Tuesday Open Thread
Looks like someone's trying to revive the reviled Inbloom (the $100M public education data cloud that Gates created) by making a kinder, gentler one. I, along with some other student data privacy advocates, see this as much less threatening than InBloom but I would have to see all the particulars before I could say it was okay. From Washington Monthly:
Koedinger launched LearnSphere earlier this year with the hope of making it easier and faster for researchers to analyze big datasets — mostly student keyboard clicks — in order to test educational theories and boost learning outcomes from elementary school to college.
“In some ways, it’s a deep philosophical difference,” Koedinger said. “We are not looking that much at collecting demographic data and certainly not any kind of record information. Those are the things that tend to be particularly sensitive.”
No student names, no addresses, no zip codes, no social security numbers, he says. No race, family income or special education designations. “The student identifier column, even if yours is already anonymized, we re-anonymize it automatically,” he added.
Unlike inBloom, which wanted public school districts to use its servers to store student information, Koedinger has no plans to store school records and doesn’t anticipate that school officials will upload anything to his virtual warehouse of data. Instead, he wants education researchers and software developers to upload their data. Those who want to share data can upload it to one of the sites that LearnSphere is managing, or they can keep it on their own server and control who gets access to it. The goal is to build something called a “distributed infrastructure,” which allows researchers access to data on someone else’s computer.
I happened to drive past the Wilson-Pacific site the other day. Every building is down save one. It's pretty interesting seeing them dig up all around the remaining three houses on the block including Licton Springs. And, it appears Capital Projects has put up a solar panel structure at one corner of site, presumably for electricity use. Good for them.
You may have heard the news story about two 14-year old boys who are missing after their parents gave them permission to take a 19-foot boat out into the Atlantic ocean to fish. Their overturned boat has been found but no sign of the boys. It is unlikely the boys, as experienced fishermen and boaters, would have been wearing their lifejackets. The hope is that they were able to realize the danger and to have put them on and are floating around somewhere.
One question (from the Washington Post via the Today show) burning up social media:
Why were the teenagers, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, allowed to take a 19-foot, single-engine boat onto the Atlantic Ocean without adult supervision in the first place?
Naturally, this is the kind of accident could have happened to adults who are experts as well. But here's what former Coast Guard safety expert who now does rescues and investigates accidents had to say:
He said teenagers can spend years on the water and still be emotionally and mentally unprepared to deal with emergency situations. Asked whether teenagers should be allowed to go boating offshore without supervision, he said parents should consider the question very carefully.
“I would rephrase the question,” he told The Post on Monday. “They should ask: Should I send a teenager who has no experience with crisis out into the largest wilderness in the world, completely surrounded on all sides by something that will kill them if they get in it?
“Then the answer becomes obvious: No.”
Do you struggle with giving your teens the chance to explore and test their abilities to react to new situations?
What's on your mind?
Koedinger launched LearnSphere earlier this year with the hope of making it easier and faster for researchers to analyze big datasets — mostly student keyboard clicks — in order to test educational theories and boost learning outcomes from elementary school to college.
“In some ways, it’s a deep philosophical difference,” Koedinger said. “We are not looking that much at collecting demographic data and certainly not any kind of record information. Those are the things that tend to be particularly sensitive.”
No student names, no addresses, no zip codes, no social security numbers, he says. No race, family income or special education designations. “The student identifier column, even if yours is already anonymized, we re-anonymize it automatically,” he added.
Unlike inBloom, which wanted public school districts to use its servers to store student information, Koedinger has no plans to store school records and doesn’t anticipate that school officials will upload anything to his virtual warehouse of data. Instead, he wants education researchers and software developers to upload their data. Those who want to share data can upload it to one of the sites that LearnSphere is managing, or they can keep it on their own server and control who gets access to it. The goal is to build something called a “distributed infrastructure,” which allows researchers access to data on someone else’s computer.
I happened to drive past the Wilson-Pacific site the other day. Every building is down save one. It's pretty interesting seeing them dig up all around the remaining three houses on the block including Licton Springs. And, it appears Capital Projects has put up a solar panel structure at one corner of site, presumably for electricity use. Good for them.
You may have heard the news story about two 14-year old boys who are missing after their parents gave them permission to take a 19-foot boat out into the Atlantic ocean to fish. Their overturned boat has been found but no sign of the boys. It is unlikely the boys, as experienced fishermen and boaters, would have been wearing their lifejackets. The hope is that they were able to realize the danger and to have put them on and are floating around somewhere.
One question (from the Washington Post via the Today show) burning up social media:
Why were the teenagers, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, allowed to take a 19-foot, single-engine boat onto the Atlantic Ocean without adult supervision in the first place?
Naturally, this is the kind of accident could have happened to adults who are experts as well. But here's what former Coast Guard safety expert who now does rescues and investigates accidents had to say:
He said teenagers can spend years on the water and still be emotionally and mentally unprepared to deal with emergency situations. Asked whether teenagers should be allowed to go boating offshore without supervision, he said parents should consider the question very carefully.
“I would rephrase the question,” he told The Post on Monday. “They should ask: Should I send a teenager who has no experience with crisis out into the largest wilderness in the world, completely surrounded on all sides by something that will kill them if they get in it?
“Then the answer becomes obvious: No.”
Do you struggle with giving your teens the chance to explore and test their abilities to react to new situations?
What's on your mind?
Comments
Part of the online learning cash bonanza for vendors.
Tic toc
OPSI
Tic toc
--Waiting/Wondering
And in your opinion, will teachers find the data useful?
--waiting/wondering
Waiting, Wondering, I would hope the results would be released at the same time for teachers and parents.
I cannot know for certain what teachers will think but it's a new test, entirely taken on computers (some of them computers new to the school or iPads) and some of the test may not have been covered in class.
To me, you really can't judge for at least three years. But I'm not a teacher.
open ears
SPS parent
A local
And in your opinion, will teachers find the data useful?
As a math teacher, I have never found any data I have gotten on these state sponsored high stakes exams of any use. They don't tell me anything that I did not already know about my students. I'm their teacher, I already know who knows how to solve a quadratic and who does not, for example.
The MSP while a better test is exactly as Mike Rice says... you don't learn much about your students.
Districts are flushing away $$$$ on testing, because the testing does not help teachers teach.
Teachers have had pointlessly increased workloads. Lots of busy work that does ZERO to improve instruction.
I actually learned more about my students from ITBS than the expensive new stuff.
Iowa Test of Basic Skills. ... The supposed measuring of conceptual understanding via standardized testing is a scam.
Groups That Back Bloomberg’s Education Agenda Enjoy Success in Albany
Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been out of office for a year and a half, but his influence over New York schools is practically as strong as ever.
A group devoted to continuing his education agenda and founded in part by his longtime schools chancellor, has become one of the most powerful forces in Albany by pouring millions into lobbying and adroitly exploiting rivalries in state politics.
The organization, StudentsFirstNY, and another group with a similar focus called Families for Excellent Schools have formed a counterweight to teachers’ unions, long among the top spenders in the state capital. This year alone, the groups saw major elements of their platforms come to pass, such as tying teacher evaluations more closely to test scores, adding hurdles to earning tenure and increasing the number of charter schools, measures all unpopular with the unions.
..... The groups have delivered a drumbeat of attacks on Mr. de Blasio’s education policies, in television advertisements, rallies where parents upbraid the mayor for not confronting what they call an education crisis, and weekly, or at times daily, emails to reporters. Amid this onslaught, Mr. Cuomo and the Senate delivered a rebuke to the mayor this year by agreeing to only a one-year extension of mayoral control of city schools. (By contrast, Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent, was initially given control for seven years, then received a renewal for six.)
For the MONEY, yo! (From Key and Peele; seriously, This is hilarious.
open ears
https://www.facebook.com/joe.wolf.988/posts/10205752342822459?pnref=story
Longtime Lurker
I live only a couple of blocks from Licton Springs, and it is amazing watching the care put into keeping those paintings safe. Kudos to everyone involved.
I just wonder if they're carpeting Seattle, or if my household is somehow special.
Any thoughts on what to ask him?
Pete
CT
Ready Washington Coalition
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Partnership for Learning
Stand for Children Washington
Washington STEM
Excellent Schools Now
Washington State PTA
Council of Presidents
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
Department of Early Learning
League of Education Voters
ReadyNation
Democrats for Education Reform
Puget Sound Educational Service District
Office of Education Ombudsman
State Board of Education
The Parents Union
College Spark Washington
Schools Out Washington
Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession
Washington Association of School Administrators
Washington Student Achievement Council
Washington State School Directors Association
Association of Washington School Principals
Washington Roundtable
Renton Technical College
Reykdal stood-up, in the midst of loosing federal waiver/flexibility, and led the effort not to link test scores to teacher evaluations, and I believe he is a teacher. He works against charter schools and mayoral control of public education.
2000 students were at risk of not graduating because they did not pass the biology EOC. Reykdal proposed a bill to eliminate biology EOC as a graduation requirement, but his bill would have further embedded SBAC- not good. I want to hear Reykdal talk about the need to de-link from one of two testing monopolies. Will he? Reykdal is one of our strongest allies in Olympia, but I did become concerned when I saw an old campaign contribution from Stand for Children aka Stand on Children. Now that Reykdal is running for OSPI....I can only hope his need for campaign funding doesn't impact his decision making processes.
Not so quick, mirimac. I found this in the Herald:
"Those dollars will go into a new Puget Sound taxpayer accountability account. They will be doled out to Snohomish, King and Pierce counties to distribute “for educational services to improve educational outcomes” in early learning, elementary and secondary schools...."
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20150730/NEWS01/150739932
Why do I think "improve educational outcomes" relates to charter schools? Why didn't they say "provide buildings for increased capacity". I am also thinking of the HALA report related to placing charter schools in low income areas. Any chance Ed Murray is working with Olympia on this little project.
Oldhill