Statistics

I am a psychologist and analyze data by nature. If you work with numbers and understand analysis of numbers you may feel my pain also.

Today in a staff meeting we were discussing state assessment data for students related to AYP and NCLB. The pain arose when the teacher next to me, who does not think like I do, suggested an analytical step that was useless and meaningless because she did not understand what the data she was looking at meant. When I shared the meaning of the numbers that she wanted to analyze, she indicated that she understood what they meant. The numbers represented the percentage of students passing 0, 1 or 2 sections of the 2 sections that were administered of the state test.  This teacher recommended that we determine how many of these students who passed either 0 or 1 section were students taking a modified assessment because they were students in special education, while this information may be useful in some circle, it is meaningless when you already have the passage rate of those students.

What do you do when you can’t explain data to someone who won’t listen and obviously does not understand the numbers that they are looking at? I am used to discussing data with parents and teachers who don’t understand what the data means or represents and therefore don’t question any of it, but I am not used to talking with someone who is so blatantly ignorant of what they are viewing, adamantly indicates that they understand the numbers and blindly pushing for the use of meaningless information and calculations.

Knowing Looks: Using Gaze Aversion To Tell When Children Are Learning

Knowing Looks: Using Gaze Aversion To Tell When Children Are Learning

This could have seriously interesting applications for educators and educational researchers. Especially since eye contact has long been considered a hallmark sign of serious difficulties including attention difficulties, Autism Spectrum Disorders and social maladjustment. However, it may be more characteristic of something happening in the mind that is more stimulating than what is happening in the physical world, whether learning is occuring or not.

What if Twitter is just a toy

A proposal for Twitter: Shut it down | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone

I agree in theory with everything that is proposed in this article. However, I do question the statement that “Twitter is not a toy, it is a communication platform.”

What if the concept behind Twitter was a toy. What if the architects behind Twitter were really just pushing for the next toy for the internet generation. It could have been the users that realized it was next great communication platform. This could explain why the architects, engineers and founders were a little slow on the uptake, when it came to scaling and stability. If the concept was a toy it would not matter if it was down for short periods of time. Also, if it were a toy they would never have expected to experience the use (at least initially) that they get on a daily/weekly basis.

So, was Twitter a concept toy like a Tonka Truck or was it designed to be the next communication platform life a 300 ton dump, forty foot tall dump truck?

Once again the music industry is blaming everyone else

U2 manager slams Internet providers – Entertainment News, International News, Media – Variety

This sounds like the same old song and dance from the music industry executives. Place the blame for the failing music industry on anyone rather than looking for ways to change. This is typical industry rhetoric – “you all need to pay us more because you are benefitting from the music we control.” This rhetoric is tired and will never succeed, incremental increases in “use” fees will not save the music industry. Change is the only thing that will truely save the music industry.

Ever Google Yourself?

After listening to a recent podcast where a presenter mentioned setting up a Google Alert searching for the presenter’s name to see what people were saying. This seems like a great idea. However, I realized when I actually conducted my own Google search of my own name that it is completely impractical if you have a common name. I received hundreds of thousands of hits and none were related to me.

I don’t consider my name common, however the relationship between my name, the names of American Founding fathers, holidays, and calendars is astounding which makes a Google search entirely too cumbersome to concern ones self with.

As a result, unless I do something that will entrench my name in national or local news, future employers will probably not be able to find usefull information about me using current search engine technology (which may be good for me).

MySpace Popularity Slips

MySpace less popular than in April 2007: Traffic on MySpace dipped by 16% last month compared to April 2007 as Facebook and other social-networking sites captured student attention. “Social networking Web sites continue to attract loyal visitors who return regularly to communicate with their friends, particularly for MySpace and Facebook, the market leaders,” said Hitwise research director Heather Dougherty. According to a Report in InformationWeek on May 7th.

Overloaded, These Might Help!

This is a collection of sites that make it easier to access news and reduce overload. Each of these sites is a little different, providing visual representations of current news with the ability to drill to the article level. These sites present news, updated on a regular basis, in a variety of visual formats.

1. Newseum – Front Pages

Presents todays font pages in a visual archive so you can quickly peruse the front page news on 627 front pages from 58 countries.

2. Newsmap

A great visual representation of news headlines with the ability to drill down (in a pop-up window) to read the story. Stories are deprecated, by color, to show age. Additionally, the most popular stories are presented in a larger format to demonstrate popularity (based on number of related articles).

3. Ten by Ten

Visual representation of news stories with a picture, representative of the story, a one-word description of the story and headlines for further reading. Most popular stories are presented at the top working to the right and down.

Hopefully these will help you access and digest news in a more manageable timeframe.

Social Skills

It has been said that social skills must be practiced in order to be maintained let alone improved. As a person with poor social skills, I can say that when I practice I see a noticable difference in my ability to interact comfortably with peers and coworkers. However, I still struggle with every social interaction that occurs for a variety of psychological reasons. My comfort comes at a price, I must make myself uncomfortable in order to become more comfortable.

In addition to these poor social skills I have a tendency to work too much. This combination of traits means that unless I force myself to do otherwise, I will eat my lunch at my desk working on a project and listening to something on my headphones. This is truthfully how I spend most “lunch periods” on a daily basis. The days that I do seperate myself from my computer to eat lunch in the break room, I generally stay until I have finished my food, 5-10 minutes, and then return to my cubicle to start another project.

I don’t share this, now that is is written for everyone to see, seemingly sad existance to engender pity. I share this to suggest that if you know someone like me, suggest to them that they may want to make a goal (I know cliche) of working on their social interaction skills. The reason for this statement is that research suggests that people who are better able to socialize, either during happy hour or other times, are more likely to get the corner office, head of department or other desired outcome in the work setting. Additionally, there is no way to expand your network without actually interacting with humans in some way. I have followers on twitter and friends on facebook, pownce, myspace and contacts in linkedin that I actually know from conversations, but I tend to communicate better with my fingers than with my mouth (if only because I tend to think before and while I type, which doesn’t always happen with talking).

Don’t try to force someone to be social, but encourage healthy social interactions at every opportunity.

WIRED: Apple Bashing?

Has Wired taken to Apple bashing, or is Leander Kahney just a disgruntled user? There are currently five separate articles (four by Leander Kahney) on the Front Page of Wired taking shots in some way at Apple. These vary from outright bashing of Apple policies to retrospective looks at Apple practices. While the articles are not in any way inaccurate, there definitely does seem to be a feel of “Evil” directed toward Apple. Apple, with many recent successes and a variety of past foibles (ala Newton), has a clear target painted on the front door for anyone wishing to take a shot. 

GTD: Keeping Your Inbox Clean ~ Chris Pirillo

 GTD: Keeping Your Inbox Clean ~ Chris Pirillo

There are some great nuggets of wisdom and then just great applicable, useful advice.