Education, Teaching & Language - Flipboard
Five ways the superintelligence revolution might happen
theconversation.com
Taking over one neuron at a time. viipeer, CC BY-NC-SABiological brains are unlikely to be the final stage of intelligence. Machines already have superhuman strength, speed and stamina – and one day they will have superhuman intelligence. This is of course not certain to occur – it is possible that we will develop some other dangerous technology first that destroys us, or otherwise fall victim to some existential risk.But assuming that scientific and technological progress continues, human-level machine intelligence is very likely to be developed. And shortly thereafter, superintelligence.Predicting how long it will take to develop such intelligent machines is difficult. Contrary to what some reviewers of my book seem to believe, I don’t have any strong opinion about that matter. (It is as though the only two possible views somebody might hold about the future of artificial intelligence are “machines are stupid and will never live up to the hype!" and “machines are much further advanced than you imagined and true AI is just around the corner!").A survey of leading researchers in AI suggests that there is a 50% probability that human-level machine intelligence will have been attained by 2050 (defined here as “one that can carry out most human professions at least as well as a typical human"). This doesn’t seem entirely crazy. But one should place a lot of uncertainty on both sides of this: it could happen much sooner or very much later.Exactly how we will get there is also still shrouded in mystery. There are several paths of development that should get there eventually, but we don’t know which of them will get there first.Biological inspirationWe do have an actual example …Dolphins Know Each Other by Name
babelsdawn.com / Blair
Signature whistles can be heard in a variety of dolphin species.Suppose I had an eight-month old baby who liked to say something like gork, and I told you that one day I heard the baby's two-year-old brother make a perfect imitation of the gork sound, to which the baby responded, hello. Would you conclude from this evidence that the baby is already using language? Careful, for it seems that bottlenose dolphins can participate in these sorts of exchanges.While most people agree that only people use language, there does not appear to be nearly as much agreement on what makes language so special. One common test is the use of words or names. A famous challenge to this idea comes from the vervet monkey. These monkeys of the African woodlands have different calls to warn of approaching predators, depending on whether they are birds, leopards, or snakes. So do they have a three word language? Few people want to say yes to that one, and they point to the monkey's response as justification for the no answer. Typically the vervet looks around (up for a bird, at the tree itself for a snake, or more generally for a leopard) and, upon sighting the predator, begin making exactly the same call. You can end up with an acacia tree full of monkeys, all looking at an approaching leopard and making the same warning call. The scene appears reflexive and lacking the spirit of conversational give and take we associate with language. On the other hand, human verbal exchanges can also be pretty reflexive and banal:—"Hi, Blair."— "Tom."— "Nice day."— "Maybe global warming is a hoax after all."One thing in that human exchange worth noting is the use of names. We use them to identify particular individu …Extensive Watching
blog.englishcentral.com / by ddeubel 3 Comments
The last few years, we've witnessed the exponential rise of video being used in the classroom. This previous post describes and outlines the reasons for the ascendancy of video. We are now a video,...Famous Speeches
eflclassroom.com
This workbook has historical famous speeches to help intermediate and advanced students practice English. Each is a video on EnglishCentral. Click the video images to go to the video on EnglishCent...12 Old Words that Survived by Getting Fossilized in Idioms
mentalfloss.com
English has changed a lot in the last several hundred years, and there are many words once used that we would no longer recognize today. For whatever reason, we started pronouncing them differently, o …Education, Teaching & Language
The Best Beginner,…
larryferlazzo.edublogs.org
Last week, my classes all of a sudden became more challenging. Instead of teaching two separate classes of United States History to Intermediate English Language Learners, one double-block period o...20 Collaborative Learning…
teachthought.com
There is an age old adage that says “two heads are better than one". Consider collaboration in recent history: Watson and Crick or Page and Brin (Founders of Google). But did you know it was a collabo …Without Tenure or a Home
nytimes.com / By COREY KILGANNON
In the classroom, Mary-Faith Cerasoli, 53, an adjunct professor of Romance languages, usually tries to get her message across in lyrical Italian or Spanish.But on Wednesday, during spring break, she was using stencils and ink and abbreviated English to write her current message — “Homeless Prof." — …
Complacency is not a 21st century skill
academamp.wordpress.com / Posted by clsaarinen
Preparing for spring term, I have been reading Remaking the American University (Zemsky, Wegner & Massy, 2002), Shackelton's Way (Morrell & Chapparell, 2003) and Tom Peters' Re-Imagine! (20...Making the Case For A Pragmatic Liberal…
blogs.kqed.org
Despite the focus on specialization, there's still an argument to be made for liberal arts education.Beijing raises hiring standard for foreign employees
shanghaidaily.com
Beijing's municipal government has announced a new employment standard for foreigners, lifting the threshold for acquiring a job in the city. Announced on Sunday, the new standard stipulates that non- …Education, Teaching & Language
'It's Not Worth It To Become A Teacher At This Point,' Veteran Educator Says
huffingtonpost.com / Sam Levine
EducationWhen single mom Callie Hammond wants to buy something for her daughters, she says she has to choose between spending money on them or on the high school English students she teaches each day.
Hammond, a teacher in North Carolina for 22 years, says she buys supplies for her students with her own money. She hasn’t gotten new textbooks since 2009. If she wants new ones, she says she has to go to other high schools and beg.
“I’m at a school trying to make better lives for those kids, but I’m not able to go out and make a better life for my own kids. And that's not fair," Hammond says in a video released by the progressive advocacy group Progress North Carolina.
According to an analysis by the National Education Association, North Carolina ranked near the bottom of U.S. states in expenditures per student for 2012-2013. A separate study found that North Carolina teachers' pay was among the lowest for public school educators.
“I would say if you’re in North Carolina, it’s not worth it to become a teacher at this point. It’s really not," Hammond says in the video.
June Atkinson, North Carolina’s superintendent of public instruction, said the state has not supported its teachers.
"North Carolina has not invested …
Will I Ever Have Perfect Pronunciation?
blog.englishcentral.com / James Alvis Carpenter
I’m very interested in adult education. Adults face a difficult challenge as students. Society sets up systems to help children learn. These systems have tests, grades, deadlines and teachers to guide students towards a set of learning goals.Adults, on the other hand, do not have these systems immediately available to them. Most of the time, adult learners have to find their own motivation, allocate their own time and pay their own money in order to grow and develop themselves. And in our increasingly fast-paced, technology rich society, the ability to grow and develop oneself continuously is becoming more and more important.As an English teacher, I believe that adult learners can accomplish their language learning goals, even if they are learning English later in life.In a previous blog post, I wrote about the Critical Period Hypothesis, and how adults are just as capable of learning a second language to a high level of proficiency as children. Yet, there is a clear difference between those who learned English as children and those who learned it as adults. Actually, there are a number of differences related to (among other things) grammar, vocabulary choice and idiomatic awareness. However, most people would say that the main difference between a child and adult learner of English is “the accent."There are many issues related to “English with an accent" that I will not discuss in this post. For now, it is enough to know that the traditional view of the native-speaker accent as the standard for proficient English ability is being challenged.At the same time, there is no denying that while adult learners are capable of developing their English grammar, vocabulary, listeni …Education, Teaching & Language
/link/education-teaching-language-flipboard