Last year, researchers at Oxford University found that 70 countries had political disinformation campaigns over two years.
Perhaps the most notable of such campaigns was that initiated by a Russian propaganda group to influence the 2016 US election result.
he US Federal Communications Commission hosted a period in 2017 where the public could comment on its plans to repeal net neutrality. Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Bruce Schneier notes that while the agency received 22 million comments, many of them were made by fake identities.
Schneier argues that the escalating prevalence of computer-generated personas could “starve” people of democracy
Vietnam‘s cyber-army, also known as Force 47, was deployed to counter the content on social media platforms deemed critical of the way the authorities handled the situation.
Vietnam’s Force 47 is run by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to hack anti-government websites and spread pro-government messages online, and is believed to be at least 10,000-strong.
Digital rights campaigners accuse Vietnam of attempting to replicate China’s “Great Firewall” by regulating and censoring the internet with the cybersecurity law.
Neither Google, which owns YouTube, nor Facebook has complied with the legislation, which requires the American tech giants to open local data storage facilities inside Vietnam by January 1.
Vietnam has a population of 96 million. With more than 60 million Facebook users, it is the platform’s one of the fastest-growing markets.
Project Information Literacy, a nonprofit research institution that explores how college students find, evaluate and use information. It was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Harvard Graduate School of Education.
focus groups and interviews with 103 undergraduates and 37 faculty members from eight U.S. colleges.
To better equip students for the modern information environment, the report recommends that faculty teach algorithm literacy in their classrooms. And given students’ reliance on learning from their peers when it comes to technology, the authors also suggest that students help co-design these learning experiences.
While informed and critically aware media users may see past the resulting content found in suggestions provided after conducting a search on YouTube, Facebook, or Google, those without these skills, particularly young or inexperienced users, fail to realize the culpability of underlying algorithms in the resultant filter bubbles and echo chambers (Cohen, 2018).
Media literacy education is more important than ever. It’s not just the overwhelming calls to understand the effects of fake news or addressing data breaches threatening personal information, it is the artificial intelligence systems being designed to predict and project what is perceived to be what consumers of social media want.
it’s time to revisit the Eight Key Concepts of media literacy with an algorithmic focus.
Literacy in today’s online and offline environments “means being able to use the dominant symbol systems of the culture for personal, aesthetic, cultural, social, and political goals” (Hobbs & Jensen, 2018, p 4).
Until now, technology that readily identifies everyone based on his or her face has been taboo because of its radical erosion of privacy. Tech companies capable of releasing such a tool have refrained from doing so; in 2011, Google’s chairman at the time said it was the one technology the company had held back because it could be used “in a very bad way.” Some large cities, including San Francisco, have barred police from using facial
But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year, according to the company, which declined to provide a list. recognition technology.
Facial recognition technology has always been controversial. It makes people nervous about Big Brother. It has a tendency to deliver false matches for certain groups, like people of color. And some facial recognition products used by the police — including Clearview’s — haven’t been vetted by independent experts.
Clearview deployed current and former Republican officials to approach police forces, offering free trials and annual licenses for as little as $2,000. Mr. Schwartz tapped his political connections to help make government officials aware of the tool, according to Mr. Ton-That.
“We have no data to suggest this tool is accurate,” said Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology, who has studied the government’s use of facial recognition. “The larger the database, the larger the risk of misidentification because of the doppelgänger effect. They’re talking about a massive database of random people they’ve found on the internet.”
Part of the problem stems from a lack of oversight. There has been no real public input into adoption of Clearview’s software, and the company’s ability to safeguard data hasn’t been tested in practice. Clearview itself remained highly secretive until late 2019.
The software also appears to explicitly violate policies at Facebook and elsewhere against collecting users’ images en masse.
while there’s underlying code that could theoretically be used for augmented reality glasses that could identify people on the street, Ton-That said there were no plans for such a design.
In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow). In December, San Diego suspended a facial recognition program in advance of a new statewide law, which declared it illegal, coming into effect. Forty major music festivals pledged not to use the technology, and activistsare calling for a nationwide ban. Many Democratic presidential candidates support at least a partial ban on the technology.
facial recognition bans are the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance. Focusing on one particular identification method misconstrues the nature of the surveillance society we’re in the process of building. Ubiquitous mass surveillance is increasingly the norm. In countries like China, a surveillance infrastructure is being built by the government for social control. In countries like the United States, it’s being built by corporations in order to influence our buying behavior, and is incidentally used by the government.
People can be identified at a distance by their heart beat or by their gait, using a laser-based system. Cameras are so good that they can read fingerprints and irispatterns from meters away. And even without any of these technologies, we can always be identified because our smartphones broadcast unique numbers called MAC addresses.
The data broker industry is almost entirely unregulated; there’s only one law — passed in Vermont in 2018 — that requires data brokers to register and explain in broad terms what kind of data they collect.
Until now, technology that readily identifies everyone based on his or her face has been taboo because of its radical erosion of privacy. Tech companies capable of releasing such a tool have refrained from doing so; in 2011, Google’s chairman at the time said it was the one technology the company had held back because it could be used “in a very bad way.” Some large cities, including San Francisco, have barred police from using facial recognition technology.
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany.
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training.
Mindfulness (FFMQ total scores and four of the five mindfulness facets: observe, describe, act with awareness, and non-reactivity) and decentering (EQ) significantly increased in the 24 h after ayahuasca use. Cognitive flexibility (CFS and WPCST) significantly improved in the 24 h after ayahuasca use. Changes in both mindfulness and cognitive flexibility were not influenced by prior ayahuasca use.
Conclusions
The present study supports ayahuasca’s ability to enhance mindfulness and further reports changes in cognitive flexibility in the ‘afterglow’ period occur, suggesting both could be possible psychological mechanisms concerning the psychotherapeutic effects of ayahuasca. Given psychological gains occurred regardless of prior ayahuasca use suggests potentially therapeutic effects for both naïve and experienced ayahuasca drinkers.
In TEACHERS AND STUDENTS: Teachers and Staff training and education; Educational quality and standards; Curriculum and Pedagogy; Vocational education and Counselling; Ubiquitous and lifelong learning; Training programmes and professional guidance; Teaching and learning relationship; Student affairs (learning, experiences and diversity; Extra-curricular activities; Assessment and measurements in Education.
• In PROJECTS AND TRENDS: Pedagogic innovations; Challenges and transformations in Education; Technology in teaching and learning; Distance Education and eLearning; Global and sustainable developments for Education; New learning and teaching models; Multicultural and (inter)cultural communications; Inclusive and Special Education; Rural and indigenous Education; Educational projects.
• In TEACHING AND LEARNING: Critical Thinking; Educational foundations; Research and development methodologies; Early childhood and Primary Education; Secondary Education; Higher Education; Science and technology Education; Literacy, languages and Linguistics (TESL/TEFL); Health Education; Religious Education; Sports Education.
• In ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES: Educational policy and leadership; Human Resources development; Educational environment; Business, Administration, and Management in Education; Economics in Education; Institutional accreditations and rankings; International Education and Exchange programmes; Equity, social justice and social change; Ethics and values; Organizational learning and change; Corporate Education.
= Types of Contributions =
All submissions are subjected to a blind-review refereeing process and are divided in these categories:
– Oral Presentations
– Posters
– Workshops
– Virtual presentations
– Company Presentation
Corporates can also showcase their products or services in the conference exhibitions area by contacting the secretariat or publicity email (provided below).
= Conference Date and Location =
END 2020 will be held in Zagreb, Croatia (Hotel Dubrovnik) and will occur from 27 to 29 of June, 2020.
The tools that have delivered are specific, targeted solutions that are easy to use and provide teachers and students delight. Simple solutions, like Read 180, which helps accelerate learning for struggling students, still deliver 20 years later, now under Houghton Mifflin Harcourt instead of Scholastic. Accelerated Reader, a product that started more than 30 years ago, still motivates kids to read.
Companies that aim to provide student data in a usable fashion, like Schoology, still provide value.
the promise of data in education is still proving itself. It has taken awhile, but we’re getting to a point where data is more actionable. Renaissance just acquired Schoolzilla, which was launched in 2011, for this reason.
When it comes to devices, many kids today have access to iPads or Chromebooks. Although one-to-one computing hasn’t been as transformational as some predicted in 2010, we’ve certainly seen a huge shift
Most of these [textbook providers] companies tried to re-platform every unique product into one monolithic model, but the promise didn’t pan out—the products proved clunky and hard to use
Predictions that educators would want more assessment data to drive instruction have proven true. https://www.renaissance.com/
The prediction that digital reading would be simple and easy to implement has also proven true.
Virtual reality hasn’t panned out yet.
The rise of gaming in education was another prediction that has largely faded.
started to solve the challenge of data interoperability and portability.
Alongside that, privacy and data responsibility are still a problem
The role of the teacher, however, is still critical. Rather than take over responsibility for educating students, technology’s role should be—and increasingly is—to put multiple options into educators’ hands to easily solve different types of challenges for individual students.
Some news organisations, including the BBC, New York Times and Buzzfeed have made their own “deepfake” videos, ostensibly to spread awareness about the techniques. Those videos, while of varying quality, have all contained clear statements that they are fake.
