morePontydysgu are happy to have signed the Open Covid Pledge for Research in Education. Th pledge says” We pledge to make our intellectual property openly and freely available to the world to support educators, students and decision-makers, to help educational organisations survive and thrive, and to build a fairer and more resilient education system. We […]
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I stumbled on Sean’s blog from a tweet. And it was well worth it. Sean says: “We may want to respond to the pandemic, to the pivot online, by waiting it out, by filling in the gaps, by making do; but we must respond by taking a close look at what has happened, revising our approaches to education—even our epistemological beliefs—and letting a generosity of imagination be our modus operandi.”
Welcome to CiCi. CiCi is a chatbot for careers information developed by a consortium between DH Hughes Associates and Pontydysgu. The chatbot, now being further developed by a new organisation CareerChat, was developed as part of the Nesta CareerTech Challenge competition. This video forms part of the final report for teh competition.
I’ve had a few queries lately about whether Pontydysgu can still take part in European projects. With regard to Erasmus Plus I’m afraid the answer for Pontydysgu UK is no. It seems that the UK were invited to continue as part of Erasmus plus on the same basis as Norway paying into the project funding. […]
LinkedIn is the most boring but probably most useful social network I belong to. I can’ say though I am very interested in spending a lot of time embellishing my professional profile. And I guess its the same for a lot of other people. I guess thats why LinkedIn has developed an algorithm which they […]
One of the results of the rapid deployment of Artificial Intelligence is an increased focus on the relation between humans and machines. The Economist has published a podcast of an interview with Nobel prize-winning author asking about what his new book “Klara and the Sun” reveals about people’s relationship with machines. They say “he argues […]
I was invited to make a presentation earlier this week to the European Union Horizon 2020 HECAT project exploring the use of algorithms within public employment systems. Waterford (Ireland) Institute of Technology is coordinating the project and according to the WaterfordLive web site “HECAT is a sociologically and anthropologically led project to make data trapped […]
Herzliche Einladung zur Fachtagung „Digitalisierung als Herausforderung und Chance – neue Ansätze der Lernortkooperation (LoK) für die duale Ausbildung“ am 08.12.2021 von 10.00 bis 16.00 Uhr, virtuell / digital. Die Fachtagung wird im Rahmen des Projekts „Bedingungen ge-lingender Lernortkooperationen im Kontext der Digitalisierung in der beruflichen Bildung (LoK-DiBB)“, gefördert im Rahmen der Förderrichtlinie „Digitalisierung in […]
Some time ago it has crossed my mind that i should write some lines on my cooperation with Graham Attwell. Indeed, I have already written a blog post on my 25 years’ journey with European cooperation project and how that journey was continued when I was employed by our research insitute ITB. However, that post […]
Earlier this month I received the sad news from Thessaloniki, Greece. Stavros Stavrou, the former Deputy Director of Cedefop (European Centre for Development of Vocational Training) had passed away. Many years have passed since we worked together in Cedefop, but the memories are still there. We learned to know each other during the difficult period […]
During the last few years most of my blog posts have dealt with my contributions to the EU-funded project TACCLE4 CPD. As I have told it several times, the project has developed models and resources to support continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers and trainers with focus on promoting their digital competences. In this respect […]
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
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 – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – 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.
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 – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s 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.
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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We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.