students - Tag Archive

Year End Update

3 Replies Jonny Hankins

As the year ends I would like to look at some of my post over the last year or so to give an update about what has unfolded since I wrote them.

2012 Ending

The End is Near

I will start with Citizen Science. In 2011 I wrote an article about online gamers as scientists, and this year a couple of posts touched upon the issue of citizen science.

Recently the UK press has carried a story about a WW2 carrier pigeon whose remains were found in a chimney. The bird had a capsule on its leg that contained a message in code. Experts were unable to understand the message so they released the data into the public domain in the hope that somebody would be able to decode it. A perfect example of citizen science, the use of the Internet to access millions of brains.

A gentleman in Ontario responded with what he believes is the meaning of the note, although debate is rife around the issue of verification. He claims that the code is from WW1 and nothing more than a series of acronyms. Read this BBC article for more.

Still way back in 2011 I wrote a post about prosthetic limb technology and the fact that someone had opted to amputate a hand in order to have a robotic replacement fitted. Recently doctors have reported great improvements in prosthetic control, including controlling the artificial limbs through thought.

This experimental science has been going on for some time now, with implants in the brain interpreting neuron activity in order to make the limb move. As sensors get better movement improves and so control is greater. This week researchers in the US have released video of a woman operating a robot hand through thought. Watch it here on the Independent newspaper site.

One thing that isn’t addressed in the press coverage that I feel is important is that the person does not have to be attached to the arm, they can operate it remotely. This must have implications for how research and the handling of dangerous materials may be treated in the future.

If you want to see where this technology might take us just have a look at this video reportedly of someone controlling a remote control quadcopter using only thought waves. Incredible stuff!

More recently I wrote a piece about the compulsory tagging of students in a Texas school district. The project has run into problems as one of the students was withdrawn and moved to another school for refusing to wear the tag on religious grounds. Read the report here.

Andrea Hernandez refused to wear the tag saying that the bar code it contained could be the mark of the beast, an interpretation she takes from the book of Revelation. When they removed the mark from the tag she continued to refuse to wear it however so was effectively expelled. She is taking the school to court over the matter presenting problems to all those involved in the project.

I also wrote about the MOSE project to protect Venice from the rising seawater that floods the city ever more frequently. Recent news (in Italian) states that the project will no longer be ready in 2014 (2012 was the original date set for completion) but will possibly be finished in 2016.

The major problem seems to be lack of money. The project budget has increased massively, and the economic crisis has meant that money is found piecemeal so that the work can continue.

I do not want to be too critical of the land that bore my wife and children, but unfinished engineering projects are not uncommon in Italy, let’s hope this one does not end like many others.

Next week I will be taking a self enforced holiday, so no post on Thursday. Happy winter solstice to all, enjoy the festivities, thanks to everyone who has read and/or commented over the last year and I will be back in the new year (presuming that the Mayans were mistaken).

How to get great gadgets on a budget

2 Replies MattRawlings

It’s a very easy – and all too common – mistake to see your student loan arrive in your bank account and rush out and spend it all on the latest must-have gadgets. Smartphones, laptops, tablets, printers, they’re all “essential” to student life, (well, in a social capacity in most senses, but to some they’re essential).

Obviously going off to University is an exciting time and you want to go fully prepared for the academic year, and to make an impression on your new friends and flat mates. But you can do all of this without breaking the bank.

For instance there are some great laptop deals for students specifically which enable them to get the computer they want as well as all of the software they’ll need to help with the course, and even discounts on devices like printers and wireless routers.

When you think about it, you can get what you consider to be brilliant deals on your computer, printer and tablet – to name just three you might buy together – getting discounts on all three, but it can still add up to upwards of £1,000. But one of the advantages of being a student is being eligible for a package tailor made for getting you through the late night group projects and the 10,000-word essays that you finish at 4am.

National Union of Students card

An NUS student card

You might not think that some of the devices in the offers are what you would call “top drawer” or even as cool as what your friend has bought, but if you’ve spent £500 and they’ve spent £1,500, you’ve got an extra thousand left in your bank account to enjoy yourself with while taking the necessary “study breaks”, or to keep in hand for emergencies and all-important food shops. There are only so many times you can buy own-brand beans after all!

Budgeting is a key part of Uni life, something you don’t tend to realise until the end of the year (or the end of your third year in a lot of cases) but anything you can save before you start your first term is going to benefit you later on, allowing you to upgrade your gadgets in the future when you’ve got a little bit extra that you can spend without getting into financial difficulties.

The deals on laptops and other tech for students really are worth looking into. A lot of the top brands produce models and packages designed purely for students at prices made for students. If I had one tip, check them out, don’t just splash the cash on the biggest and best because you want to be cool.

Tagging students in schools

10 Replies Jonny Hankins

This week a school district in San Antonio in Texas USA approved a program for tagging students while they are in school. The students will have to wear a small card at all times while in the school so that their positions can be constantly monitored by the authorities.

The RFID tags will be provided free of charge but if they lose or destroy it the student will have to pay $15 for a new one.

A student with a RFID tag

The latest fashion, an RFID tag

The schools that are implementing the project on a trial basis state that they want to “harness the power of the technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in school, and increase revenues,”

‘Increase revenues’ is the part that catches my eye the most here, why might the project increase revenue? The answer is in attendance, the schools receive state funding based upon attendance and how many special needs children take the school buses, in this case based upon the related Medicare payments.

The schools hope to make about $1.7 million a year, and with the cost of setting up the scheme about half a million and about $135 thousand a year to run they are ‘quids in’ as we say in Manchester.

Rather unsurprisingly some of the parents of the children that attend the 2 pilot schools have expressed some reservations. Privacy issues due to the invasive nature of the idea have been raised, and some argue that kidnapping and related horrors could even be made easier if someone managed to gain access to the system and the real time information that it produced.

This news reminds me of an article that I wrote a few years ago on the Bassetti Foundation website regarding spying technology and later its proposed uses in schools in Italy. Here is a mention on a blog related to the matter in question. As this article suggests, the problem of mobile phone use in schools and particularly for cheating in tests and exams is apparently rife, so one school bought a military jammer that blocks the signal making the phone system non operational.

This event also caused a few raised eyebrows (to say the least) with people claiming the right to contact their children in emergency situations. Problems of overspill and local disturbances were also raised but the school argued that the system was necessary in order to uphold the school rules and quality and reliability of its exam process. The law has now changed so the system is no longer in use but the will and means was there.

Coaxing and encouragement while at school and the notion of doing the right thing seem to be out of the door then!

As a note I was a teacher in an Italian secondary school for 11 years myself, and I don’t think this approach will work. Kids are smart.