Category «Education»

Book bans are spiking in the US

Quartz – Here are the most targeted titles: “This week, ALA is holding its annual Banned Books Week, from September 18-24, to advocate for open access to information. While in the past bans usually targeted one book at a time, advocacy groups are now going after multiple titles at once, according to the association. So far …

Subjects: Censorship, Education, Free Speech, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation, Libraries

You can ban a book, but can you stop teens from finding it online?

Washington Post – Online resources are at the center of the national battle between limiting and expanding book access for teenagers: “Books are being banned in U.S. school libraries in record numbers, led largely by conservative lawmakers and activists. This week, libraries and anti-censorship groups are among those hosting Banned Books Week to call attention …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Internet, Libraries

The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools

Pen America – Banned in the USA: “Key Findings: More books banned; More districts; More states; More students losing access to literature. “More” is the operative word for this report on school book bans, which offers the first comprehensive look at bans throughout the 2021–22 school year.  This report offers an update on the count …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive – How will they interpret the past?

The Atlantic: “In 2010, cursive was omitted from the new national Common Core standards for K–12 education. The students in my class, and their peers, were then somewhere in elementary school. Handwriting instruction had already been declining as laptops and tablets and lessons in “keyboarding” assumed an ever more prominent place in the classroom. Most …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management

Tracked: How colleges use AI to monitor student protests

The Dallas Morning News, Arijit (Ari) D. Sen [subscription or online database access. Note – they are also making public nearly 3,000 documents, covering more than 56,000 pages from these schools]: “The pitch was attractive and simple. For a few thousand dollars a year, Social Sentinel offered schools across the country sophisticated technology to scan …

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, E-Mail, E-Records, Education, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

How to unlock your smartphone camera’s best hidden features

Popular Photography: Whether you’re shooting Android or iPhone, here’s how to get the most out of your device’s built-in camera app. “What could be more fundamental to photography today than our smartphone cameras? They’re ever-present, ready in moments, and the technology behind them makes it easy to capture great photos in most situations. And yet, I …

Subjects: Education

The history of book bans—and their changing targets—in the U.S.

National Geographic: “From religious texts and anti-slavery novels to modern works removed from school libraries, here’s how the targets of censorship have changed over the years. Mark Twain. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Judy Blume. William Shakespeare. These names share something more than a legacy of classic literature and a place on school curriculums: They’re just some …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Libraries

Are lawyers’ poor writing skills the reason contracts are so hard to read?

Legal Cheek: “A new study that examines why many contracts are difficult to understand has pinned the blame on lawyers’ use of overly-complex language. The study carried out by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Edinburgh analysed a corpus of contracts that ran up to around 10 million words. The purpose …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

State of Data Science Report 2022

Anaconda: “This year, we conducted our State of Data Science survey to gather demographic information about our community, ascertain how that community works, and collect insights into big questions and trends that are top of mind within the community. 3,493 individuals from 133 countries and regions took part in the online survey conducted from April …

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Millions of borrowers may be eligible for a refund on student loan payments made during Covid

CNBC: “There’s good news for the millions of people with federal student loans who’ve made payments on that debt during the Covid pandemic: many of them will be eligible to get the money back. The U.S. Department of Education says that many borrowers eligible for President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan who made payments …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Government Documents