Monthly Archives: November 2023

Creating level classes: assets or obstacles to student success?

Creating level classes: assets or obstacles to student success?

How can we get students with varied academic skills and learning problems to work together? Some teachers report their difficulties in managing the heterogeneity of their classes . This is particularly the case when the academic difficulties of certain students are coupled with behavioral problems. Is forming level classes the solution then? By evoking in October 2023 the possibility of organizing […] … learn more→

A free messaging app seemed useful for disadvantaged South African students: why they didn’t agree

A free messaging app seemed useful for disadvantaged South African students: why they didn’t agree

South African higher education is plagued by inequalities due to the social and economic legacies of apartheid. More than 50% of enrolment in higher education is from black, working-class, disadvantaged households from rural areas who depend on state-funded student aid. At the same time, some institutions of higher learning are also historically disadvantaged: they were designated for non-white students during […] … learn more→

Education linked to better employment prospects upon release from prison

Education linked to better employment prospects upon release from prison

Better job prospects. Higher wages. A greater chance of staying out of jail. Those are the key outcomes that we discovered for incarcerated people who get an education while serving their time. Our findings were published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice. They are based on an analysis of research studies on the effects of prison […] … learn more→

Internet access should expand children's world, not limit it

Internet access should expand children’s world, not limit it

Technological devices have been integrated into our daily lives to such an extent that some call them “Trojan horses of the 21st century.” Mobile phones, computers and tablets are part of the daily routine of children, adolescents, young people and adults. These devices have been progressively installed and surround us in a dense network that demands our […] … learn more→

A letter to reviewer 2

A letter to reviewer 2

Dear Reviewer 2, I guess your ears often burn. You know how it is when people read your reviews. That must be hard for you – I know you spend time reading and working out what to say. I also guess you must be used to getting letters which answer back and/or show how trying […] … learn more→

مرحبا is all around: where is our linguistic landscape going?

مرحبا is all around: where is our linguistic landscape going?

It turns out that this Saturday they open a new pop-up store in the center, and in two weeks the Christmas market begins , and what better time than Christmas to have a gourmet experience like the one advertised by a department store. The italics accuse us of the foreign origin of these terms that many of us, as readers, already identify […] … learn more→

AI is now accessible to everyone: 3 things parents should teach their kids

AI is now accessible to everyone: 3 things parents should teach their kids

It is almost a year since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, fuelling great excitement as well as concern about what it might mean for education. The changes keep coming. Earlier in the year, MyAI was embedded into social media platform Snapchat. This is a chatbot powered by ChatGPT, which encourages teens to ask anything – from gift suggestions […] … learn more→

South African university students use AI to help them understand – not to avoid work

South African university students use AI to help them understand – not to avoid work

When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, it sparked many conversations and moral panics. These centre on the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the information environment. People worry that AI chatbots can negatively affect the integrity of creative and academic work, especially since they can produce human-like texts and images. ChatGPT is a generative AI model […] … learn more→

Long hours and low wages: the human labour powering AI’s development

Long hours and low wages: the human labour powering AI’s development

The Finnish tech firm Metroc recently began using prison labour to train a large language model to improve artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For 1.54 euros an hour prisoners answer simple questions about snippets of text in a process known as data labelling. Data labelling is often outsourced to labour markets in the Global South where companies […] … learn more→