Autonomous Weapons Are Here, but the World Isn’t Ready for Them — from wired.com by Will Knight
A UN report says a drone, operating without human control, attacked people in Libya. International efforts to restrict such weapons have so far failed.

This may be remembered as the year when the world learned that lethal autonomous weapons had moved from a futuristic worry to a battlefield reality. It’s also the year when policymakers failed to agree on what to do about it.

On Friday, 120 countries participating in the United Nations’ Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons could not agree on whether to limit the development or use of lethal autonomous weapons. Instead, they pledged to continue and “intensify” discussions.

 

 

See the Appvent calendar from ICT Evangelist

Excerpt from this posting:

Welcome to day 21 of the 2021 Appvent Calendar. It’s been so much fun sharing all of these amazing tools each day across the month so far. With Google featuring twice already on the calendar, it’s great to share again the awe and wonder of human history in the arts and within our cultures with the sharing of this amazing free app. Thanks to Gustavo Calderón De Anda for suggesting it!

Also see:

  • 14 measurement apps for teaching math & science — from teachthought and Glenda Stewart-Smith
    Glenda Stewart-Smith of Surrey School District #36 in Canada, along with TeachThought staff, helped put together this collection of iPhone and iPad apps that offer all of these measuring abilities and more.
 

Top Resources For Students To Discover Real World Problems and Issues

Top Resources For Students To Discover Real World Problems & Issues — from edtechreview.in by Saniya Khan

Are you looking for ways to help students learn about world issues: climate change, cultural diversity, biodiversity, education, water crisis, [homelessness] and more to build awareness about global issues and develop global competence?

 

4 unexpected places where adults can learn science — from innotechtoday.com by Jill Zarestky

Excerpt:

Modern society benefits when people understand science concepts. This knowledge helps explain how cryptocurrency works, why climate change is happening, or how the coronavirus is transmitted from person to person.

Yet the average American spends less than 5% of their lifetime in classrooms learning about such topics. So, besides school, where else can people go to study and explore science?

Museums, zoos, and libraries are certainly a great start. As a researcher of adult STEM education, I study less conventional ways for people of all ages to learn and participate in science.

Here are four alternative venues where the general public can enjoy nature, engage in hands-on science learning and get a behind-the-scenes look at scientific research in action.

 

 
 

50 Sites & Apps for K-12 Education Games — from techlearning.com by Diana Restifo and David Kapuler
Game-based learning is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom while engaging kids with real learning.

Excerpt:

Game-based learning turns potentially tedious study time into an adventurous knowledge quest, complete with catchy soundtracks and digital rewards. It helps keep kids engaged with the subject matter and motivated to pursue greater expertise. Best of all, web- or app-based gameplay integrates easily into both online and in-person classes.

With the demise of Flash at the end of 2020, many favorite educational game sites went under. That’s why we decided to update our popular list below to include the latest and best sites and apps for K-12 education games. Many are free (or offer free basic accounts) and some provide progress tracking and analysis tools for teachers. All will help kids enjoy learning.

Also relevant/see the following resource and excerpt from Goldie Blumenstyk’s The Edge (from the Chronicle of Higher Education)

Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways — by Sarah Stein Greenberg

Excerpt:

Greenberg also makes a compelling case for the “playful and joyous” approaches the d.school has been championing, like the secret handshake or building several prototypes of an ideal chair using tools like cardboard, pipe cleaners, and chewing gum and toothpicks. After so many months of loss and social deprivation, she told me last week, “those elements are more important than ever.”

 

Sites and apps to enjoy with your kids — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan

Check out Jeremy’s list of sites and apps to review with your kids re:

  • Making music delightful
  • Bringing joy to science, math, and coding
  • Other fantastic resources for kids and families
 

Resources from “The Science of Learning” — from deansforimpact.org

Excerpt:

The Science of Learning summarizes existing cognitive-science research on how students learn, and connects it to practical implications for teaching. The report is a resource for teacher-educators, new teachers, and anyone in the education profession who is interested in how learning takes place.

Deans for Impact believes all teacher-candidates should know the cognitive-science principles explored in The Science of Learning. And all educators, including new teachers, should be able to connect those principles to their practical implications for the classroom.

One of those resources is:

Also see:Learning by Scientific Design -- a report from Deans for Impact

The use of regular quizzes is extremely effective in committing something to long-term memory


There are six major takeaways from our first administration of our Learning by Scientific Design assessment:

  1. In general, future teachers are unfamiliar with basic principles of learning science – and they struggle to connect these principles to practice.
  2. Encouragingly, future teachers recognize the critical role that background knowledge plays in learning.
  3. Future teachers struggle to identify effective forms of practice – and they appear to conflate student engagement with learning.
  4. For the most part, teacher-candidates hold beliefs about teaching and learning that align to principles of learning science –- but there are clear areas for improvement.
  5. Teacher-candidate understanding of learning science does not vary based on key categories we might expect.
  6. Teacher-educators in the LbSD Network do better at identifying learning-science principles in practice than just the principles in the abstract.

 

Artificial Intelligence: Should You Teach It To Your Employees?— from forbes.com by Tom Taulli

Excerpt:

“If more people are AI literate and can start to participate and contribute to the process, more problems–both big and small–across the organization can be tackled,” said David Sweenor, who is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Alteryx. “We call this the ‘Democratization of AI and Analytics.’ A team of 100, 1,000, or 5,000 working on different problems in their areas of expertise certainly will have a bigger impact than if left in the hands of a few.”

New Artificial Intelligence Tool Accelerates Discovery of Truly New Materials — from scitechdaily.com
The new artificial intelligence tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials.

Excerpt:

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have created a collaborative artificial intelligence tool that reduces the time and effort required to discover truly new materials.

AI development must be guided by ethics, human wellbeing and responsible innovation — from healthcareitnews.com by Bill Siwicki
An expert in emerging technology from the IEEE Standards Association describes the elements that must be considered as artificial intelligence proliferates across healthcare.

 

Better Questions in the Classroom Lead Students to Think Harder—and Learn Deeper — from edsurge.com by Staci Bradbury and Rebekah Berlin

Excerpt:

The takeaway here is that teachers should ask questions and design tasks that require students to engage in effortful thinking. This “teacher action,” as we like to call it, is one of the ways in which Deans for Impact has operationalized the vast body of research about how people learn in a way that teachers can use.

Also see:

Before providing evidence to support that claim, a quick recap of our organizational journey. Two years ago, we launched the Learning by Scientific Design (LbSD) Network to begin the vital—albeit challenging—work of redesigning how teachers are prepared. This effort is informed by principles of learning science and taking place in what is now a network of 10 educator-preparation programs across the country. More than 70 faculty are working with us to change the arc of experiences that teacher-candidates receive as they prepare to become teachers.

 
 

Curiosity Stream Is the Streaming Service Tailored for People Who Love To Learn — from
And for less than $20 a year, Curiosity Stream offers something for everyone.

Curiosity Stream, a streaming service that’s committed to educational, informative content that enlightens as it entertains.

curiosity stream

Excerpt:

Once upon a time, channels like Discovery and The Learning Channel sought to enlighten their viewers about the world around them with documentaries and other educational programing. But today, there are fewer and fewer channels committed to this goal, and watered-down “reality television” reigns supreme. It seems the golden age of basic cable television is gone all but gone. Luckily, there’s Curiosity Stream, a streaming service that’s committed to educational, informative content that enlightens as it entertains.


 

Per Elnaz Sarraf (She/Her), Chief Evangelist at ROYBI Robot:

ROYBI INC, the creator of the award-winning ROYBI Robot, announced today that it was named the winner of the World Economic Forum Smart Toy Awards 2021 in the category of Smart Companion. This is a remarkable achievement!

ROYBI won one of the Smart Toy Awards as presented by the World Economic Forum

The category winner had to meet four important criteria:

  1. Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
  2. Accessibility
  3. Innovative Use of AI Transparency
  4. Healthy Play in Childhood Development.

According to the World Economic Forum representative, Seth Bergeson, our ROYBI Robot met and exceeded these important criteria. ROYBI’s award acceptance ceremony can be watched here.


Also see:

ROYBI provides a sophisticated 1-on-1 private tutoring experience using artificial intelligence. ROYBI Robot introduces kids to technology, math, science, and language arts.

 

20 Best Websites to Help Kids Learn From Home in 2021 — from wizcase.com by Julia Olech

Excerpt:

That’s why I rounded up a list of the 20 best free websites that provide engaging and fun learning experiences for you and your children. I made sure each website caters to a wide range of ages with games and interactive lessons that won’t bore even the most fidgety kids. The best part is that you can use them all at no cost!

 

 

This is an abstract picture of a person's head made of connections peering sideways -- it links to Artificial intelligence and the future of national security from ASU

Artificial intelligence and the future of national security — from news.asu.edu

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is a “world-altering” technology that represents “the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity and enriching the human experience” and will be a source of enormous power for the companies and countries that harness them, according to the recently released Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

This is not hyperbole or a fantastical version of AI’s potential impact. This is the assessment of a group of leading technologists and national security professionals charged with offering recommendations to Congress on how to ensure American leadership in AI for national security and defense. Concerningly, the group concluded that the U.S. is not currently prepared to defend American interests or compete in the era of AI.

Also see:

EU Set to Ban Surveillance, Start Fines Under New AI Rules — from bloomberg.com by Natalia Drozdiak

Excerpt:

The European Union is poised to ban artificial intelligence systems used for mass surveillance or for ranking social behavior, while companies developing AI could face fines as high as 4% of global revenue if they fail to comply with new rules governing the software applications.

Also see:

Wrongfully arrested man sues Detroit police over false facial recognition match — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
The case could fuel criticism of police investigators’ use of a controversial technology that has been shown to perform worse on people of color

Excerpts:

A Michigan man has sued Detroit police after he was wrongfully arrested and falsely identified as a shoplifting suspect by the department’s facial recognition software in one of the first lawsuits of its kind to call into question the controversial technology’s risk of throwing innocent people in jail.

Robert Williams, a 43-year-old father in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, was arrested last year on charges he’d taken watches from a Shinola store after police investigators used a facial recognition search of the store’s surveillance-camera footage that identified him as the thief.

Prosecutors dropped the case less than two weeks later, arguing that officers had relied on insufficient evidence. Police Chief James Craig later apologized for what he called “shoddy” investigative work. Williams, who said he had been driving home from work when the 2018 theft had occurred, was interrogated by detectives and held in custody for 30 hours before his release.

Williams’s attorneys did not make him available for comment Tuesday. But Williams wrote in The Washington Post last year that the episode had left him deeply shaken, in part because his young daughters had watched him get handcuffed in his driveway and put into a police car after returning home from work.

“How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” he wrote. “As any other black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly — even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

Addendum on 4/20/21:

 
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