Thursday, September 2, 2010

Method to Grade Teachers Provokes Battles

The value-added formula to evaluate teachers is gaining acceptance, and critics, across America.

To be useful tests must be administered at the start and end of the teaching contact. Students entering and leaving the class during the contact period must not be part of the measuring sample. There must be a steep accounting for crowding. Weather days and sick days must be accounted for. There is doubtless more that I have not considered. Curriculum has varied between teachers and schools as well as school districts.

My experience was that everyone who passed chemistry aced the regents. It was the same with history.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Touchable Gadgets Win Over Users

“Touchable Gadgets Win Over Users - http://nyti.ms/dtUZ3d”

I would just as soon have a mini joystick for the index finger and left and right clicks for the thumb and ring. I have never seen that arrangement. Patent?

Not-So-Magic Carpet Ride

“Not-So-Magic Carpet Ride - http://nyti.ms/b5cv7R”

Maureen Dowd should not try to tell Obama how to think. He does that very well on his own. I hope for great things. I have seen some. I expect to see more. I would like to tell the press to shut up and listen. Ask questions that need answers.

"When did you stop beating your wife?" has no place in the Whitehouse press room.

Google’s Earth

Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? Yes, but with some qualifiers.

Google makes no moral judgements. That is William Gibson's problem with it.

Google does not correlate its results. It does not go to the references it exposes.

It draws no conclusions. It knows nothing of should. In fact it knows nothing and cannot know. It is not self-aware.

You have done a very good job of guarding your privacy. Those things I have discovered You exposed. The search engines did not find them for me because I had no search term. I think I have not exposed a useful search term here. I most certainly have tried to avoid such.

Google has a finite time horizon. The "way-back machine" exists but one must know of the project and intentionally consult it. Events more than seven(?) years in the past are hidden from casual search. There is just too much data. I am uncertain of how that time horizon works.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/the-economic-narrative/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/mistakes/
8:45
cesca

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8:45
aus-bos

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