Anti-teaching is usually described as standardized and test-centered education, but I would like to clarify the definition further. Without this clarification, I think that changing current education systems could be a great risk, since throwing out the old without a
Networked Learning
Networked learning, and especially experiential learning are both teaching environments that I strive towards. The combination of socialization and intelligence is undoubtedly the main factors behind our progress as a species, so to focus on one without the other cripples
Universities on a Mission
Missouri University of Science and Technology is a public research university in nearly the dead center of the US. Residing in my hometown where I grew up, and where I earned my bachelors degree, I have watched MS&T for most
Revisiting Political Polarization
The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect by Lelkes, Sood, and Iyengar. The data behind this research covers from 2004 to 2008. But there are recent changes stemming from the government and ISP laws could be coming due to the recent attacks on Net Neutrality. These changes could quickly […]
Online Reviews
“Predicting Sales from the Language of Product Descriptions” by Reid Pryzant, Young-joo Chung, and Dan Jurafsky “Do Online Reviews Affect Product Sales? The Role of Reviewer Characteristics and Temporal Effects” by Nan Hu, Ling Liu, and Jie Jennifer Zhang Both papers here are focused on how corporations are increasingly using social science to better connect […]
Censorship in Chinese Social Media
“Algorithmically Bypassing Censorship on Sina Weibo with Nondeterministic Homophone Substitutions” by Chaya Hiruncharoenvate et al. “Reverse-Engineering Censorship in China: Randomized Experimentation and Participant Observation” by Gary King et al. It seems obvious that as long as massive and automatic censorship is possible to the censor without incurring any major cost, then the censor will remain […]
Social Contagion, Influence, and Behavior
“A 61-million-person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization” by Bond et al. reports on the effects that political mobilization messages on social media have on elections and personal expression. There were 61 million in the social message group, but 600 thousand for the other groups? I see that their methods are fairly sound in […]
Conversational Behavior: Loyalty & Betrayal
“Linguistic Harbingers of Betrayal: A Case Study on an Online Strategy Game” by Nucuale et al investigates how language can be used to predict future interactions and choices of users within an online game. I wonder if these results can go beyond online games to in-person and normal interactions between friends? I think that there […]
Conversational Behavior: Politeness and Respect
“Language from Police Body Camera Footage shows Racial Disparities in Officer Respect” by Voigt et al investigates almost exactly what the title describes. I am surprised they mention cases of conflict between communities and their police forces only in the midwest and east coast states, but then go on to study the police force in […]
Polarization and Selective Exposure
“Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and Opinion on Facebook” by Bakshy, Messing and Adamic is exploring how social media sites like Facebook give political information to users and how it affects their political perspective. This research shows the influence that social media can have on polarizing opinions on certain topics. Since social media algorithms are […]