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☆ Florida expands Gov. Ron DeSantis' so-called 'Don't Say Gay' law to all grade levels
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Florida's Board of Education approved expanding the rules of the so-called "Don't Say Gay" law through 12th grade. Currently, the state bans lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through 3rd grade. Ron DeSantis requested expanding the ban as he gears up for an expected presidential run. The current law is also the root of an ongoing feud with Disney, one of the state's largest employers and political donors. DeSantis has directed the chief inspector general to investigate the Disney board's move and vowed to take additional revenge against the company through legislation.

☆ U.S. Education Secretary Cardona on transgender athletes, student debt, history lessons
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

TRANSGENDER YOUTH ATHLETESA recent Title IX proposed rule from the Department of Education prohibits outright bans in transgender athletes in sports, but allows schools to keep them from some teams. The Department of Education hopes to take feedback and have the rule finalized in time for the next school year, he said. "I do believe there are very deliberate attempts to attack public education so that a private voucher option sounds better," Cardona said. Florida is one of several states that have banned public schools from teaching "Critical Race Theory," an academic framework that teaches that racism is embedded in U.S. laws, policies and institutions. Cardona said he intended to double down on ensuring access to education for all students.

☆ China tackles chip talent shortage with new courses, higher pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Josh Horwitz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

China faces a shortage of an estimated 200,000 industry workers this year, according to a white paper jointly published by the China Center for Information Industry Development, a government think tank, and the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), a trade group. A 2022 survey from Chinese research firm ICWise found more than 60% of students studying chip engineering in China graduate with no internship experience in the field. In Taiwan, top chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (2330.TW) has established research centres at four universities. Its largest chip foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) (0981.HK), in 2021 announced a jointly-established School of Integrated Circuits at Shenzhen Technology University. "If I didn't switch to chip engineering, I would probably have to find a job in a traditional manufacturing industry like cars or machinery," he said.

☆ TikTok's parent ByteDance is developing a new 'AI-based' learning platform called GeniusJoy that it will test overseas
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Dan Whateley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

TikTok's parent ByteDance is developing a new 'AI-based' learning tool called GeniusJoy. TikTok's parent company ByteDance is developing a new learning platform for children that the company is referring to as GeniusJoy, per two job postings on its website and a June trademark filing by a company subsidiary. GeniusJoy will adopt "Singapore math pedagogy" for its program, per ByteDance's job listing. ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, has released a variety of educational products in the past centered on Chinese consumers. The company also once operated a learning app called Guagua Long, a course-livestreaming platform dubbed Qingbei, and an English-language tutoring app named GoGoKid.

☆ Hong Kong spreads its wings, and its bets
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Una Galani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

HONG KONG, Feb 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - For a sign that Hong Kong’s recovery is more than wishful thinking, look no further than the city’s Disneyland. The house of Mickey Mouse is implicitly betting Hong Kong will soon be back, and bigger than before. At its core, Hong Kong’s unique selling point is that it’s China-by-proxy for investors; enterprises in the People’s Republic account for 78% of the market capitalisation of Hong Kong’s main boards. Against such a backdrop, it’s logical that Hong Kong is trying to spread its bets. Hong Kong exchange boss Nicolas Aguzin’s pitch is strengthened by a Chinese plan to let overseas companies listed in Hong Kong be included in the Connect programme.

☆ Some New York City high schoolers reportedly don't like ChatGPT-created lessons, calling them 'biased' and 'very bland'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Bronx high school teacher asked ChatGPT to make a lesson plan and script on wearable tech, per NYT. Students followed the lesson as part of an experiment — and they were unhappy with the results. Jayda Arias, an 18-year old student, told the Times that the lesson was "very bland" and that it "reminded me of fourth grade." The classroom experiment comes as teachers at schools inside and outside of New York grapple with how to integrate ChatGPT into their curriculums. Shuman's ChatGPT lesson experiment was part of that approach.

☆ OpenAI makes a ChatGPT-like tool called Codex that can write software. Here's why Codex won't replace developers and will instead create more demand for their skills.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The same company is also behind Codex, a tool that automates the writing of software code. Codex is similar, except that instead of writing English sentences, it writes software code. Tell Codex what type of software problem you're trying to solve, and Codex will suggest a solution with a string of code. Similarly, Codex further simplifies certain software engineering tasks. "Then we'll have more engineers, and more software engineering.

☆ College Doesn’t Need to Take Four Years
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Scott L. Wyatt | Allen C. Guelzo | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

But by the end of the 20th century, college curriculums had added much beyond the old classics. From the 1960s through the 1990s higher education absorbed vocational training: physical therapy, accounting, marketing, hospitality management, even culinary arts. Mastery of these pursuits doesn’t always require a uniform four-year program. The core of, say, a hospitality degree might require only one year of study. All the while, the costs of the mandated four-year degree continue to soar.

☆ New York City schools ban use of ChatGPT — becoming first US district to block AI technology as concern over cheating and plagiarism mounts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Bethany Biron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The NYC Department of Education is banning the use of ChatGPT on its networks and devices. Educators around the country have raised concern over the use of ChatGPT to cheat and plagiarize essays. The ban, in the nation's largest school district, could help set precedent around the US. Educators across the country have said the technology has the potential to "blow up" entire writing curriculums and lead to "the end of high school English." "Are high school teachers going to want students using ChatGPT to write their history essays?

☆ 9 tech predictions for 2023 from seed investor in Uber, Pinterest, and other top companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Scott Belsky | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

2022 was a pivotal year for:Collaborative web apps disrupting every function of the enterprise. Internet browsers will shift from generalized to specializedAs web apps, communal browsing, and decentralized technology continue to grow, browsers have become too generalized and antiquated for the future of web apps. Web apps offer virality and infinite possibilities for product-led growth, and are finally powerful enough for sophisticated apps like Photoshop. Browsers will be reimagined for collaboration and higher performance web apps — like Arc from The Browser Company. Content creators will own their audience and some will become "platform-less"Content creators with mass audiences are seeking novel ways to own the relationship.

She said “the double standard was obvious” with the way that Catherine, Princess of Wales, had been treated by sections of the British media compared to Meghan, particularly during their pregnancies. “British media is disproportionately white, and that shapes the way stories are framed,” he said. In the third episode, footage shows Meghan and Harry attending a memorial service for Stephen Lawrence, a Black teenager killed in an attack by white youths in London in 1993. Instead, Harry refers to “unconscious bias” within the royal family, which Meghan helped to educate him on. Princess Michael of Kent attends a Christmas lunch for the extended royal family at Buckingham Palace on Dec. 20, 2017, wearing a "blackamoor" brooch.

☆ Factbox: A chronology of dissent in China in recent decades
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( James Pomfret | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The following is a timeline of some other notable protests, and public dissent against China's ruling Communist Party. 2009 - Xinjiang - In the region's worst ethnic unrest in decades, ethnic Uighurs attacked majority Han Chinese in the capital Urumqi, after an incident involving Uighur workers in a factory in southern China. China later builds massive "facilities" to turn Xinjiang into what a United Nations panel described as a "massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy". China later imposes a powerful national security law, arresting scores of democrats and shutting down civil society groups and liberal media outlets, including the Apple Daily newspaper. 2022 - Henan bank protests - Public protests simmer as thousands lose access to their savings in a banking fraud scandal centred on rural lenders in Henan and Anhui provinces.

☆ Meet a 26-year-old tech entrepreneur who says starting a company is 'an art and creative process'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Gili Malinsky | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The 26-year-old, Toronto, Canada, native co-founded her first company, Ranomics, at 18. She founded her second company, Locke Bio, a "Shopify" for pharmaceutical and other companies selling FDA approved drugs, at 23. For Tie, art and creativity is not exactly as on-the-nose as writing in iambic pentameter or dancing at Lincoln Center. "That's, I think, more of an art and creative process than something that is technical." Here's how the entrepreneur, now based in Los Angeles, has leaned into her creative, big-picture thinking to find success in fields like tech and science.

A service member of pro-Russian troops fires a mortar in the direction of Avdiivka during Russia-Ukraine conflict, outside Donetsk, Ukraine September 17, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander ErmochenkoLONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - First partial voting results from four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine showed majorities of more than 96% in favour of becoming part of Russia after so-called referendums that Kyiv and the West have denounced as a sham. Russian-installed officials took ballot boxes from house to house in what Ukraine and the West said was an illegitimate, coercive exercise to create a legal pretext for Russia to annex the four regions. The scale of the pro-Moscow vote came as no surprise, after voting that Ukraine said was carried out at gunpoint in many cases. It mirrored a referendum in Crimea after Russia's seizure of the region from Ukraine in 2014, when Crimea's leaders declared a 97% vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

Members of a local electoral commission count ballots at a polling station following a referendum on the joining of Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine to Russia, in Sevastopol, Crimea September 27, 2022. Voting at the polling station was held for residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) - the Russian-controlled region of Ukraine. Luhansk authorities said 98.5% of people there had voted to join Russia, based on 69% of ballots counted. Ukraine has repeatedly warned that Russian annexation of territories would destroy any chance of peace talks, seven months after Russia invaded its neighbour. The votes mirrored a referendum in Crimea after Russia's seizure of the southern peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, when Crimea's leaders declared a 97% vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.

☆ Fact Check-Idaho’s government is not offering ‘porn literacy’ courses to students
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Viral claims that the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) is purchasing “porn literacy” materials and including them in their curriculum for students are untrue. On Sept. 13, the IFF published an article titled “Idaho’s government offers “porn literacy,” other corrupting practices to k-12 students,” (here). (The article’s first paragraph uses different wording to the headline, saying the DHW purchases “materials and training” from ETR “an interest group promoting porn literacy” – not that Idaho’s DHW offers porn literacy). The descriptions of the courses and table of contents make no mention of pornography or “porn literacy.” Stahl told Reuters the agency never considered the use of any “porn literacy” materials. Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) has not purchased “porn literacy” materials and included them in sex-ed curricula for students.

☆ After abortion restrictions, Texas recasts sex education
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-17 | by ( Emmarie Huetteman | Kaiser Health News | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

Her school did not teach sexual health education, and preventing pregnancy was a foreign concept. Previously, a 2017 report showed 58% of Texas school districts offered “abstinence-only” sexual health education, while only 17% offered curriculums that expanded beyond that. These changes in sex education come as the state ratchets down abortion access following the Supreme Court decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. In 2019, the Texas Board of Education began rewriting the health education standards that had been in place since the 1990s. Now, information about contraceptives, as well as more about STIs, is taught in middle school health classes, which are required.

☆ New Yorker moves to Vietnam to help at-risk youth
▼ + stars: | 2018-05-10 | by ( Allie Torgan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Hoi An, Vietnam CNN —New Yorker Neal Bermas had traveled around the world, but Vietnam literally stopped him in his tracks. The organization provides at-risk young people with a rigorous 18-month training program, preparing them for careers in Vietnam’s booming culinary and hospitality industries. “We offer them a structured program and a very rich apprenticing experience.”STREETS’ participants range in age from 16 to 22. The group provides housing, meals, medical care, clothing and support services to help trainees gain skills and confidence for employment at top resorts. Bermas said 100% of STREETS graduates have found employment, mostly at four- and five-star hotels in Vietnam.

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