Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 1d

#Caturday is strange thing. Yours always begins when mine draws to a close. Loving the pumpkin btw 🎃

Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 2d

Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.

That is all.

Sympathies to all of the teachers who will no doubt be coerced into giving this trust access* to their identities.

I’d like to see the risk assessment.

#TeacherEducation #EduSky #Ethics #AI

*Unlimited? Free?

Schools Week @schoolsweek.bsky.social · 2d

Exclusive: Teachers will use 'deepfake' technology to create an AI avatar of themselves to deliver catch-up lessons for pupils who have missed school

Watch one of the school’s ‘deepfake’ teachers in our story below

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-trus...

'Deepfake' teacher avatars to help pupils catch up

Academy trust staff to use AI generator to introduce resources for pupils returning to school

schoolsweek.co.uk

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 3d

Blog post: Ancestry and Education
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal.

I write about a preprint by Wang et al, in which they look for associations with genetic ancestry in an admixed Mexican population. They found genetic effects for height and Type-II diabetes, but not for education.

Ancestry and Education

Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal

ericturkheimer.substack.com

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 5d

It is a shame that both the DfE and the Scottish gov. decided to withdraw from taking part in this TALIS survey*.

V. interesting data for #TeacherRetention #TeacherRecruitment and #TeacherEducation

*reasons linked to reducing workload burden for teachers are understandable

Tes magazine @tesmagazine.bsky.social · 5d

How happy are teachers? With the world’s largest international survey of teaching staff out now, @emmaseith.bsky.social looks at its key findings on issues such as job satisfaction and flexible working

The global state of teaching: 8 insights from educators worldwide

The report from the world’s largest survey of teachers is out now - with findings on staff shortages and retention, as well as CPD needs and how well prepared teachers are to teach in multilingual…

www.tes.com

Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 6d

Improving my German by Lydia Davis

All my life I have been trying to improve my German.
At last my German is better
—but now I am old and ill and don't have long to live.
Soon I will be dead, with better German.

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 6d

Artificial Information rather than Artificial Intelligence, as referenced in this article, just about sums it up.

“LLMs cannot and do not infer physical laws from their training data. Remarkably, they cannot even identify the relevant information from the internet. Instead, they make it up.”

🫧 📍

Ann Pettifor @annpettifor.bsky.social · 6d

A must-read ftom economist Servaas Storm... www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives...

The AI Bubble and the U.S. Economy: How Long Do “Hallucinations” Last?

This paper argues that (i) we have reached “peak GenAI” in terms of current Large Language Models (LLMs); scaling (building more data centers and using more chips) will not take us further to the goal...

www.ineteconomics.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 7d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 8d

This is a place in Yorkshire Sculpture Park where you can sit and listen to Longplayer by Jem Finer, a 1,000 year long musical composition
(there’s a speaker on the tree and a wooden bench nearby).

#Relax
#RelaxingMusic
#Nature
#Photography
#Time
#BlueSkyArtShow

@blueskyartshow.bsky.social

A tree, a speaker, and a space; to listen*, to relax and to be.

*Jem Finer’s Longplayer at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Rose Ruane @regretteruane.bsky.social · 8d

Something so beautifully plaintive about the contents.
Evokes the near-far, bittersweet distance of childhood photos: rooms we’ll never enter again, relatives caught unguarded in domestic activity, long gone shops that once were sites of wonder to our small selves, autumnal Lucozade cellophane light

Page from a 1960s children’s book depicting a little British town with buildings from ancient to modern arranged around a little park with trees, in the foreground a busy road with traffic, the illustration is in black, grey, white and yolk yellow. Underneath are the words the big shops in town are further away

Page from a 1960s children’s book with a small black square containing an illustration of the sun moon and stars surrounded by the words Words to talk about
near further away many miles hundreds of miles thousands of miles

Which is further away?

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 9d

Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire, 1801, by Thomas Girtin, 1775-1802 (Victoria and Albert Museum). #NorthernArt

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 9d

Haha! I think I scanned ‘American’ without reading your post 😂

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 10d

A place to visit if you’re ever in England: www.yorkghostmerchants.com

The York Ghost Merchants

www.yorkghostmerchants.com

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 10d

I love this time of year in the UK. #Autumn is a beautiful season.

Skein after skein of pink-footed geese have just noisily passed overhead; off to the estuary to graze and fill their bellies with eelgrass I should think.

Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 10d

Lichen, algae, funghi
‘Plants and how they Live’ (1965)

Artist: Ronald Lampitt

An illustrative diagram showing range of different fungi etc, set under a tree in autumn

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 10d

Circus Tavern, Portland Street, Manchester, 1980. Smallest pub in the city, with one of the smallest bars in the country. Built as a house c.1790, became a pub c.1840. (Mirrorpix/@manchestereveningnews.co.uk )

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Schools Week @schoolsweek.bsky.social · 11d

Ofsted has carried out a review of training offered by initial teacher education providers. From 'inconsistent' mentoring experiences, to the changing profile of applicants and SEND training challenges, here are the key findings...

schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-5-k...

Revealed: 5 key findings from Ofsted teacher training review

Ofsted has carried out monitoring visits at 78 initial teacher training providers, ahead of the resumption of ITT inspections in January

schoolsweek.co.uk

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 12d

How can research and initial teacher education institutions support research use?

New report just landed from the OECD.

#EducationalResearch

www.oecd.org/en/publicati...

How can research and initial teacher education institutions support research use?

How can research and initial teacher education institutions become active drivers of evidence-informed policy and practice? Drawing on new data from the OECD’s 2023 Survey of Knowledge Mobilisation an...

www.oecd.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 16d

Scientists electrically culled invasive fish in a 20-year battle—but the fish fought back with rapid evolution

Evolution Shocks Scientists in an Electric Battle against Invasive Bass

Scientists electrically culled invasive fish in a 20-year battle—but the fish fought back with rapid evolution

www.scientificamerican.com

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 16d

Who benefits from this test?

See also:

“Almost 30 per cent of GCSE pupils fell below a grade 4 in English, considered a “standard pass” by government.”

Yes. That’s the way it - the system - has been designed. It won’t matter how many reading tests they are made to do, this will not change.

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

Katherine T. Tyson @katherinettyson.bsky.social · 21d

3D depiction of rainfall distribution across Great Britain.

England is a very dry place: London gets as much rain as Jerusalem.

With climate change, the south will need to prepare for even more acute water shortages.

Image of water distribution across the United Kingdom, demonstrating most rainfall happens along the western coast and Scotland. The image is by Alasdair Rae

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 21d

Beautiful photo 🤩

I saw one of these today at @rspb.bsky.social Blacktoft Sands (and a couple of Marsh Harriers ❤️)

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 23d

Wordle 1,553 2/6

🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

All thanks to the new NYT game Pips*, which led me to pick my first word.

*which I’m going to try next

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 23d

Just the thought of this has made me feel nauseous 🤢 I can’t image what it must have felt like to have seen it in situ.

It’s bad enough when people feed pigeons. The pigeon feeding stations in Mumbai need to be experienced to be be believed.

Pigeon feeding station in Mumbai. Pigeons are assembling ready for the bags of grain to be spilt open; many more pigeons are on their way in.

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 24d

Cutting the salaries at the top? No. It's the workers on the lowest rung that pay the price––with the most expensive (experienced teachers) forced out using capability procedures to *encourage* them to leave.

There's a reason why we have the youngest teaching workforce in the OECD.

#EduSky

DamsonEd @damsoned.bsky.social · 24d

MATs are really quite expensive…
In each MAT, the “back office” is replicated. So we have CEOs, CFOs, etc etc all commanding large salaries that eat away at school funds…

Then there is the demand for expensive schemes/programmes of learning…

No surprise at all…

www.tes.com/magazine/new...

Most MATs looking at teaching staff cuts

Majority of trusts are considering reducing teacher numbers and teaching assistant hours in response to budget pressures, CST research shows

www.tes.com

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Rebecca Tickell @rebeccatickell.bsky.social · 25d

Really good article here by Jane Bottomley #AI #EduSky

Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 25d

Lecturers will not connect with students by dismissing artificial intelligence. Instead, Jane Bottomley argues, they should draw on their expertise and take part in the politics of resistance: www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/craft... #AI #GenAI #AcademicSky #EduSky

The craft and politics of academic writing in the AI universe

Writing lecturers will not reach students by simply talking down artificial intelligence. A more effective approach involves embracing our expertise and engaging in the politics of resistance, says Ja...

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Tickell

History Daily - This Many Years Ago @thismanyyearsago.bsky.social · 25d

342 years ago, on the 17th of September 1683, Dutch scientist Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek wrote about his observation of microbes to the Royal Society, which is the first known observation of bacteria in history. Van Leeuwenhoek referred to them as 'diertjes' (Dutch for 'small animals'). #otd #history 🗃️

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