Ads can implant False Memories?

Scary, to say the least.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

Ads Implant False Memories

How could a stupid commercial trick me into believing that I loved a product I’d never actually tasted? Or that I drank Coke out of glass bottles?

The answer returns us to a troubling recent theory known as memory reconsolidation. In essence, reconsolidation is rooted in the fact that every time we recall a memory we also remake it, subtly tweaking the neuronal details. Although we like to think of our memories as being immutable impressions, somehow separate from the act of remembering them, they aren’t. A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. What’s disturbing, of course, is that we can’t help but borrow many of our memories from elsewhere, so that the ad we watched on television becomes our own, part of that personal narrative we repeat and retell.

This idea, simple as it seems, requires us to completely re-imagine our assumptions about memory.  It reveals memory as a ceaseless process, not a repository of inert information. The recall is altered in the absence of the original stimulus, becoming less about what we actually remember and more about what we’d like to remember. It’s the difference between a “Save” and the “Save As” function. Our memories are a “Save As”: They are files that get rewritten every time we remember them, which is why the more we remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes. And so that pretty picture of popcorn becomes a taste we definitely remember, and that alluring soda commercial becomes a scene from my own life. We steal our stories from everywhere. Marketers, it turns out, are just really good at giving us stories we want to steal. Read more at www.wired.com

 

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Sherry Turkle: Say No! to Zuckerberg

Andrew Keen interviews MIT professor Sherry Turkle.

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Keen On... Sherry Turkle: Say No! to Zuckerberg

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Amplify’d from www.economist.com

Drain or gain?

Poor countries can end up benefiting when their brightest citizens emigrate

WHEN people in rich countries worry about migration, they tend to think of low-paid incomers who compete for jobs as construction workers, dishwashers or farmhands. When people in developing countries worry about migration, they are usually concerned at the prospect of their best and brightest decamping to Silicon Valley or to hospitals and universities in the developed world. These are the kind of workers that countries like Britain, Canada and Australia try to attract by using immigration rules that privilege college graduates.

Lots of studies have found that well-educated people from developing countries are particularly likely to emigrate. By some estimates, two-thirds of highly educated Cape Verdeans live outside the country. A big survey of Indian households carried out in 2004 asked about family members who had moved abroad. It found that nearly 40% of emigrants had more than a high-school education, compared with around 3.3% of all Indians over the age of 25. This “brain drain” has long bothered policymakers in poor countries. They fear that it hurts their economies, depriving them of much-needed skilled workers who could have taught at their universities, worked in their hospitals and come up with clever new products for their factories to make.

Many now take issue with this view (see article). Several economists reckon that the brain-drain hypothesis fails to account for the effects of remittances, for the beneficial effects of returning migrants, and for the possibility that being able to migrate to greener pastures induces people to get more education. Some argue that once these factors are taken into account, an exodus of highly skilled people could turn out to be a net benefit to the countries they leave. Recent studies of migration from countries as far apart as Ghana, Fiji, India and Romania have found support for this “brain gain” idea.

The most obvious way in which migrants repay their homelands is through remittances. Workers from developing countries remitted a total of $325 billion in 2010, according to the World Bank. In Lebanon, Lesotho, Nepal, Tajikistan and a few other places, remittances are more than 20% of GDP. A skilled migrant may earn several multiples of what his income would have been had he stayed at home. A study of Romanian migrants to America found that the average emigrant earned almost $12,000 a year more in America than he would have done in his native land, a huge premium for someone from a country where income per person is around $7,500 (at market exchange rates).

There are more subtle ways in which the departure of some skilled people may aid poorer countries. Some emigrants would have been jobless had they stayed. Studies have found that unemployment rates among young people with college degrees in countries like Morocco and Tunisia are several multiples of those among the poorly educated, perhaps because graduates are more demanding. Migration may lead to a more productive pairing of people’s skills and jobs. Some of the benefits of this improved match then flow back to the migrant’s home country, most directly via remittances.

The possibility of emigration may even have beneficial effects on those who choose to stay, by giving people in poor countries an incentive to invest in education. A study of Cape Verdeans finds that an increase of ten percentage points in young people’s perceived probability of emigrating raises the probability of their completing secondary school by around eight points. Another study looks at Fiji. A series of coups beginning in 1987 was seen by Fijians of Indian origin as permanently harming their prospects in the country by limiting their share of government jobs and political power. This set off a wave of emigration. Yet young Indians in Fiji became more likely to go to university even as the outlook at home dimmed, in part because Australia, Canada and New Zealand, three of the top destinations for Fijians, put more emphasis on attracting skilled migrants. Since some of those who got more education ended up staying, the skill levels of the resident Fijian population soared.

Migrants can also affect their home country directly. In a recent book about the Indian diaspora, Devesh Kapur of the University of Pennsylvania argues that Indians in Silicon Valley helped shape the regulatory structure for India’s home-grown venture-capital industry. He also argues that these people helped Indian software companies break into the American market by vouching for their quality. Finally, migrants may return home, often with skills that would have been hard to pick up had they never gone abroad. The study of Romanian migrants found that returnees earned an average of 12-14% more than similar people who had stayed at home. Letting educated people go where they want looks like the brainy option.

Articles and books referred to in this piece: “Diaspora, Democracy and Development” by Devesh Kapur, Princeton University Press, 2010 “The Returns to the brain drain and brain circulation in sub-Saharan Africa: Some computations using data from Ghana”, by Yaw Nyarko, NBER Working Paper 16813, February 2011 “Testing the ‘Brain Gain’ Hypothesis: Micro Evidence from Cape Verde” by Catia Batista, Aitor Lacuesta and Pedro C. Vicente. IZA DP No. 5048, July 2010 “The selection of migrants and returnees: Evidence from Romania and its implications” by J. William Ambrosini, Karin Mayr, Giovanni Peri and Dragos Radu. NBER Working Paper 16912, March 2011. “Skilled emigration and skill creation: A quasi-experiment“ by Satish Chand and Michael A.Clemens. Center for Global Development working paper. Read more at www.economist.com

 

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Online Lesson: Technology Vocabulary for Web 2.0

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Business English Technology Vocabulary for IT - Web 2.0

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If you post a photo on the Web, it still belongs to you, right?

Wrong.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Fine Print Blurs Who’s in Control of Online Photos

If you post a photo on the Web, it still belongs to you, right? Well, be sure to read the fine print.

World Entertainment News Network, a news and photo agency, announced this month that it had become the “exclusive photo agency partner” of Twitpic, a service with over 20 million registered users that allows people to upload images and link to them on Twitter. The deal allows the agency to sell images posted on Twitpic for publication, and to pursue legal action against those who use such images commercially without its permission, according to the agency.

The extent of that control is typically laid out in the terms of service that users agree to when they sign up for Internet services and smartphone applications. But the more such services people use, the harder it becomes to keep track of the things to which they are agreeing. And of course many terms of service, which are heavy on legal language, include clauses that assert the company’s right to change them without notice.

In a recent episode, the television show “South Park” poked fun at the tendency to consent to such agreements without reading them, when one character discovered that he had inadvertently given Apple the right to surgically transform him into a “product that is part human and part centipede, and part Web browser and part e-mailing device.” In the real world, there has been more discussion of what users could be risking than concrete examples of problems. Much attention has been centered on privacy concerns and the confusing aspects of companies’ privacy policies.

The Free Software Foundation, a digital rights group, recently raised concerns over Nintendo’s 3DS, a hand-held gaming device that can take photos. In the terms of service, Nintendo claims the right to use content from its customers’ devices in a variety of ways, including marketing materials. In a statement, Nintendo said that it did not gain access to user content without permission, and that its terms of service were “consistent with industry norms.”

The agreement between Twitpic and World Entertainment News, said Dan Bailey, a professional photographer from Alaska, provided a solid example of what people have been worried about.

Carolyn E. Wright, a lawyer who writes a blog about legal issues related to photographers, said there were significant differences among the policies of Internet services. Users simply have to read the agreements they are clicking on, she said.

“You’re acknowledging those terms of services, you’re bound by them,” Ms. Wright said. “Even if you don’t read them.” Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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O livro que a Google não escreveria?

O original foi publicado em 2009, mas só hoje (e completamente por acaso) encontrei esta resenha em português.

Para quem quiser ler as 84 críticas disponíveis no Google Books - onde, como seria de esperar, não é possível consultar o interior do livro de Jeff Jarvis - aqui fica o link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=v9sspElj_5YC&sitesec=reviews

Amplify’d from economia.publico.pt

O Google não escreveria este livro

O que faria o Google? não é sobre o Google. O livro, escrito pelo jornalista, blogger, professor universitário e consultor de media Jeff Jarvis (ainda seria possível acrescentar mais um ou dois títulos à apresentação do autor) é, essencialmente, uma deambulação pelo vasto mundo dos novos media e pela forma como a Internet está a afectar uma série de indústrias. Jarvis, 56 anos, é um blogger prolífero (e foi graças ao seu blogue BuzzMachine que conseguiu a notoriedade de que goza e alguns dos cargos que exerce). Aqueles que o seguem sabe que tanto escreve sobre tecnologia, como sobre o cancro da próstata a que foi operado e a incontinência urinária que se seguiu. E este seu primeiro livro é, em grande medida, uma espécie de compilação do trabalho que tem feito no blogue. Quem já leia Jarvis online não encontrará em O que faria o Google? muitas novidades, embora possa apreciar os capítulos em que Jarvis tenta reinventar o funcionamento de indústrias várias (da aviação à restauração) com propostas por vezes mirabolantes. Por outro lado, para quem não frequente a blogosfera dos gurus dos novos media (de que fazem parte Jarvis e muitos dos bloggers citados no livro) esta pode ser uma boa introdução aos desafios que as tecnologias de informação hoje colocam. Em verdade, seria impossível que os assíduos do BuzzMachine encontrassem muitas surpresas.

Este livro foi escrito com algum grau de colaboração com os leitores (é, aliás, um dos conselhos mais fortes do autor para as empresas: abram as portas às ideias dos clientes). Frequentemente, Jarvis pediu conselhos e sugestões. E há mesmo todo um capítulo (sobre uma “googlização” do sector das apólices de seguros) que é escrito essencialmente com contributos externos. Jarvis não é um especialista em muitas das indústrias sobre as quais decidiu escrever. E isso nota-se. No caso dos seguros, o capítulo termina de forma esclarecedora: “Orgulho-me em dizer que não tive estas ideias. Os meus generosos leitores é que as tiveram. Eles foram o meu seguro contra um capítulo vazio”. As novas regras Jarvis caiu na tentação (que parece ser comum neste género de livros sobre a Internet) de apresentar uma resenha de que como a nova Web (a Web 2.0, da partilha, da socialização e da conectividade quase constante) está mudar as nossas vidas – mas já não era preciso lermos, mais uma vez, que agora todos podemos comunicar uns com os outros, que todos podemos gravar vídeos no telemóvel e conseguir audiências de milhões de espectadores, que na Internet os nichos são valiosos ou que as empresas podem ver a sua reputação destroçada por um cliente que diga mal delas online. Na primeira parte do livro – chamada “Regras da Google” – o autor analisa o impacto de empresas como o Google, o Facebook, o Twitter, a Amazon e a Craigslist (um site de anúncios classificados muito popular nos EUA). Aqui, Google é frequentemente apenas um sinónimo de Internet (por vezes, de forma algo forçada, como que para justificar o título). As regras deduzidas por Jarvis e os conselhos para as empresas são muitos, embora alguns sejam apresentados de forma vaga e sem as entrevistas, os exemplos ou o conhecimento de causa necessários. O autor advoga mais transparência e abertura (por exemplo, pedir ideias aos clientes sobre novos produtos), uma boa gestão da reputação nas redes sociais, a estratégia de crescer antes de fazer dinheiro (como fez o Google e está a fazer o Facebook) e a inovação constante (acabou mesmo por dedicar algumas páginas ao batido tema dos 20 por cento do tempo de trabalho que alguns funcionários do Google têm para desenvolverem projectos pessoais inovadores). O autor admite excepções a estas regras e acaba por dar, no final, o enorme secretismo da Apple como a grande excepção. Mas fica por perceber onde se enquadra o secretismo que a Google também tem relação a muitos produtos no meio desta estratégia de abertura quase total. Reinventar A segunda parte de O que faria o Google? (com excepção do título, em todo o livro se escreve “a Google”, não se percebendo porquê a falta de coerência) é a tentativa de Jarvis mostrar o que a multinacional faria se estivesse a actuar noutros sectores de actividade. O autor não foi contido e os resultados são divertidos exercícios de imaginação, criados para ajudar os leitores a pensarem “fora da caixa”. O que faria o Google se tivesse um restaurante? Faria os clientes votarem nos pratos e bebidas de que mais gostam e poderia apresentar aos comensais informação do género “X pessoas com gostos semelhantes ao seu gostaram de comer este prato”. Se tivesse uma companhia aérea? Criava uma rede social para que os passageiros se pudessem conhecer uns aos outros antes de viajar e escolher voos consoante o potencial interesse das restantes pessoas a bordo. Se fosse um fornecedor de acesso à Internet? Oferecia banda larga de borla e fazia dinheiro com anúncios publicitários direccionados. Os exemplos continuam. Note-se que o caso da Internet financiada por publicidade é um exemplo da típica actuação Google. Mas os outros dois casos assemelham-se mais à filosofia da Amazon (que tem um poderoso motor de recomendação de livros aos clientes) e do Facebook. Lições para os jornais Um dos argumentos fortes do livro é que a Internet está a minar todas as actividades de mediação (dos agentes imobiliários às agências de viagens). Tendo sido crítico de televisão, jornalista de media e tendo estado envolvido em vários projectos na área (incluindo o lançamento da revista Entertainment Weekly), o pensamento de Jarvis acaba por cair frequentemente nos media – do jornalismo, à produção de conteúdos, passando pela publicidade. E é aqui que o autor mostra maior capacidade analítica. Um dos conselhos de Jarvis para os órgãos de informação (e que é o tema de um dos posts mais populares do seu blogue) é que estes se concentrem naquilo que sabem fazer bem e simplesmente façam links para o resto, simultaneamente dando aos leitores o serviço de agregação e evitando o desperdício de recursos em trabalhos que estão tão bem (ou mais bem) feitos noutro lado. Por outro lado, o autor nota o perigo para as empresas de media em agarrarem-se às “galinhas dos ovos de ouro” (refere-se às edições impressas), mesmo quando estas estão a emagrecer. Isto acaba por impedir que se avancem para novos modelos, porque as empresas estão demasiado ocupadas a explorar o antigo filão até ao esgotamento. “[Um jornal] tem de promover novos produtos até mesmo à custa dos antigos: canibalizai-vos a vós mesmos. Convencer o público e os anunciantes a moverem-se rumo ao futuro é melhor do que segui-los posteriormente após eles terem descoberto outras fontes de notícias.” Um dos principais desafio dos media, argumenta, é a hiperabundância de conteúdos. E, em geral, as empresas (não apenas as de notícias) deveriam aprender a viver numa economia de abundância e não de escassez. É o que o Google faz, ao aproveitar a abundância de conteúdos para montar um negócio. De todos os conselhos abordados ao longo de quase 300 páginas, poucos foram adoptados na escrita deste livro – a começar porque não é gratuito e subsidiado com publicidade e a acabar no facto de Jarvis se dispersar por muitas áreas, em vez de estar concentrado em algo que conhece muito bem (e que seria o mundo dos media). O autor está consciente dessa falha e dedica algum tempo a explicar porque é que, em boa parte, este é um livro tradicional. E ficamos a perceber que o dinheiro que um editor tradicional ainda se pode dar ao luxo de adiantar aos autores foi determinante. Não é necessariamente uma constatação negativa, mas, a crer na análise que Jeff Jarvis faz do funcionamento do Google, este não é o livro que a empresa teria escrito. O Que Faria o Google? Editora: Gestão Plus, Bertrand Editora, 2010 Read more at economia.publico.pt

 

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How to transfer your purchased Google eBook to your eReader

Learn how to transfer your purchased Google eBook to supported eReader devices. For additional information, please see: http://books.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=28535

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How to transfer your purchased Google eBook to your eReader

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Web tool: Google Advisor

Google Advisor was developed to help you make financial decisions. Google Advisor makes it easy to find financial offers from multiple providers, compare them side by side, and apply online. Check out https://www.google.com/advisor

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Google Advisor

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Building a museum of museums on the web

And the best part is: you can use Google Art Project to build your own museum online.

Amplify’d from www.ted.com

Amit Sood: Building a museum of museums on the web

Imagine being able to see artwork in the greatest museums around the world without leaving your chair. Driven by his passion for art, Amit Sood tells the story of how he developed Art Project to let people do just that.

Amit Sood is the head of Art Project, Google's effort to bring the world's greatest museums onto the web. Visit it at googleartproject.com Full bio and more links Read more at www.ted.com

 

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Mike Matas: Livros digitais da próxima geração

O programador Mike Matas mostra o primeiro livro interactivo completo para o iPad - vídeos e gráficos inteligentes com manuseio táctil e também permite a visualização de dados interactivos. O livro é uma sequela do "Uma Verdade Inconveniente" de Al Gore e tem o nome de "Our Choice" (A Nossa Escolha).
[Legendado em português]

New to E-Learning? Read this post by Tom Kuhlmann

Another interesting post by Tom Kuhlmann (who has over 15 years of hands-on experience in the training industry and currently runs the community at Articulate).

Amplify’d from www.articulate.com

New to E-Learning? Here are Some Simple Steps to Help You Get Started

To a novice even simple things seem complex.  And when things appear complex, we can become frustrated or feel like we don’t have the skills to accomplish what it is we want to do.

I recall years ago when I was learning video production.  I felt like my skills were inadequate (which they were).  So my instructor told me to record some television commercials and then break them down into pieces to see how they were built.  He said that this would help me focus less on the glossiness of the commercials and more on their construction.  So I recorded commercials and then built a storyboard around the different scenes in them.  I made notes of the scenes, where the edits were, and what might have motivated the edits.

This exercise was one of the best learning experiences for me.  It slowed things down and helped me shift my focus away from the slickness of the commercials (which made my lack of skill more apparent) and move it towards the production process.

For new elearning developers, I recommend a similar process.  Find elearning courses you like and then break them down into chunks so it’s easier to understand how the courses were created.  This will help you understand some of the techniques used to transition the content and move a learner through the course.  But more importantly, it will give you a sense of what’s common about elearning courses and help you think through and plan for those things in your own course development.

Take a book, for example.  While every book is different, the structure of every book is similar.  There’s a cover, table of contents, chapters, an index, and perhaps an author bio.  The same can be said for elearning.  Different content, similar structure. Read more at www.articulate.com

 

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Is College Worth It?: Most Americans Say “No!”

Amplify’d from people.uis.edu

Is College Worth It?: Most Americans Say “No!”

By Paul Taylor, Kim Parker, Richard Fry, D’Vera Cohn, Wendy Wang, Gabriel Velasco and Daniel Dockterman, Pew Charitable Trust Social Trends

This report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted this spring. One is a telephone survey taken among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year private, public, and for-profit colleges and universities. Read more at people.uis.edu

 

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Social Post Moderators Wanted

In my social networks, I have a few friends with consistently fantastic, virtual-high-five-worthy status updates. They crack me up, they teach me new things, and they challenge me to up my game. So it is with no length of time spent and little deliberation that I’ve determined a new level of checks and balances should be introduced to our social networks. It’s time to place a moratorium on social freedom of speech. Much like the first comment posted to a blog or the creation of a long-winded dating profile, the “post” button on social updates should be changed to “submit for moderation.”

This new system – applying to status updates, tweets, retweets, comments, likes, and photo posts – would require a one month trial period before the user would be able to resume speaking their mind sans moderation. A simple algorithm (post engagement minus frivolous likes multiplied by the coefficient of awesomeness) would determine who among your social network is sufficiently skilled to perform the audit.

Your peer auditor will be looking for the following:

Lazy Likes: If your friend posts, “eating the world’s best apple,” do not be tempted to break the awkward silence by clicking the “like” button. Let’s not encourage this behavior.

Declarations of Love: Messages like these are better received via boom-box-over-head, drunk text, or scribbled in crayon on a Scooby Doo Valentine.

Self-Pity: Please please please don’t tell your 752 closest friends that your goldfish died. We need to get news like this in person.

Go Packers!: No.

Inspirational Quotes: Gandhi and Bon Jovi both have their own Facebook page.

One Worders: If you’re “tired,” “hungry,” “sick,” “freezing,” or “bored,” just fix it.

Frustration: If you can’t find your car in the parking garage, a barista got your latte wrong, or anything else happened that you might see in an episode of Seinfeld, please understand we are here to escape from our own mind-numbing daily trials and not to comment on yours.

TV Philosophy: Your expertly crafted viewpoint on who will be kicked off this week’s episode of The Bachelor will immediately advance you to the end of your trial period. Keep it comin’.

If you invented the double decker PB&J on waffles, I must get the recipe immediately. If you need to know what that shot with the Butterscotch Schnapps and Bailey’s is called, I’ll be your first comment. If Vince Vaughan just invited you to his dog’s half birthday party, I will click “like.” If your son got purple finger paint all over your white couch, do post a picture. But to avoid your moderator hitting the “not approved” option on your next post, save up all the great small talk material for the elevator. Read more at bethtourek.com

 

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10 Tips For Designing mLearning

Amplify’d from theelearningcoach.com

10 Tips For Designing mLearning And Support Apps

For quite a while now, I’ve been poring over mobile design books, listening to podcasts and reading online content to learn the best practices for designing mobile phone applications as I design one of my own.

Strangely enough, it seems as though many gurus actually agree on the basics of functionality, usability and aesthetics required for making an effective mobile application. Here I’ve gathered up what I think are the best practices of mobile app design and applied them to mobile learning and mobile performance support when possible.

1. Use a broad definition of mobile

2. Design for short bursts of activity

3. Minimize functionality for a simple user interface

4. Make efficiency a goal

5. Think differently when designing for touch

6. Use the simplest features of the gestural interface

7. Consider one-handed users

8. Design for visual clarity

9. Design for a low error rate

10. Prototype first with a web app Read more at theelearningcoach.com

 

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Museu Virtual Aristides de Sousa Mendes

No Dia Internacional dos Museus uma pequena nota para relembrar a existência de um museu que pode ser visitado todos os dias, a qualquer hora: Museu Virtual Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

Amplify’d from elearninghoje.blogspot.com

Museu Virtual Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Entre os milhares de judeus e não judeus, personalidades conhecidas ou simples anónimos, salvos pelos vistos, havia pessoas de todas as condições. Dos mais ricos e influentes destacavam-se alguns membros da família judaica Rothschild de origem francesa (Édouard, Henri e Robert). Entre os não judeus encontravam-se os membros da família Habsburgo, perseguidos politicamente na Áustria, bem como a sua comitiva. Também a grã-duquesa Charlotte do Luxemburgo, sua família e algumas figuras do governo luxemburguês que a acompanhavam procuraram Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Albert de Vleesschauwer, administrador-geral do Congo Belga e do Ruanda-Burundi, cuja família foi acolhida mais tarde na casa de Aristides de Sousa Mendes em Cabanas do Viriato; os ministros belgas Paul van Zeeland e Marcel-Henri Jaspar e a escritora Gisèle Quittner Allotini também passaram a fronteira com vistos de Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Da mesma forma, a título de exemplo, foram salvas famílias inteiras como os Gingold, os Montezinos, os Krueger, os Bromberg, os Spett, os Oulmont, os Korngold, entre outras, conforme se pode constatar pelo Livro de Registos dos visto do consulado português de Bordéus. in BIOGRAFIA DE ARISTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES Read more at elearninghoje.blogspot.com

 

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Museu Virtual Aristides de Sousa Mendes

No Dia Internacional dos Museus uma pequena nota para relembrar a existência de um museu que pode ser visitado todos os dias, a qualquer hora: Museu Virtual Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

Contrariando deliberadamente as ordens recebidas, Aristides de Sousa Mendes logo a 21 de Novembro de 1939, emitiu um visto ao judeu austríaco Arnold Wiznitzer. De seguida interessou-se pelo caso do também austríaco Norbert Gingold. Para além de lhe atribuir um visto deslocou-se pessoalmente ao campo de concentração de Libourne, nos arredores de Bordéus, onde o conceituado pianista se encontrava detido para tentar negociar a sua libertação com o oficial encarregue do campo. Este mostrou-se disposto a libertar o austríaco apenas no caso do visto conduzir Gingold para fora de Europa.

O cônsul continuou a desobedecer às ordens dos seus superiores. Em Abril de 1940, emitiu novo visto que viria a levantar polémica. Desta vez, o visado era Eduardo Neira Laporte, médico e antigo professor na Universidade de Barcelona que estivera ao lado dos republicanos durante a Guerra Civil espanhola. Face às ilegalidades praticadas, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, que se assumia como anti-nazi, recebeu várias admoestações oficiais, sendo-lhe mesmo comunicado que se persistisse em tais actos teria de ser submetido a um processo disciplinar. Em vão, escreveu para Lisboa, tentando justificar os seus actos.

(...)

Lisboa era um dos destinos mais apetecíveis da Europa da época. O seu porto, para quem se recorda do final do filme Casablanca, era dos únicos do continente que assegurava ligações mais ou menos regulares com as Américas e África. Para ali chegar era necessário obter um visto de trânsito português. Tal documento tornava possível a obtenção de um visto de saída francês e um visto de trânsito espanhol.

(...)

Entre 17 e 19 de Junho, Aristides de Sousa Mendes emitiu milhares de vistos, tarefa para a qual recebeu a ajuda do genro Jules d`Aout, do filho José de Sousa Mendes, do secretário José Seabra e do rabino Chaim Krueger que se encarregou de espalhar a notícia pela cidade de que o cônsul português passaria vistos a todos os que o solicitassem. Fosse pelo fervoroso sentimento católico que o assaltava, por sofrer de algum complexo messiânico, pelo seu espírito anti-nazi, por simples razões humanitárias, pela consciência da inconstitucionalidade das ordens dos seus superiores ou por ter percebido o que se iria seguir, Aristides de Sousa Mendes queria ajudar todos os que pudesse até porque a situação política e humanitária piorava em França de dia para dia.

(...)

Entre os milhares de judeus e não judeus, personalidades conhecidas ou simples anónimos, salvos pelos vistos, havia pessoas de todas as condições. Dos mais ricos e influentes destacavam-se alguns membros da família judaica Rothschild de origem francesa (Édouard, Henri e Robert). Entre os não judeus encontravam-se os membros da família Habsburgo, perseguidos politicamente na Áustria, bem como a sua comitiva. Também a grã-duquesa Charlotte do Luxemburgo, sua família e algumas figuras do governo luxemburguês que a acompanhavam procuraram Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Albert de Vleesschauwer, administrador-geral do Congo Belga e do Ruanda-Burundi, cuja família foi acolhida mais tarde na casa de Aristides de Sousa Mendes em Cabanas do Viriato; os ministros belgas Paul van Zeeland e Marcel-Henri Jaspar e a escritora Gisèle Quittner Allotini também passaram a fronteira com vistos de Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Da mesma forma, a título de exemplo, foram salvas famílias inteiras como os Gingold, os Montezinos, os Krueger, os Bromberg, os Spett, os Oulmont, os Korngold, entre outras, conforme se pode constatar pelo Livro de Registos dos visto do consulado português de Bordéus.

in BIOGRAFIA DE ARISTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES

Amplify’d from www.businessgreen.com

Energy consumption data to get the Web 2.0 treatment

Energy data aggregator Gridglo has announced plans to marry smart meter data with other data feeds to produce a more accurate picture of how individual households use energy.

The Florida-based company has developed a proprietary software platform that scores consumers based on consumption, efficiency, predictability and engagement with energy-saving schemes. It does this by aggregating data from smart meters with other data feeds. The types of information it will use include demographic data, financial information, wireless and mobile data, and information about social behaviour.

It also promises to use "other disparate data sources that can provide deep insight into energy behaviour patterns".

The company will even use satellite imagery to draw inferences about specific households. For example, it promises to identify which houses have solar panels installed simply by examining pictures of their roofs.

Gridglo will serve up this data in various forms to developers, including aggregated, de-identified and packaged layers.

The developers will then create third-party applications that can be integrated, Web 2.0 style, with other resources such as Facebook, mobile platforms and perhaps building management systems. The developer tools and APIs will be made available as a cloud-based service.

The firm hopes that utilities will use the data and applications to provide energy-saving incentives to customers.

One of its offerings is a rewards network, in which energy customers receive and redeem points for improved consumption behaviour, integrated into their utility bill.

Gridglo will manage campaign implementation, along with points accounting and redemption. Read more at www.businessgreen.com

 

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Amplify’d from mashable.com

How Shakespeare & Social Media Are Fighting Cyber Bullying

William Shakespeare, the bard behind some of the greatest works in the English language, is coming to a Facebook page near you. Weekly Reader has teamed up with the Ophelia Project and White Plains High School to re-enact one of Shakespeare’s plays on Facebook from April 26 to 28.

Much Ado About Nothing will be presented on a special page through status updates, posts, pictures and videos. The students helped create separate pages for their characters complete with pictures, in-character bios and likes. The project is meant both as an educational resource and a tool to combat cyber bullying.

People have long modernized Shakespeare by dressing actors in current clothing and trying to adapt the sometimes dense, complicated language. This project marks a quantum leap in format, as well, updating not only the characters but the way in which they interact. The play will be set in modern day, with dialogue and issues that are relevant to students. The play revolves around issues of hearsay and verbal abuse, making it a perfect segue to talking about online abuse.

Cyber Bullying

Facebook has become the de facto home base for our online identities. This is even more true for younger generations that have grown up with the popular social network as a constant in their lives. Day-to-day interactions, dramas and jokes often play out across Facebook and other social sites. Those online identities, however, are just as vulnerable to the same bullying and abuse as the people behind them. The problem is exacerbated by the relative anonymity of the Internet.

Facebook has also been the site of much cyber bullying, and they’ve made efforts to provide a slew of tools and resources available to report abuse. This project, which Facebook is helping to promote, marks another step forward.

Much Ado About Nothing deals with the damage caused by false information and pain of bullying. The play follows two couples fighting against ill will and spurious gossip. The plot should resonate with almost anyone who has spent a lot of time on the Internet. (Flocabulary, a hip hop education resource, turned out a (surprisingly entertaining) video to help explain the plot, embedded below.)

The latest reports from the Cyberbullying Research Center estimate that anywhere from 10 to 40% of teens experience cyber bullying. It’s a problem that President Obama has rallied against and a key component of the Ophelia Project’s role in the production. During the show, it will provide live updates regarding the social aggressions faced by characters in the play.

Douglas Cronk, the director of White Plains High School’s original performance of Much Ado in November of last year, has noticed the growth of cyber bullying: “I know that in our area a number of schools have experience things like smut lists and other things,” he said. “[A] list of young people and who they’ve been with. They’re usually not true but they have a strong impact on the kids.” Read more at mashable.com

 

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Why Career & Technical Education Should Be a Priority

Amplify’d from mashable.com

Why Career & Technical Education Should Be a Priority for the U.S. [OPINION]

Bob Regan is the Director of Worldwide Primary and Secondary Education at Adobe Systems. Bob works closely with educators, students, and school administrators to ensure that Adobe strategies and solutions align with the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing schools today.

For today’s students, the experience of going to school can feel like flying in an airplane, minus the excitement of travel. Students enter a world cut off from their own where they are asked to turn off all electronic devices. They can feel trapped, simply staring straight ahead for hours. Without a clear sense of where they are going, many U.S. students simply opt to get off the plane.

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama said, “… If we want to win the future — if we want innovation to produce jobs in America and not overseas — then we also have to win the race to educate our kids.” However, the United States now graduates less than 75% of its students. Worse, in sixteen of the biggest cities, the graduation rate is less than 50%.

To win the future, the United States needs a well-educated workforce that will drive tomorrow’s innovation. We need students who graduate ready to take skilled positions in high-growth sectors of the economy. At all levels, businesses need employees that are more creative, more technical, and more connected than ever. This means that technical literacy is no longer “nice to have,” but a requirement for success.

Unfortunately, the high-skilled labor required to drive economic innovation remains elusive. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently at 8.7%, nationally. At the same time, a recent study found that 14% of employers in the U.S. reported having difficulty finding employees to fill high-skill positions, including jobs like technicians, sales people, office support, and skilled tradespeople.

While education and educators have made many tremendous strides over the years, it’s also clear that what we are still doing is not working. In political discussions, No Child Left Behind was intended to increase accountability — to ensure every child has a great teacher and has access to college. But the reality in many of our schools is quite different.

By placing so much emphasis on testing, the curriculum became centered around those tests. Since students’ day-to-day lives are vastly different from what they see on standardized tests, they have little context for the content they are asked to learn. The result: 21st century skills involving creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication are devalued or absent from classrooms.

Our students deserve better, and our schools are capable of more. The ways to keep students engaged in school don’t need to come from far-flung theories. Instead, we need to look at our schools and recognize the programs that are working.

Career and Technical Education

Today’s vocational programs, often referred to as “Career and Technical Education” or CTE, have seen significant gains. The programs start with a specific career focus, such as health sciences, business, or technology. CTE programs provide students with preparation to take careers in specific fields or to continue advanced study in post-secondary programs. The courses are often project-based with outcomes aligning to skills needed for the workplace, not a multiple choice test. Students still memorize content, and they often take college preparatory courses. However, the rationale for this material is connected to the context of their courses.

A notable CTE example is the Career and Professional Education (CAPE) Academies in Florida. Implemented in 2006, the goal of the program was to address a statewide graduation rate of only 71%. The CAPE academies are small schools, often schools within schools, with a specific career focus. They are required to have an explicit industry partnership and provide industry certification, along with a college preparatory curriculum. Students in these programs earn credentials as nursing assistants, Adobe Certified Associates, or law enforcement trainees.

Disclosure: The author is employed by Adobe.

Too often, vocational programs have been thought of as alternatives to college. However, Florida has shown that CTE programs can open the door to further education. After only five years, the graduation rate is 88.3% among students enrolled in CAPE academies (and 97.4% for those graduating with technical certifications). At the same time, these students graduate with a significantly higher GPA. While the average GPA in Florida is 2.5, the average among CAPE students earning industry certification is 3.0.

The contrast between programs focused on testing and others like CTE that bring a more solid context to learning is clear. In many cases, program content is similar. However, immersing students in a specific career provides a stronger context for learning. Students can connect the rationale for learning new content to a career skill or objective. Instead of being viewed as a distraction, technology becomes a critical tool to give students 21st Century skills in creativity, critical thinking, and communications.

The Obama administration has been vocal in its support of CTE programs. In February of 2011, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that “CTE has an enormous, if often overlooked impact on students, school systems, and our ability to prosper as a nation.” He called for educators to focus on preparing all students for college and career. However, as part of the 2011 budget, the primary vehicle for funding CTE in the United States was cut by $138 million, or roughly 12% — with more cuts pending. It highlights the disconnect between political rhetoric and reality.

For our students’ success and for the future of the U.S. economy, we need to retire outdated notions of vocational programs. Cutting CTE programs that keep students engaged in school, while providing vital 21st Century skills, isn’t sound financial planning for our schools, students, or our economy. CTE has proven successful at engaging students in learning by putting subject content into a real-world context — and we need to continue to fully fund these essential programs. Read more at mashable.com

 

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