abraxas

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[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

But we know children learn better without phones https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/the-evidence-is-clear-students-learn-better-without-mobile-phones-in-class/276071

I disagree. For two reasons. First, there is only a couple studies in your link, and its "difference-in-difference" strategy does not seem (at least prima facie) to shown effective isolation to only a single variable. Second, it seems to be making the same mistake previously made by Psychologists in the "hitting children" debate, making unsubstantiated (or "common sense") conclusions about the gulf in the middle after only doing a quick analysis of the two extremes. Further, your link also calls question your claim by pointing out Switzerland did not find any effectiveness in banning phones.

And the "hitting" reference was intended to point out the concern against positive advancement. There was a time where psychologists thought hitting was better than nothing even when they knew it was net harmful and so did not strongly discourage it when parents could not or would not embrace more modern parenting strategies. The same is true of phones in school (and, per your link, laptops in college). Looking at the laptop studies I could find, they have the same methodological problems the phone studies have. They're looking presumptively at distraction, and setting up an experiment where distraction is more pronounced.

Yet laptops have a lot more research than phones. Studies mentioned above compare ubiquitous laptop use and scores, while failing to address that each individual that uses a laptop averages higher scores than individuals who do not. What studies I could find with phones could be moving in the direction of that same dynamic that shows missing understanding of how to be use technology in learning.

Let's look at the other side of things. Another study (again, possibly flawed...I don't trust either side's phone studies much yet) found that removing a phone ban in NY caused an increase in overall student obedience and educational productivity, at the cost of "school culture". As someone who grew up as a victim of "school culture" in a world where teachers supported bullying (and in many places they still do), I have no problem with that trade-off. Of course, this study does directly contradict your educatoronline article.

From this fairly balanced piece (which agrees with both my article and yours in some ways):

"If educators do not find ways to leverage mobile technology in all learning environments, for all students, then we are failing our kids by not adequately preparing them to make the connection between their world outside of school and their world inside school"

...which is more important than test scores.

You are saying 29 out of 30 people can’t be right, which is very wrong. But what you miss is that it’s really 3-4 kids disrupting and the rest going along because it’s easier. It’s the path of least resistance, and people will jump onto the easy path.

Is that something you can cite, or just your own personal "pick em up by their bootstraps" opinion? Do you have any experience with crowd simulation? Can you show any evidence that your explanation is likely, or even reasonably possible?

Except they do. Look at all the examples of Japanese fans cleaning stadiums.

That's... not an effective or topical rebuttal at all. Did you misunderstand what I meant by "Personal Responsibility" attitudes? I referred to blaming the individuals in a large group for their failure instead of blaming the causal elements of the group. I have to deal with that type of problem regularly, where a manager tries to blame a majority of his reports (all capable and talented) of being the problem when something goes wrong. Guess who I ultimately find responsible?

Next time you dislike your teacher think about when you got stuck in a group with people who wouldn’t do anything.

Thankfully, I'm decades out on that. From the kinds of things I see and read about education, I'm grateful I don't have to go back. But then, my education started after school anyway.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yes, life was so dangerous before the telephone. It's amazing anyone survived decades without them! 991, phaw, we had a bucket of water and a shotgun.

... in summary. The point should be that the next generation has an advantage over the previous, in all things.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Well, by their teenage years, why not all the reasons adults need smartphones fully accessible? Looking up information from authoritative sources? Emergency contact? Coordinating schedules for office hours?

Schools often simultaneously demand more from children than workplaces do adults, and give them less opportunity to excel.

I'm not saying work-inappropriate phone use should be accepted, but taking them away entirely is downright irresponsible. Just like schools who still demand students write on a notebook instead of using a laptop. Raise your hand if you had RSI-related issues for a decade or more after high school? We old people tend to forget how bad school used to be (and can be) for physical and mental health AND for learning.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (10 children)

What exactly should be done to motivate?

Great question. And a hard one. But knowing a proposed solution will worsen the situation is an important step in it.

It's like every time a person says "see, this is what happens when you don't hit children" at every behavior issue. Even though we know that hitting children objectively worsens behavior over doing nothing, but they insist that doing the only thing they know, even if harmful, is better.

Let me give you an example, everyone has heard “when will we use this in real life?” in math class. The same people asking those questions are the same that groan at word problems

I had a math teacher that helped us see which math we would use in real life, and which math we wouldn't, and helped us understand why the latter was still important for us to know. Everyone paid attention to her.

What’s the real complaint the student has? They have to try.

When you have a room of 30 students and 29 of them are complaining about something, we need to remind people that one of the real life uses of math (stats & probability to be precise) is to point out how unlikely it is that those 29 students are the causal variable.

I agree that so much more can be done to make school fun, but it’s not all on the teachers. Students have to be present, participate and willing to leave their comfort zone in order to have better results.

"Personal Responsibility" attitudes just doesn't work for crowd dynamics, especially with regards to children. The way a group behaves is nearly 100% predictable from the balance of outside human factors. In this case, the outside factors are parents and teachers. That's it. Either there is something that all the parents are doing wrong, or the teachers.

Since there are some teachers who have far more success than others (common "favorite subjects" based on school), that means the most likely cause, and mechanism for improvements, are the teachers.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm not sure I agree with how you'd be able to execute on that level or organized construction safely, but I think we're also reaching the "impossible-to-be-sure hypothetical" territory, so I'll concede the point for now.

I think my problems of cost and time still stand. It looks like adding rooftop solar with batteries to every building is still cheaper (on startup, and likely per MW) than nuclear plants. Regions that cannot support solar, onland wind, geo, or hydro can justify nuclear (at least unless shipping batteries or hydrogen conversion becomes cheap enough to compete), but I don't think they amount to nearly 15% of the power needs in the world since they represent fairly distinctive regions with low energy demand.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm approaching that, but I have to admit I take my time and revisit towns a lot.

I've only gone to a dozen dungeons so far that were hand-crafted. There were literally hundreds of them in Skyrim. I'd love to get real numbers.

So far, I am enjoying the hell out of the game, if my lack of twitch reflexes is hurting that a lot. I keep having to juggle between ship upgrades (my Mantis keeps dying to small fleets more than 10 levels lower than me) and face-to-face. Usually by now in other Bethesda games, dying is rare. I'm too stubborn to drop the difficulty, though, so I suppose that's on me.

There's a pirate fleet in orbit around the planet I want to build my first output. Last 5 times I tried to go there, fleet keeps showing up and killing me. That's somewhat annoying.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Agreed. It doesn't end up saving a penny, but it definitely leads to greased wheels along the way and richer politicians.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

My experience is that the college foundation I got over 20 years ago is still incredibly useful as a developer, architect, and manager.

That said, the thing you need to learn the most is how to constantly keep up with the changes in technology, and my college at least did an ok job at that.

Did a shit job helping me get my first job, though.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Some folks say there's only about 25 hours of handcrafted stuff. I'm not late enough in to know for sure.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I had agoraphobia growing up. I know exactly what it is. And I had moments of it exploring the planets. I found myself hugging to keep buildings in range and not wanting to stray out into the great wide open. For some odd reason, I got more of that in Starfield than in NMS.

I'm also still fairly early into the game, so perhaps I'll spend more time indoors than I have so far.

EDIT, also, it kinda is the opposite of claustrophobia in some ways. There are some overlaps and nuances (both fears sometimes include fear of crowds). I had a grandparent with really bad claustrophobia who never used an elevator in her life. Ironically, we could relate on a lot. But they were still opposite issues.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

While I agree, I've been saying that about NMS for years. Not that we want to be comparing Starfield to NMS, of course.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (9 children)

So far, Starfield is exactly like Skyrim in space to me. There's as many carefully crafted cities, and quite a few carefully crafted locales. There's just a lot more space in Starfield (estimated about 500x more. Skyrim is 15sq miles, and those 1000 planets are each a couple square miles ingame). Sounds like there may be less hand-crafted content in Starfield than Skyrim, but that's hard to tell.

I'm definitely not finding Starfield to be claustrophic. On the contrary, a bit agoraphobic.

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