- Earth meet Big Brother, Big Brother – Earth. WIRED’s latest article on Edward Snowden is profoundly shocking. The NSA has the potential to track “everyone” in a city using the MAC address from cellphones, it “accidentally” sunk the Internet in Syria while trying to spy on Syrian civilians, and frequently passes unredacted data on to Israel about Palestinian American citizens. WTF.
- “The non-monetary benefits of learning may be difficult to measure, but they shape and determine what we recognize to be the quality of our life” – from “Why academic achievement matters (via Harry Patrinos).
- After watching the trailer to Boyhood I’ve fallen in love with this song by Family of the Year.
- Henry Miller on friendship – worth reading (thanks Clint Clark)
- Next year’s IEA conference is happening in Cape Town (22-23 June 2015). For those who are doing work on IEA data (PIRLS/TIMSS) the deadline for submission is 1 December 2014.
- The Free State Department of Basic Education is clearly trying to game the ANAs – see this article. We really need to be thinking about the potential unintended consequences of the ANAs. I think the ANAs are a positive development in the SA education system, but we need to be paying closer attention to the potential unintended consequences of the ANAs and how we can minimize these unintended consequences. For one thing, the ANAs are not ready to be used as an accurate indicator of student or school performance across the grades or over time.
- In case you were wondering what your skin looks like with and without sunscreen, see here. *will never not wear sunscreen again, or use double negatives*
- “The impact of national and international assessment programmes on education policy, particularly policies regarding resource allocation and teaching and learning practices in developing countries” – Systematic review of the evidence by ACER 2014
Nic Spaull 