Externe Column: Peace of Music, or Doomed by Data?

Bob Marley was suspected of choosing political sides and got shot while gangsters of the opposition assaulted his house. The suspicion was based on the announcement of Marley performing at the Smile Jamaica concert, which was organized by the prime minister to stop the gang fights in the country. Even though Marley paid the price of being suspicious by getting shot twice, he refused to blow off his musical performance. After the concert he immediately fled to London, but after about 16 months he returned for the same mission of establishing peace in his home country. And he succeeded: eventually the two prominent political archrivals shook hands in the sake of peace.

This touching example shows how music is able to affect war and peace. Regarding technology and the society (the main concern of our faculty), there are numerous interventions at different levels which are related to love and war.  At the love hand, one can think of dating apps and even sex robots. At the war hand, it is impossible to think of modern warfare without guns, bombs and unmanned battle machines. Technology isn’t bad in itself, but through its applications. And as long as most intentions are right, we could be grateful for technology.

Another field of technology is quite impartial and thus gives little room for any intentions: computational models that predict the future as reliable as possible. But can we still cherish technology if it is predicting war? Several machine learning models indicate a third world war coming. However, predictions of the future are based on past events. And isn’t history meant to be learned from and to prevent making the same mistakes? Are the models taking this into account, or doesn’t our awareness matter anyway? Luckily the interpretation of data and its analysis plays an important role in the practical implementations as well. But even if we can’t explain the underlying mechanism, machine learning has proven to be promising; or in this case worrying.

“My life is only important if I can help plenty people.

If me my life is just me, my one security, then me no want it.

My life is for people. That's what me is.”

This was Bob Marley’s explanatory motivation of returning to the place where he was almost being killed. Let’s (naively) hope World War 3 is an example of a badly executed application of technology, and rely on our easier to understand human emotional capabilities. And if history is indeed about to repeat itself... let it be the rise of a musical messiah instead. 

https://issuu.com/intermania/docs/intermaniaaprilissuu/38

Dankuchwel

Jammer dat alles niet vóór de verjaardag kon, maar vlak erna is het dan toch gebeurd. En zo mag/moet ik namens LP iedereen bedanken voor de sponsoring van de nieuwe keukenapparatuur. De kookplaat is helemaal het einde, je hoeft geen aansteker te gebruiken en ik denk bij de volgende kookplaat zelfs aan een afstandsbediening. Helaas paste de gekozen afzuigkap niet (althans het afvoerkanaal, hoezo allemaal standaard uitvoeringen?) maar het goede nieuws was dat de installateur zo vriendelijk was de kap zelf terug te brengen en nieuwe onderdelen plus aanpassingen diezelfde dag nog te plaatsen. En dat voor dezelfde 90 euro als waarvoor hij was ingehuurd.

 
 
 
“Het installeren van ieder apparaat kost 120 euro, maar we hebben er ook een die beide samen doet voor 90 euro”, had de verkoper in de winkel gezegd. “Zegt U maar welke U wil hebben.” We hoefden er geen nacht over te slapen.

En ja, het Gielkens erf bestaat echt. In Baexem. Daar moeten dus al naamgenoten of verre voorouders in de 18^e eeuw hebben gewoond. Ik heb me tot de heemkunde vereniging in Leudal gewend en die zoeken uit of zich er al iemand mee heeft bezig gehouden. De straatnaamplaat die sinds 17 november jl. in ons bezit is, krijgt nu een ereplaats in de hal. En wel boven andere
    belangrijke oorden als Cill Arne en Königsallee. Waar dat is?

Doe een gok, zou ik zeggen.
 

A New Test on its Way: Pressing Play at the fourth of May

- 30 April -
An interactive prototype backed up by related research, validated by student survey responses and discussed with the Karvi team in Helsinki: the national test improvements seem promising. Compared to a set of paper sheets the new digital test ideas could not only improve the reliability of test evaluation results, but also offer a leap for adding value to education in general.  The only thing missing is target group feedback. Unfortunately the most important aspect in such an innovative user-based design, but fortunately to be harvested in four days.

Each project has its major pain point and ours was thus obviously the lack of reaching our actual target group. When our only planned school visit was still far ahead of us, we had two other options in mind: getting in contact with 9th graders by visiting the youth center in Tampere or by kidnapping them. In the case of the youth center the response was late and stagnant: we asked at the wrong place accordingly. The latter option was considered unethical after all and probably not creating a reliable user-testing context.

Despite this uncontrollable condition, we tried to compensate this with controllable actions: more research, an improved and combined prototype design and discussing our ideas with the testing experts of the Karvi team. This in combination with the feedback we gathered at the Demola testing day, our test aims to show relevance and meaning to the pupil test maker in an appealing and rather personal way. In addition, the educational system in general will move to a more skill-based oriented approach which we try to incorporate by testing the contemporary valued skills as well.

Through a critical and practical view there is way too much test improvement potential to cover at the upcoming school meeting and the time scope of this project. But this is not necessarily a bad sign. It reveals the possibilities Karvi has as a Finnish educational forerunner. And what we cannot achieve in the two weeks we have left, we will document for them to contribute to the interesting field that education and its testing proves to be.

Link: https://tampere.demola.net/blogs/new-test-its-way-pressing-play-fourth-may#.WQ4rXfmLT_Y