A new era for edtech: shifting IT priorities for learning | E-learning - Education Technology

Edtech can enable a safe and effective learning environment for teachers, who can then invest their time in better supporting students, as Nick Offin, Head of sales, marketing and operations, Dynabook reports.

Photo: Education Technology

IT leaders working in education are no stranger to the profound impact of the pandemic. The last year of online learning has ushered a new era in education – with technology at the heart of teaching and learning strategies.

As a result, whilst the future remains uncertain, digital plans for education institutions have taken on a new significance and IT teams have had to undertake a technology reset – assessing whether existing infrastructures and technologies are fit to deliver a secure and reliable learning experience. In fact, a recent study by Dynabook found that nearly two thirds of IT leaders in education will increase their IT budgets this year.

Unlike businesses, hybrid working isn’t having the same impact on the education sector. However, the pandemic has certainly shone a light on the need for appropriate edtech that can be used effectively in school and at home – even after this period. So, as we contemplate the future of learning, what do these new IT-led priorities look like in practice?.

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Source: Education Technology  

Simplifying Digital Learning In The Hybrid Classroom | Higher Education - BW Businessworld

An increasing number of Edtech players entering the market provides countless options for educators and students alike. However, with pandemic settling, not all institutes are looking for the most advanced system but simplified digital tools in their classroom, according to Vasudha Mukherjee, works with BW Education.

Photo: BW Businessworld

Hybrid learning is not an invention of the pandemic, but rather a developing concept that was pushed into gear with the crisis. Several institutes were already integrating technological solutions into their classes long before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Therefore, it is no surprise that even when the crisis stabilises not all courses will return to 100 per cent classroom teaching. It is questions of percentage, how much will be online, and how much in the classroom. 

The Many Forms of the Hybrid Classroom

The transition to online classes was sudden but did not necessarily pose a challenge to all higher education institutes. While not all were prepared to go online full-time, institutes did have some procedures in place, resources that could be used even in the early days of the pandemic. Today,  there is a multitude of options between online classrooms, edtech companies, e-Learning platforms and even foreign collaborations. Needless to say, there are many creative solutions to the crisis of distance education...

The Teaching Tools

Lenovo solutions are not only aiming at remote learning students but is enabling IT staff to evolve cloud-based management system. Lenovo has transformed 360 degrees of the product-led organisation to solution-led not organisation. Addressing the most critical needs with the technology-centric handholding of its customers. It is a smart technology that is evolving every moment, addressing concerns of all the stakeholders:

1. Teacher: Digital learning has become the new normal and these things are very important to track, manage and monitor students. Lenovo Smart classroom uses an intelligence tool to provide high quality digitised content that reduces the burden of lesson preparation and enhance student interaction collaboration, easily track, manage ad monitor the educational content that is displayed to students in an effective learning management system.
2. Student: Students are always looking for fun, interactive class experiences. Through Lenovo Smart Classrooms, learning can be an enjoyable experience. With access to great immersive education content directly on their device, students can learn from anywhere. AI-based technology helps boost student confidence by helping them practise English speaking at home. 
3. IT Admins: Lenovo SmartClassroom gives a solution and IT admins the power to optimise operations, ensure compliance, data security and asset accountability. Furthermore, the institution administration can make data-driven decisions to manage the curriculum overall in performance through an intuitive dashboard: What are the software that can and cannot be used?
4. Parents: Information on student learning progress and class performance is shared with the parent on a regular basis. Parents also have the authorisation to control applications on the student device to ensure the physical mental wellbeing of their child. There has to be a tool that can actually control and show the contents being searched by children on their devices. 

Mukesh Nihalwani, Sales Head- Pvt Education, Lenovo India states, “We are in the position to break the digital divide and involve Education Institute for a bigger IT ecosystem, our hybrid classrooms are an opportunity for online teaching and learning revolution.”...

Conclusion 

Mukesh Nihalwani says, “We have the tool, but the right tool has to be used in the right manner.”

Regardless of the pandemic, the hybrid classroom was inevitable for moving forward, at least in the eyes of some higher educational institutes. While there are challenges, such as device availability, the mental health of students, social aspects of learning, etc. most institutes and tech companies have taken it upon themselves to find the solutions to make education accessible to everyone. Even though the pandemic has made hybrid classrooms and blended learning a necessity, the education and tech industry is quickly catching up to meet the demands. 

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Source: BW Businessworld  

The best e-learning websites so you don’t have to attend in-person classes | Work From Home - Mighty Gadget

James Smythe, UK tech blogger reports, Over the past year, many students have been angry at education establishments for the way they have been treated during the COVID pandemic.

Photo: Mighty Gadget

Many university students have had to pay out for both their full tuition fees and accommodation even though they have barely attended any in-person lectures.

In a recent survey, nearly half of all students thought their degree offered poor value for money this year. Many students claimed that paying £9K isn’t worth it for what has effectively become online learning.  

At the same time, many of us have realised that working from home or studying from home can be highly effective while reducing costs, saving time and lowering stress.

Many people don’t want to go back to working from an office, and I would imagine that many students feel similar about education...

So what are some of the best e-learning / remote learning platforms out there?

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Source: Mighty Gadget

Jump into the field of robotics with this elearning course | Offers - BleepingComputer

If you’re looking for a career in robotics, or just curious about what makes robots work, you can’t go wrong starting with the basics by BleepingComputer Deals.

Photo: BleepingComputer

That’s why we’re offering The 2021 Raspberry Pi and Arduino Bootcamp Bundle for the massively discounted price of $19.99! Anyone who wants to get into robotics will benefit from building a foundation in Robotic Operating System (ROS), Raspberry Pi, and Arduino, which are the stepping stones for bringing your robots to life!

Professionals who hop into the field of robotics can have a career working with some of the hottest tech on the bleeding edge of development. It’s a job in high demand, with roboticists making from approximately $100,000 a year on average! You can fulfill some of those dreams from watching robots fight in movies or TV, right now, for a one-time price of $19.99.

The five courses will cover all you need to know to get started with ROS, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino; that’s more than 40 hours of content that you will have lifetime access to, for a massively discounted price! 

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Source: BleepingComputer

Are Algorithms the Answer? | Community Colleges - Inside Higher Ed

Sara Weissman, Reporter at Inside Higher Ed concluded, An experiment suggests colleges can help students bypass remedial courses for college-level classes by using algorithms instead of placement tests to predict academic outcomes.

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At more than 70 percent of colleges, placement tests determine whether students need to take remedial courses. If those tests are inaccurate, students may find themselves incorrectly placed on a remedial track and enrolled in noncredit classes that delay them from earning their degrees and increase the cost of their education.

A working paper, one in a series released by the National Bureau of Economic Research in June, suggests that placement tests could be replaced by an algorithm that uses a more wide-ranging set of measures to predict whether a student would succeed in credit-bearing college courses.

The authors developed an algorithm and tested it in an experiment that included 12,544 first-year students across seven different community colleges in the State University of New York system, observing a subsample of students for two years...

The authors of the working paper acknowledged some researchers have concerns that algorithms can perpetuate racial or socioeconomic biases in the data used. They noted that while the algorithm did not close gaps in access to college-level courses, it also did not exacerbate them. The algorithm boosted placement rates in college-level classes across groups.

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Source: Inside Higher Ed

The evolution of cryptography in mobile networks and how to secure them in the future | Ericsson Blog - Ericsson

Mobile network security has come a long way in the decades since cryptography was first introduced into the GSM standard by John Preuβ Mattsson, Senior Specialist, security, Pinar Comak, Experienced Researcher, Security and Ferhat Karakoç, Senior Researcher Security.

Photo: Ericsson

We take an in-depth look back over the algorithms and protocols that brought us this far – and see how well prepared we are for the quantum challenges of the future.

Cryptographic algorithms and security protocols are among the main building blocks for constructing secure communication solutions in the cyber world. They correspond to the locks that secure a house in the physical world. In both, it is very difficult to access the assets inside without a valid key. The algorithms and protocols are based on hard mathematical and computationally infeasible problems, whereas the lock mechanisms are based on the difficulty of solving the physical construction.

Mobile networks are critical infrastructure and heavily use advances in cryptographic algorithms and protocols to ensure the security of the information in the communication and privacy protection for the individuals. In this blog post, we take a detailed look at the cryptographic algorithms and protocols used in mobile communications and share some insights into the recent progress. We give an overview taking into consideration the development from 2G to 5G and beyond. In addition, we present detailed information on the progress toward defining the profiles to be used in the security protocols for the mobile communication systems. Last but not least, we give the current status and future plans for post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and protocols...

Challenges in updating profiles

Updating profiles for cryptographic algorithms and security protocols is a process that takes many years because of backward compatibility, as nodes from one release often have to talk to devices from much older releases. Before any weak algorithms or protocol versions are forbidden, the support of strong alternatives needs to have been mandatory for several releases.

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Source: Ericsson  

Mathematicians welcome computer-assisted proof in ‘grand unification’ theory | Mathematics and Computing - Nature.com

Davide Castelvecchi, Senior Reporter - Physical Sciences notes, Proof-assistant software handles an abstract concept at the cutting edge of research, revealing a bigger role for software in mathematics.

Efforts to verify a complex mathematical proof using computers have been successful
Photo: Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty

Peter Scholze wants to rebuild much of modern mathematics, starting from one of its cornerstones. Now, he has received validation for a proof at the heart of his quest from an unlikely source: a computer.

Although most mathematicians doubt that machines will replace the creative aspects of their profession any time soon, some acknowledge that technology will have an increasingly important role in their research — and this particular feat could be a turning point towards its acceptance.

Scholze, a number theorist, set forth the ambitious plan — which he co-created with his collaborator Dustin Clausen from the University of Copenhagen — in a series of lectures in 2019 at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he is based. The two researchers dubbed it ‘condensed mathematics’, and they say it promises to bring new insights and connections between fields ranging from geometry to number theory.

Other researchers are paying attention: Scholze is considered one of mathematics’ brightest stars and has a track record of introducing revolutionary concepts...

Many researchers say that mathematicians are unlikely to be replaced by machines any time soon. Proof assistants can’t read a maths textbook, they need continuous input from humans, and they can’t decide whether a mathematical statement is interesting or profound — only whether it is correct, Buzzard says. Still, computers might soon be able to point out consequences of the known facts that mathematicians had failed to notice, he adds.

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Additional resources

Nature 595, 18-19 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01627-2

Source: Nature.com

Will AI replace mathematicians? | Mathematics - Big Think

• Most everyone fears that they will be replaced by robots or AI someday.
• A field like mathematics, which is governed solely by rules that computers thrive on, seems to be ripe for a robot revolution.
• AI may not replace mathematicians but will instead help us ask better questions.

The following is an excerpt adapted from the book Shape. It is reprinted with permission of the author.

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Dr. Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin observes, Will machines replace us? 

Photo: Patrick Lux via Getty Images

Since the origin of artificial intelligence (AI), people have worried that computers eventually (or even imminently!) will surpass the human cognitive capacity in every respect.

Artificial intelligence pioneer Oliver Selfridge, in a television interview from the early 1960s, said, "I am convinced that machines can and will think in our lifetime" — though with the proviso, "I don't think my daughter will ever marry a computer." (Apparently, there is no technical advance so abstract that people can't feel sexual anxiety about it.)

AI Anxiety

Let's make the relevant question more personal: will machines replace me? I'm a mathematician; my profession is often seen from the outside as a very complicated but ultimately purely mechanical game played with fixed rules, like checkers, chess, or Go. These are activities in which machines have already demonstrated superhuman ability.

But for me, math is different: it is a creative pursuit that calls on our intuition as much as our ability to compute...

Some people imagine a world where computers give us all the answers. I dream bigger. I want them to ask good questions.

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Source: Big Think   

Mission to diversify mathematics pushes professor to leave top spot | Education - Spectrum News 1

What You Need To Know

• Dr. Edray Goins, a professor of mathematics at Pomona College, was recently awarded more than $120,000 in grant money


• The money is for an undergraduate summer research program that prioritizes students of color


• Nationally, the number of Black students majoring in math is dropping


• By leaving his tenured position at a top research university, Goins has been able to grow this summer program and devote more time to undergraduates of color

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A professor took a calculated professional gamble, and it’s paying off, says Parker Collins, Multimedia Journalist at Spectrum News 1. 

Photo: Spectrum News 1

Dr. Edray Goins, a professor of mathematics at Pomona College, was recently awarded more than $120,000 in grant money from the National Security Agency to run an eight-week summer program in mathematics. He received hundreds of applicants so he took special care to select a diverse group of students, especially because the number of Black students majoring in math is dropping nationally.

Goins has devoted his life to math research and teaching — a path that surprised even him...

By leaving, Goins has been able to grow this summer program, devote more time to undergraduates of color and see more diversity within his department. There have been breakthroughs.

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Source: Spectrum News 1  

How Aristotle Created the Computer | Technology - The Atlantic

Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz writes,The philosophers he influenced set the stage for the technological revolution that remade our world.

Photo: Wikimedia / donatas1205 / Billion Photos / vgeny Karandaev / The Atlantic

THE HISTORY Of computers is often told as a history of objects, from the abacus to the Babbage engine up through the code-breaking machines of World War II. In fact, it is better understood as a history of ideas, mainly ideas that emerged from mathematical logic, an obscure and cult-like discipline that first developed in the 19th century. Mathematical logic was pioneered by philosopher-mathematicians, most notably George Boole and Gottlob Frege, who were themselves inspired by Leibniz’s dream of a universal “concept language,” and the ancient logical system of Aristotle.

Mathematical logic was initially considered a hopelessly abstract subject with no conceivable applications. As one computer scientist commented: “If, in 1901, a talented and sympathetic outsider had been called upon to survey the sciences and name the branch which would be least fruitful in [the] century ahead, his choice might well have settled upon mathematical logic.” And yet, it would provide the foundation for a field that would have more impact on the modern world than any other.

The evolution of computer science from mathematical logic culminated in the 1930s, with two landmark papers: Claude Shannon’s “A Symbolic Analysis of Switching and Relay Circuits,” and Alan Turing’s “On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” In the history of computer science, Shannon and Turing are towering figures, but the importance of the philosophers and logicians who preceded them is frequently overlooked...

Today, Boole’s name is well known to computer scientists (many programming languages have a basic data type called a Boolean), but in 1938 he was rarely read outside of philosophy departments. Shannon himself encountered Boole’s work in an undergraduate philosophy class. “It just happened that no one else was familiar with both fields at the same time,” he commented later.

Boole is often described as a mathematician, but he saw himself as a philosopher, following in the footsteps of Aristotle. The Laws of Thought begins with a description of his goals, to investigate the fundamental laws of the operation of the human mind:

The design of the following treatise is to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed; to give expression to them in the symbolical language of a Calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic ... and, finally, to collect ... some probable intimations concerning the nature and constitution of the human mind...

Today’s most promising machine learning techniques use neural networks, which were first invented in 1940s by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, whose idea was to develop a calculus for neurons that could, like Boolean logic, be used to construct computer circuits. Neural networks remained esoteric until decades later when they were combined with statistical techniques, which allowed them to improve as they were fed more data. Recently, as computers have become increasingly adept at handling large data sets, these techniques have produced remarkable results. Programming in the future will likely mean exposing neural networks to the world and letting them learn.

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Source: The Atlantic