This issue came up while I was discussing some ethical issues with my students on a bus to MONA to assess the role of art in knowing. (More on that later)
I decided to set them a puzzle.
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
April 30, 2011
Being Wrong
None of us like to be wrong but science writer Kathryn Schulz makes the case that being wrong provides powerful insights into cognition, human identify, social relationships and underpins the scientific method. Students always find visual illusions fascinating and they are also intrigued about how readily we can mis-remember. Her arguments are just as provocative. Schulz argues that we should not see mistakes as diminishing you as a person; instead the human capacity to make mistakes actually makes us who we are. In her latest book “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error” and this Ted Talk, Schulz explores the nature of error: are all mistakes the same, or are they all essentially the same? How does peer pressure, or crowd response, affect our capacity to make mistakes? How and why do we remember relatively insignificant mistakes for the rest of our lives, long after they have ceased to be relevant to anything? What is error-blindness? These are all topics that are relevant to the IB Psychology Course.
The Ted Talk should provoke a lively debate about our compulsion to be right and the need to acknowledge when we are not.
On the up and up
Inflation is a major focus on Macroeconomics, especially Section 3.5 and these two article about inflation in China provide students with a number points to consider.
The article, China’s inflation overhaul clouded nu data doubts, discusses the HL extension topic about the difficulties in measuring inflation, an issue that is not regularly reported in the news. It will provide students with a real world example of how inflation is measured and the challenges involved.
April 29, 2011
Global Infomania – A blizzard of information
In the month when the UK conducted its national census of 25 million households, the value of information and its use and abuse has been in the forefront of public interest. In the shadow of continued revelations from Wikileaks, Sony admitted this week that an ‘illegal and unauthorised person’ gained access to the to the accounts of 77 million users of the PlayStation network and that it could not rule out the possibility that credit card numbers had been stolen. On the same day that Apple denied claims that its iPhone devices have been tracking the location of users, the satellite navigation company TomTom apologised to motorists in the Netherlands about selling data on journey times to Dutch police who then used this information to identify the best places to set up speed cameras.
We know information is power, but increasingly information is also money – a new kind of currency and potentially a building block of a new economy. The term ‘information age’ was first used in the 1950s but its meaning and extent has grown ever since. Information is on paper and in the air; it includes not just the written word, but music, advertisements and images – in fact anything that can be digitised and stored. Articles, blogs and books abound on the subject.
Carbon Monoxide (2)
Yesterday, I posted some general information about Carbon Monoxide and how it can post dangers to health.
Today, I will expand more on how different concentrations of it can effect people.
5 Tips for a Successful Paper 3
As we approach the May examination session, many students are starting to focus on studying and refining their skills for a final demonstration of learning (or at least this is what we hope for!) For those in the Southern Hemisphere, the time has likely come for HL students to begin taking Paper 3 seriously. Here are a few tips to help polish up student skills with regards to Paper 3:
April 28, 2011
indigenous knowledge and western science
“When engaging in … comparative analysis of different world views,” declares author Ray Barnhardt, “any generalizations should be recognized as indicative and not definitive, since indigenous knowledge systems are diverse themselves and are constantly adapting and changing in response to new conditions.”
Accepting this need to be cautious in judgment and to recognize trends and general characteristics, a TOK teacher could gain a number of good ideas for class from this excellent article, “Indigenous Knowledge Systems/ Alaska Native Ways of Knowing”.
Urban Environments
China census figures reveal ageing and urbanised country
Figures reflect sharp increase in moves to towns and cities in past decade and effect after 30 years of one-child policy
Carbon Monoxide
Carbon Monoxide (CO). Colourless, odourless, tasteless and potentially lethal.
The molecule contains a triple bond between carbon and oxygen. The triple bond makes it very hard to break (due to the high bond enthalpy).
’3 cups of tea….and a teaspoon of saccharine’
An imbroglio over fund raising and support for a service organization called ‘Pennies for Peace’ won’t go away easily.
This follows a recent news report on the CBS program “60 Minutes” that questioned the accuracy of a narrative that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people and helped to raise millions of dollars for the building of 54 schools in Afghanistan.
